Better than human
The relationship between humans and dogs is quite an old one. So old, in fact, it might actually have played a developmental role in the evolution of both species. (cf. Hare, Brian, ‘We didn’t domesticate dogs. They domesticated us’, National Geographic, 2013) I have previously alluded to one way in which this relationship would be beneficial to both humans and dogs. Yet, for all our affections towards Fido most of us refrain from going as far as one Joseph Guiso who, in 2010, married his dog in a ceremony at which he allegedly assured his guests that the relationship was not sexual!
I personally am not particularly fond of dogs, having had a nasty encounter with a mad dog when I was about 7 years old. It’s not that I don’t like dogs, just that I’m always a little bit too wary of them to want to be friends. I am far more of a cat person.
What I find a little perplexing is that our fondness for our canine friends doesn’t seem to prevent a sort of inherent dread of what might be possible, as if we can never quite forget that they are wild animals and shouldn’t be entirely trusted, that for every Greyfriar’s Bobby there is a Giant Schnauzer and his Labrador mix compadre.
Many cultures seem to have myths and legends about dogs which isn’t so surprising when one considers the role animals have played in the development of human spirituality. Shamanism places a degree of importance upon gaining access to the wisdom of the animal spirits – the dog spirit, for instance, symbolizes, unsurprisingly, the qualities of loyalty, trustworthiness and protection. Unfortunately, as the Giant Schnauzer and his pal the Labrador mix show, symbols are far from the real thing. The symbol is humanity’s measure of the dog, not the dog itself. We may feel safe never having invited a vampire into our home as we build a flap into our threshold so the beast with fangs can come and go at its leisure.
With what we know of Mulder’s private life, it seems reasonable to assume that he would have met any number of women online. Karin Berquist, a woman more at home with dogs than people, might not be exactly the type we’d associate with Mulder, though a handy contact to be able to turn to when hunting a wen-shang dhole, one supposes. Karin lives alone with her dogs and, if the title of her book is anything to go by, thinks of them as ‘Better than Human’.
Berquist might know “more about canine behaviourisms than anybody on the planet” and she may have “lived with wild canids and wolves in the wilderness on five different continents”, yet, still, her assessment of the creature is no more than a symbolic reading, one which reveals as much about her own needs as it says anything about the actual animal. Scully might still be channeling the jealous wife from ‘Arcadia’, but she is surely right when she sums up Berquist as someone who “may not have been able to express” her feelings, at least not to another human being – like Mulder, for instance. Unable to relate to her own kind, she found a way to relate to another and justified herself by deeming them better than human.
The irony of the piece is that the wen-shang dhole symbolizes both the canid and the human and neither one is to be trusted any further than the other. She who “lived by her instincts” with wild canids on five continents is killed by a dog.
I personally am not particularly fond of dogs, having had a nasty encounter with a mad dog when I was about 7 years old. It’s not that I don’t like dogs, just that I’m always a little bit too wary of them to want to be friends. I am far more of a cat person.
What I find a little perplexing is that our fondness for our canine friends doesn’t seem to prevent a sort of inherent dread of what might be possible, as if we can never quite forget that they are wild animals and shouldn’t be entirely trusted, that for every Greyfriar’s Bobby there is a Giant Schnauzer and his Labrador mix compadre.
Many cultures seem to have myths and legends about dogs which isn’t so surprising when one considers the role animals have played in the development of human spirituality. Shamanism places a degree of importance upon gaining access to the wisdom of the animal spirits – the dog spirit, for instance, symbolizes, unsurprisingly, the qualities of loyalty, trustworthiness and protection. Unfortunately, as the Giant Schnauzer and his pal the Labrador mix show, symbols are far from the real thing. The symbol is humanity’s measure of the dog, not the dog itself. We may feel safe never having invited a vampire into our home as we build a flap into our threshold so the beast with fangs can come and go at its leisure.
With what we know of Mulder’s private life, it seems reasonable to assume that he would have met any number of women online. Karin Berquist, a woman more at home with dogs than people, might not be exactly the type we’d associate with Mulder, though a handy contact to be able to turn to when hunting a wen-shang dhole, one supposes. Karin lives alone with her dogs and, if the title of her book is anything to go by, thinks of them as ‘Better than Human’.
Berquist might know “more about canine behaviourisms than anybody on the planet” and she may have “lived with wild canids and wolves in the wilderness on five different continents”, yet, still, her assessment of the creature is no more than a symbolic reading, one which reveals as much about her own needs as it says anything about the actual animal. Scully might still be channeling the jealous wife from ‘Arcadia’, but she is surely right when she sums up Berquist as someone who “may not have been able to express” her feelings, at least not to another human being – like Mulder, for instance. Unable to relate to her own kind, she found a way to relate to another and justified herself by deeming them better than human.
The irony of the piece is that the wen-shang dhole symbolizes both the canid and the human and neither one is to be trusted any further than the other. She who “lived by her instincts” with wild canids on five continents is killed by a dog.
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