Horton observation

Yesterday morning, it being a bright day, to Horton Country Park for a spot of lockdown exercise. What seemed like plenty of cars in the car park, but quiet enough on our round walk. Most of the dog walkers must have gone the other way.

In any event, we were able to check up on the Nilgai, spelt Nylghaie by some authorities, including Maurie Burton of reference 1, which seemed to have been breeding. More of them than I remember from last time, that is to say reference 2. Readers with sharp eyes will be able to pick up both them and a Bactrian camel from the snap above. Another Bactrian camel had, rather incongruously, a magpie perched on its rear hump.

The observation came after that. There was a youngish couple out walking their dog, a black Labrador, going in the same direction as ourselves. The dog was carrying a stick in its mouth, not particularly big as such things go, perhaps two feet long. Every little while, perhaps every minute or so, the dog would put the stick down so that it could go and investigate something, perhaps the smell around the base of a post, perhaps ten or fifteen feet away. Investigation complete, it would come back, pick its stick up again, and resume its walk. Coming straight back to its stick, without seeming to need to cast around to find it.

If this had been a person, one would have taken this for purposeful, conscious behaviour. The person had the stick in mind, remembering after its investigations to go back and fetch it. But what can we say about the dog? Is it right to project purpose and consciousness onto it, or would one be guilty of gross anthropomorphism? Not to say animalism?

I think one can say that the behaviour involves memory. Both as to the carrying of the stick and as to remembering where it was. 

Grabbing things with the mouth is no doubt an instinctive activity in a hunting carnivore like a dog, but instinct notwithstanding, maybe the dog was conscious, on this occasion, when something was not in its mouth, thus prompting it to go back for the stick. But then, why go back for the stick, rather than pick up a new one? There were, I dare say, plenty of them about. How does the dog get so attached to this particular one?

More thought needed. But I don't suppose I shall go so far as to buy an experimental dog. I am better with other peoples' dogs than I used to be, but certainly not to the point of wanting one of my own.

PS 1: an enlargement of the snap above, in which hopefully the livestock is more visible to those with tender eyesight.

PS 2: the nilgai are the penultimate land mammal listed by Burton - who points out that they (Boselaphus tragocamelus) are left alone by the Hindus of India on account of their resemblance to sacred cows proper (Bos indicus), a long list of which is to be found at reference 3. Most of them seem to have humps over their shoulders.

Reference 1: psmv2: Dalhousie.

Reference 2: psmv4: Horton Country Park.

Reference 3: Native cow varieties of India - Biodiversity of India: A Wiki Resource for Indian Biodiversity