Animal and human ???friendships???

“Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms,” George Eliot wrote long ago. Often we believe, because we love an animal very much, that we are loved in return. This usually applies to companion dogs and cats, who are limited to one section in this chapter because such human–pet relationships are so common and universal. But that our animal friends love us can be a dangerous assumption. Dale Lott’s (2002) mother, who thought that she and her horse Smoky were great buddies, was killed when he suddenly threw himself backward so that the saddle horn was driven into her heart. Lott also describes a rancher in Idaho who raised a bull from a calf. Even when the animal was full-grown, he would let the man pet him and climb onto his back. Then one day the bull killed the man, mutilating his body and refusing to allow it to be removed from the corral. Lott writes that bison, for example, are “immune to our charm, sincerity, personal integrity and peaceful intentions,” no matter what we may think. One man, who kept a few pet bison, was stunned one day when a young bull attacked him. The upward thrust of his horn into the man’s belly and ribs was so strong that it chucked him over the fence where a veterinarian was able to save his life. We cannot ever know if people and animals, even reptiles, can be best buddies. The people may think they are, but their buddy may “think” otherwise, as the above examples indicate. The first four relationships described in this chapter about Elsa, the lion, mountain gorillas, olive baboons, and sociable whales do seem to depict true friendship. The animals are free to stay or leave the people they relate to, so there is equality between them. The second type of example includes horses and elephants who work for individual people. These animals and their human exploiters may have a good relationship, but it is not equitable. The animals must do what the humans expect and want. The same is true for the wolf Brenin and the hyrax Tsavo (and dogs), examples of the third type, but these animals, at least, were not expected to work for their keep. They did not try to escape from their close human buddies but were still subject to their humans’ whims. The fourth and final type includes individuals who were subject to close human supervision by researchers devoted to teaching them to learn information that presumably exhibited their intelligence. These animals had no life of their own, although they were very close to their teachers who spent thousands of hours with them, drilling them on subjects important to people. But they were locked up at night when their work was done.

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