A Big Little Life

example, as is the pattern that the spider spins in its web.
    Intuition is a higher form of knowledge than instinct. It is a direct perception of truth or fact, independent of any reasoning, knowledge neither derived from experience nor limited by it, such as that the whole is greater than a part, that two things each equal to a third thing are also equal to each other. Intuition also includes perceptions of space and spatial relationships, and an awareness of time.
    Although instinct may exist in every creature from human beings to whales to field mice, it’s also a quality of essentially brainless creatures like ants and goldfish, which have no intuition. Common sense tells us a dog is more like a human being than like an ant.
    But even if it was just instinct that told Winslow to run from the mountain lion, did it tell him merely to run or specifically to run because he would be eaten ?
    You might say it doesn’t matter which, because in either case, the action taken by Winslow was the same. But if Winslow knows he will be eaten, surely he knows he is mortal. Therefore, if one wishes to insist dogs are ignorant of their mortality, one must stick with the idea that it is enough for instinct to impel Winslow to run even if he does not know why he must escape the mountain lion.
    But there will be many instances when Winslow or another of his kind will have seen a family dog or a house cat attacked and killed if not by the rare mountain lion, then by coyotes, which are more plentiful in these canyons.
    So my next question is: Once Winslow has seen Fido or Fluffycat consumed by a coyote, does he finally realize what almost happened to him that day with the lion? Does he now recognize his own mortality?
    To be consistent, if we support current theory, we must say no. If it was so easy for a dog to recognize he is mortal, all dogs would be wise to Death.
    All right. After Winslow has seen Fido eaten, if he does not reason his way to the concept of mortality, what does he think has happened to the luckless dog? Does he think Fido now lives inside the coyote or that they have morphed together?
    Perhaps some will reply that Winslow thinks nothing at all, that his brain is neither large enough nor wired in such a way as to allow him to ponder those questions. Fido was there. Fido is now not there. It means nothing to Winslow, who moves on with his day.
    I don’t believe anyone who has a much-loved dog can defend current theory past this point. Those who remain certain that Winslow never ponders Fido’s fate may work with dogs in the laboratory but are invariably dogless in their private lives.
    When a dog is your companion and not just your lab subject or your pet, when it is a member of the family and as lovingly observed as would be a child, you learn that the smarter breeds—and perhaps all breeds to different degrees—have greater intelligence than they are often said to have. Not only are they smart, they are also immensely curious , more curious than some of the people who speakwith authority about them. And if their curiosity is encouraged, they can astonish with their ability to learn.
    Thirty-five years ago, Bonnie Bergin realized that dogs were capable of serving as more than guiding eyes for the blind. She created the concept of the assistance dog for people with a wide range of disabilities, and she implemented that concept in Canine Companions for Independence. She later founded the Assistance Dog Institute, which became Bergin University for Canine Studies.
    Not long ago she told me: “When I started down this road so many years ago, I would not have believed that one day I might say these dogs can be taught anything .”
    She has taught them to recognize the scent of grapevine-destroying pests so early in the infestation of a vineyard that the enterprise is saved, and only the first couple of infected vines need to be removed; large-scale pesticide spraying is not as necessary as it once was. She has taught them to smell cancer in a patient so early that the usual medical tests cannot yet detect the disease, and experiments in this area are ongoing.
    “But it’s true,” Bonnie emphasized. “With patience and the right techniques, with reward training and respect for them, these dogs can be taught anything . The more they learn, the more they can learn.”
    Because for over twenty years I have seen canine intelligence in action at CCI and elsewhere, I have no patience for movies that sell the dog as