The Hidden Life of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Author:Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Mariner Books

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WHEN AT LAST little Viva, the dingo, came into heat, she knew her place, and showed us all that she had no thought of receiving a male, certainly not while Maria continued to stare disapprovingly. Who, after all, was Viva to give birth? If the group had been wild and had been trying to maintain a den, Viva would not have been the mother; Viva would have been one of the hunting helpers and babysitters, if indeed her presence had been tolerated at all. I had been letting her into our yard alone to relieve herself, which she did very circumspectly, not marking at all and coming inside right afterward as requested. One day, however, as I was watching her out the window, I saw a springer spaniel flying through the air. Over the fence he soared, and crashed down beside Viva in a spray of gravel and grass. His name, I later learned, was Misty, but at the time he was a total stranger. His sudden appearance terrified Viva, who, being wild, was intolerant of surprises, and very shy as well. She ran for the kitchen door and so did I, bursting out just as the spaniel jumped on top of her. Screaming like a dog who has been hit by a car, she rolled onto her back with her tail clamped up tight between her legs to cover her vulva, an attitude of unqualified resistance and at the same time of terrified subordination. But the spaniel bravely bestrode her. Although Viva fought him, twisting, screaming, kicking, and biting, and although I shouted and waved my arms as I galloped toward them, in the time it took me to cross the yard the springer had penetrated her and had locked. So there was nothing to do but wait, me fuming, the terrified dingo struggling to get up and crying bitterly, and the spaniel quite apologetic, standing astride her but looking up at me with some anxiety to learn if he was in danger. He wasn’t, of course—dog actions can’t be judged by human values—and when the two came apart I opened the gate and let him go in peace. After all, he had taught us something: that dogs can rape.

Thus ended the heat. Koki was pregnant by Suessi, Viva was pregnant by the spaniel (we tried mismating shots, to no avail), and Maria, who as alpha female should by dog rules have been the only dog pregnant, was not pregnant at all. Two months passed. Koki was ready to give birth. Since these pups were my idea, not Koki’s or anybody else’s, I arranged a whelping box in my office where she could deliver unobserved and unmolested—this was a human event, not a dog event, as I saw it. Koki understood. She gave birth quite easily and well to five nice puppies, but her nest, when she had finished, wasn’t as clean as Maria’s had been, and she didn’t hold her pups as closely. Furthermore, although she smiled when

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