Anthropomorphism

We are all guilty of it.

It has been ingrained in us since we were small enough to remember characters in kid’s books (Charlotte’s Web, Alice in Wonderland), the list goes on and on.

Who doesn’t remember the humanity of Felix the Cat and Bugs Bunny?

And the internet is perpetuating the whole thing. Scroll any time of the day, any day of the year, and you will see a story about some animal (or class of animals) and the poster is providing a story and backstory about what the animals are thinking.

Give me a fucking break.

Now, it is one thing (of course, my thoughts only) to attribute domesticated animals with what we perceive are human qualities, but the wild bears, and other species that have no experience dealing with man other than from suffering the effects of us, well that’s just a little too much.

What Mother Nature has not destroyed or made inhabitable, man has taken up the mantle and polluted and lay waste to what remains until you have wild animals seeking to find food in neighborhoods that have no business being there in the first place.

But they are not foraging for depleting provisions, no, they are taking a nice Sunday walk with their children (read: baby bears) and entering subdivisions and housing developments.

Just to try and find something to feed themselves and their families.

Like humans.

I love pics and videos of people dressing up their pets, but the animals (with a few exceptions) don’t usually like them.

I had a mini baseball helmet that I got at a Dodgers game back in the seventies and I had it for the longest time. It fit perfectly on Chopper, my beloved German Shorthair Pointer. It was mere happenstance when I was sitting on my front porch and I placed it atop Chopper’s dome.

He loved it and absolutely refused to take it off.

As long as he was outside, he would wear it proudly.

Even when he was running, the little plastic batting helmet replica stayed on.

My girlfriend at the time had a little sister who had a boyfriend with a big mouth, (bigger than my own big mouth), who I did not take a particular liking to, to say the least.

He was an asshole.

He had a dog named Sunny, a pretty little female Shepherd, who, according to her overinflated owner, was as fast as the wind and could whip any dog in a race.

Right.

We had an official certificate and trophy made up for the BIG RACE which was to be run for a mile’s distance behind my GMC pick-em-up truck in the desert.

When we started the race, Sunny immediately took the lead.

I was stunned. I thought for sure Chopper would completely wipeout this little pretender.

The truck started kicking up dust and we lost sight of both dogs in the cloud.

We kept track of the race length with my odometer, and when we reached a mile, I stopped.

We waited.

As the cloud of dust dissipated, only one thing became visible:

Chopper, his pink tongue flailing in the wind, and his Dodger batting helmet proudly on display.

I was never so proud of my son.

Anthropomorphism?

Nah.

Stay well.