I was thinking about how wolves were thought of back in some of the more. . . arrogant times, and how wolves were called the devil, devils, devil minions, devils hellhound, and all sorts of clever names.

It makes since. You see these creatures feasting on a large carcass, with their eyes glowing in the dark, their fangs long and sharp dripping with blood and their snarls and barks sends shivers down your spine. The howls in the night wake you and make you double check your windows and doors, and if you were able to see how the wolf takes down a great beast, you can only wonder what would happen if they decided to take you down. They're offspring come from holes in the ground, like all hellish demons.

What demons these wolves are!


We don't do anything to them so why should they . . . eat? Selfish demons!


My point is that if you look at the two perspectives, who's the real demon?

The wolf pup that watched a hunter pull out his brothers and sisters, children, and bash them on the head, after they all just watched their parents be brutally killed and half way skinned. The wolf who survived following his bretherens scent trail to see his brethen skinned and hung up for show on the side of a building who also watched his pack be murdered without given a chance from a mysterious creature afar in the bushes. His pack who brought food for the new offspring and now he had to watch his own children and she-wolf suffer the horrible death of starvation. The wolf who survived all this now watched as his prey was driven off, his natural home destroyed and watched his litter be crushed beneath the earth as trees and hills were leveled. No death can be worst than starvation or buried alive. This wolf who had such a hard life already, was shot in the leg and as he ran for his life was chased till tired. Finally collasping to the ground, allowing the hunter to catch up, he was left to bleed to death because the hunter didn't want to ruin the carrcase too much.

Who's the the real demon?

Fang, my sentiments exactly.

I've had the same thoughts myself. We humans have an irritating tendency to avoid the blame in a situation. And some people will not listen to the facts, because those facts put themselves at fault. As if refusing to aknowledge the truth would make it any less true.

One of my favourite quotes comes from Canadian author, Farley Mowat:

"We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly percieve it to be - a mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer, which is, in reality, nothing more than the reflected image of ourselves."

I volunteer some of my free time at my local animal shelter, and a while back, we had these four dogs come in because they had escaped thier owner's property and were roaming the surrounding farmland as a pack. Now they hadn't hurt anyone (and they were very nice dogs when I met them), but they had caused the local farmers to worry, and they could have been shot had they ever become a danger to anyone. Luckily they had been caught and sent to the shelter (which also serves as the local pound). These were large dogs, one a Husky, the other a Lab mix, and the other two I forget now. They were very well-behaved. Loud, but otherwise behaved.

Thier owners (a guy and his neighbor) came in, and although no-one said it, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who lost more than a litttle respect for him that day. He behaved as if his dogs were the one's at fault; talking to someone on his cell-phone, he told whoever it was he was just "bailing his dogs out of jail". When he went to see his dogs, he went and told them (in baby talk, as any dog-owner would) that they were bad dogs for getting in jail. He might have been half-joking with them, but he clearly took no responsibility for his dogs what-so-ever. As if letting them roam unsupervised through a large open property didn't have anything to do with it.

To be perfectly fair on the matter, though, I am not entirely blameless on this kind of matter myself. I try hard not to, but I sometimes find myself making excuses to avoid the fault. I'm sure everyone does it from time to time.

I guess some people will never take responsibility

I have seen the enemy, and it is us.