We love to see our dogs stalk...
They were playing the game just tonight after dinner. They do it very well, beginning with the stealthy, deliberate sneak up, the dead-still eye to eye face off until one blinks, and then the play pounce. Since we have had them from a few weeks old and they have never run loose, we can be sure that this practiced behavior can only be completely instinctual, and in no way was ever learned. The same is true as to many other behaviors; just one example being the way they nurse each other and give us first warning of emerging hot spots, ear infections, and the like.
Such being so clearly observable with animals ... I always wonder why some "experts" are so resistant to the idea that human behaviors can (could) also be genetically determined, and must not of necessity always be the products of learning and experience. If you were to put forward the proposition, for example, that criminal proclivities or tendencies toward violence might be genetic in origin ... you would be quickly swarmed upon by the PC police ... charged with propagating the notion of "bad blood," of which we are required to believe that there is no such thing.
We are, despite our pretensions, no more than animals, are we? |
