A Conversation of Death

Whoever you are, and wherever you are reading this, we are directly related, via one woman in Africa, discovered by mitochondrial science, and named ‘African Eve’. You might not like the thought of being related to me, but you get used to it after a while. I have.

And if you have a dog, whatever breed it is, and whatever you might like to think, it is probably also related to my dog, via the good offices of a she-wolf, maybe in Western China, maybe Eastern Europe. Same story.

Unlike every other animal that man has domesticated, the wolf was a direct competitor, which makes it even more surprising that the domestication happened many millennia before the others. Possibly 40,000 years ago, and probably because both species found the other a useful if annoying partner at major kills. Possibly because both hunted in packs and had evolved to work as teams. A few bones were thrown, a heart or two, and the really smart wolves started the process of natural selection towards a sort of tameness. The rest is history.

By the time of the passing of man from hunter gatherer to agrarian hoarder (maybe 10,000 years ago) dogs were a feature of every settlement. 5,000 years later, the Egyptians were burying chihuahua-sized dogs alongside the pharaohs, and elsewhere, people started farming them as a food source.

During that whole process, one little thing that man discovered was what is now called ‘the conversation of death’. When a wolf pack, say, was hunting a herd of musk ox, they would identify the weakest, target animal and then stare them straight in the eyes. Often the animal would do the same back, knowing that this was how things were settled, and how its life would end. Sometimes, even, the target animal would detach itself from the group to make itself an easier prey, so as to protect the rest of the herd.

Hold that thought.

*

On Monday evening, I was driving back over the common just above our village when a fox half ran slowly across the road, dragging a badly injured rear offside leg behind it. (You have to go back 40 million years to get back to a common ancestor of your dog and that fox, called a Prohesperocyon, but bear with me.)

I stopped the car, to see what was up with it, and for a moment, he (for it was a male) turned round, stopped and looked me straight in the eye from a distance of no more than 15 yards. With his intelligent, triangular face, russet coat and white bib, he was both elegant and dignified and this little sielnt conversation went on for at least 30 seconds. After that, he dragged himself into the undergrowth for nature to take its inevitable course.

Two mornings later, my neighbour called to say that a badly injured fox had dragged itself across her lawn and was lying in the camellia bushes between her garden and ours. Her gardener confirmed it as the fox I had seen a couple of days before, and we agreed that the kindest thing was for me to shoot it, and put it out of its misery. If nothing else, it might stop it being tormented by interested dogs.

I put a cartridge in my little .410, and squeezed between the camellia and the fence until I found him, curled in a ball and giving me the same look as he had given me on the common before. No panic. No anger. No hate. Just a look.

I don’t shoot for sport any more, but for many years I did, and I am more than happy to use the gun on welfare grounds if I have to. But the moment was greatly complicated for me in that the dog fox and I had created a relationship between us, not just once but twice, simply by making that eye contact. And it was a relationship that made my task infinitely harder, even though my brain was (rightly, I hope) shouting to me that it was the right thing to do.

The look went on for maybe 20 seconds, and then, almost as if sensing the reason behind the hold-up, the fox broke the conversation, looked down at the ground, and I killed him.

Three days later, I still see those eyes. I don’t regret what I did, but I am made very aware of the distance I have come since the days of African Eve. I have ‘domesticated’ that practicality out of myself and become entirely reliant on being provided for by the world around me.

The apex predator of all apex predators can no longer function.