The Part wild excerpt for this week was an interesting look into the life of owning a wolf dog hybrid as a pet. The relationship between Inyo and Terrill is compelling enough to make me want to own a wolf dog myself one day. Out of all the roles Inyo played in Terrill’s life, I was most struck by that of, “protector.” Terrill alludes to a past physically abusive relationship between her and her former boyfriend Eddie that resulted in her fleeing and constantly fearing his return. This is her initial motivation behind wanting a dog, a companion and protector to keep her calm and company while fearing Eddie’s reappearance in her life. While Inyo isn’t the first wolf dog she fell in love with, Inyo and Terrill have the advantage of bonding since Inyo’s birth making their relationship strong. The role of protector interests me because of the gentle nature Inyo has when around Terrill. It is intriguing that this partly, “wild” animal has the capacity to be both aggressive when exposing the role of protector while similarly passive with her owner. This opens up the topic of whether and to what extent animals are able to sense human emotions. For instance, if Eddie was to return and Terrill felt fear, how does Inyo pick up on that emotion and respond to it accordingly. I used to ride horses in middle school and my instructor always told us not to fear the horses because they could notice this fear and it would make them jumpy and uncomfortable. Whether or not this was a lie to make us more comfortable around the animals or not is up for judgment. I think the science behind understanding the extent animals respond to human emotion is interesting. Animals are far more observant then we give them credit for sometimes. Recently there was an article in the news about a Doberman finding cancer in a woman while she was sleeping. I have attached the link below but what are everyone’s thoughts on the interaction between human emotion and animal observation?
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/02/10/troy-doberman-pinscher-fox-and-friends-westminster-dog-alerted-owner-breast-cancer
I’m completely guessing here, but I would think your instructor wasn’t lying. My sense is that horses have been domesticated to be quite sensitive animals, which may explain why owners become so heavily attached to them — in some cases I’d say more so than to dogs despite their apparent lower intelligence. Also, emotion is the fabric that most animals communicate with. If we think of emotion as not much more than a form of energy that animals’ brains can intake and decode as information, I wouldn’t be surprised if horses are able to sense and come to express the emotions we give off.