NZ Visual Diary - entry 389

man, bike, dog

I came late to loving animals as pets. My family did not have a pet during my growing-up years until we inherited a miniature French poodle from relations after serious illness beset the family.

Randolph, on the other hand, grew up from the age of six years on a ‘gentlemen’s farm’ with horses, a small herd of cattle, several large dogs, at least one cat, some chickens and a duck.

Soon after our marriage, we were family to a Labrador retriever, ill-fated as it was to board that energetic creature in a wee apartment that it could bound end-to-end in several strides. More dogs and numerous cats in the years to come tolerated my presence in their household.

Over time I have grown to appreciate, indeed love, our sweet kitty Eva, the cat we rescued some years ago from a local Auckland shelter. But throughout my adult years, I have been a keen observers of family and friends for whom pets are sources of unqualified love and succour.

Today’s entry dwells on that remarkable bound between human and four-legged creatures. An anthropologist once observed that she was not sure if the story of early hominids domestication of the eastern Eurasian wolf doesn’t have it backwards: that, in point of fact, the prototypical wolf qua dog domesticated humans.

Have dog - Will travel.