Smarter than you think

Dogs are different here. For that matter, so are cats.

Most do seem to belong to someone, or maybe I should say that they have a home, because they don’t seem to be owned in the way our Canadian pets are. You will see the same scruffy mongrel taking the morning sun on the sidewalk in front of the same house every day. He may bark at you as you pass, but other than that, he will likely show little interest. He won’t come galumphing over to wriggle and waggle and beg your attention, and because of that, his status seems elevated. He is busy doing his own doggy thing, sitting on that sidewalk; he doesn’t require human approval.

Sometime later, you will likely see that scruffy dog trotting purposefully down the road, looking every bit the businessman striding toward his downtown office, coffee in hand. No sniffing or dawdling for him. Again, he may glance your way, maybe even more than once if you are eating something, but other than that will ignore you. He looks about for cars before crossing the street. He may be heading off to meet a friend, or perhaps he knows it is the time when some café tosses out food scraps. We once saw a medium-sized dog trotting up the road, head held proudly high, with three quarters of a large pizza flapping in its mouth. I don’t know many dogs back home who wouldn’t have just devoured that prize on the spot, but this dog seemed imbued with some higher purpose.

We also met a very savvy cat in the park below the climbing crag at the town of Dorgali. She looked healthy, with thick, clean fur—not likely a stray. We called to her with the silly falsetto we use on our own cat and she came to us without hesitation. After a little patting and chin scratching, she rubbing up against our legs, we left her to continue walking to the cliff. She followed along, periodically meowing, us responding. We climbed clumsily over the stone wall which was built as a barrier to protect the town from falling rocks. She jumped effortlessly up and down, and accompanied us all the way to our destination.

As we climbed, she lingered within perhaps a 50m radius, hunting lizards. When we realized this, we felt rather bad—we enjoy our funny interactions with the little green creatures, how they are cautious, but curious about us—and here we’d escorted cute, furry death into their ecosystem. She caught three while she was with us, toying with each one for a while before devouring it whole.

When we left for the day, the cat came along too, alternately lagging behind and then racing past our feet as though to emphasize how sluggish and clumsy we were. I was worried that she’d try to come home with us, but when we reached the park again, she sprawled beneath a large tree, blinking her farewell. Or was she just dismissing her servants? It was then that I realized we’d been her bodyguards as she entered into that lizard-rich land on the other side of the wall, likely the territory of some other, wilder cat. She was smart enough to know about climbers, and that our presence would scare away whatever creatures she feared so that she could fill her belly in peace. 

These animals have a lot more freedom than our pets do. There are no bylaw officers lurking in white vans, ready to pounce the moment the leash comes off. They are trusted to roam free, to have lives independent from their humans, and it seems to give them dignity. I like that.

Header photo credit: Photo by Alejandro on Unsplash

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