The Gesture

I am trotting along a path with an acquaintance, a dog I have recognized for some time now, but I could hardly say that I know him, we just happen to be going the same way at this moment. The path is leading us round the back of houses, where normally few people go. Then a girl comes into view, walking towards us, and when she gets close, only a little way off, she takes some food from a bag she has and throws it on the ground at our feet.

Now, I know what the instincts of our species are, of course, our natural behaviour; you expect to see the both of us fall upon the food with our shoulders back, snapping with our jaws, rivaling one another for superiority all the while knocking our heads together and throwing the occasional snap in the other's direction, until one is dominant, the other submissive. I've seen some idiot woman ethologist, observing a pack of gorillas, willing some individual to give the submissive gesture and put an end to the distressing pain the individual is putting up with; some idiot just like the person offering us food right now. I tell all of you this: you had better notice - else I and my kind will noisily advertise your ignorance - that some of us find this behaviour of ours silly; yes, your sacred cow is silly in our eyes. Instead I demand to be the Absented creature, the watcher - looking downwards naturally - of Man and of the others; the one who stands aside and concerns himself with matters unconcerned with the low matter of my position in relation to you. I 'know' myself your superior anyway.

At first my acquaintance takes no notice of this odd behaviour - for I haven't even sniffed the food - acts as if it is only a lapse on my part; or a ruse more likely. He worries the food for a moment. But then he trots over to where I am - do I spoil the taste by making it no prize? - and he flourishes his forelegs connected at the paws, bringing these legs down a couple of times quickly upon my shoulder. Then he returns to the food - does he think I have somehow managed to eat it while he has had me beneath his blows? - worries it again and trots back to me, quite deliberately, to force the issue.

I won't let him of course. I leave him eating a little of the food and approach the girl. We do not see any understanding of each other in our gazes; no, she urges me with these little pushing movements towards the meat. And here comes, for the third time, my acquaintance of the path who circles before attacking. He batters me, bringing down those raised forelegs and the double paw, until the blows begin to thud in my ears.

I refuse, of course, to adopt that disgusting posture of ours, the submissive gesture (what's yours?), to lie on our backs when in extremis and to hold our paws in the air; I refuse it. My acquaintance cannot stop raining the blows; he must continue until he is suddenly aware that there is no possibility of getting his precious gesture, no possibility of getting any further gesture of whatever kind from me. I'll force a murder on him.