MOVIE REVIEW: Into the Wild

Why do humans, mostly young men, feel the so-called call of the wild? I am almost certain that when my distant cousin, the Chihuahua, hears the call of the wild, it is a coyote issuing an invitation for dinner. Chihuahua steak tartare is, along with Siamese cat sashimi, high on the list of desirable appetizers for the urban coyote.

These men, like Christopher McCandless and Timothy Treadwell--the most famous examples of recent years, seem influenced heavily by the writerJack London who wrote a book entitled, "The Call of the Wild" as well as "White Fang." As my gentle readers well know, I much prefer the work of Albert Payson Terhune and even Eric Knight.


London's novel was about a dog named Buck who leaves a pampered life for servitude as a sled dog in the Yukon during the gold rush of the 19th century. The book was published in 1903 and followed up by the 1906 "White Fang." The protagonist is a dog--half St. Bernard and half collie. I would say, this isn't the best combination. Buck, luckily, isn't a lap dog and becomes the alpha of a pack.

"White Fang" is also about a dog, this one part wolf, who is something of an outcast although dogs are generally more accepting than people. He eventually finds his pack--a kind master who takes him back.

Yet here is the main point. Dogs understand that dogs need other dogs, or if that's not possible, a good human will do. The emphasis, of course, is on the good part.

A lone dog is doomed. He or she will not survive. I am sure that the Chihuahua knows this very clearly and that is why my cousin shivers when left alone. Even the most alpha Chihuahua knows one doesn't want a pack of Chihuahuas to survive should one be lost in the wild. He must also fear that dog eat dog mentality because only the most indulgent pack would accept him for what use can this little cousin possibly be?

A lone dog, a lone coyote or a lone wolf is a failure in the grand scheme of things. This canine howls because he or she is lonely. This loner might be too stupid to deal with pack politics, too weak to be of use, too old to keep up with the pack or too young and inexperienced to form and lead a pack of his or her own.

This is why I find it so puzzling as to why men would want to go alone "Into the Wild." Timothy Treadwell liked to foster the mystique of loneliness, but in reality he often had company and his last companion died with him. McCandless wandered about, joining and leaving packs. There's something heartbreaking about this lost soul as played by Emile Hirsch. Unlike a dog pack, his father hasn't driven him off. Other packs make the appropriate signs, offering him a place within their pack and as agreeable as he finds these people, he does not accept.

I would guess that I'd have a better chance than a Chihuahua or Pug at surviving in the wild, I could join a pack and hunt down something to eat instead of having my loving human friend serve me breakfast in a bowl. I could eat raw meat and chew on rotted meat if I had to do so. Yet I do not really treasure the idea of suddenly going as far north as my legs could take me and as far away from civilization as possible. I've heard stories that the Native Alaskans ate fat and their dogs were regularly fed lard or fat--something that would make the painfully thin chic of Beverly Hills shiver in both disgust and secret lust and the modern urban human and dog doctors wrinkle their brows thinking of clogged arteries. Without central heating (and air conditioning) one tends to burn up a tremendous amount of calories. One gathers that McCandless, in his limited research, didn't consider this. Nor did he seem to have considered how the Native Alaskans and current occupants survived. He didn't even consider the common practice of humans--making emergency arrangements so that someone might check in on him.

As the director Sean Penn shows us a pack of wolves taking advantage of his spoiled moose meat, London's "The Call of the Wild" comes to mind and for a dog as well as a dog lover, the complete insanity of a human trying to survive alone in a climate so hostile to normal survival should be clear. Jack London's short story, "To Build a Fire" should have indicated that anything can happen and it doesn't have to be during 50 degree below zero for a human to need another soul. Much later in 2003 (McCandless died in 1992), a lone hiker named Aron Ralston would be forced to amputate his arm when it became trapped under a boulder. He was hiking alone and without having informed anyone of his plans--two things one should always do if one truly wants to return to one's pack. There have been cases of coyotes and wolves and even dogs, chewing off their legs when trapped and yet, they always want to return to their pack.

If given the choice, the Chihuahua or the Scottish Collie or even the common mixed blood cur, would gladly find comfort on a warm bed with company. Hirsch has the charm of a young puppy, one aged about 15-months in dog years or perhaps 16 years in human years. He's a pup at the age where he adventurous enough to wander outside the boundaries of his pack and yet not mature enough to accept responsibility. Perhaps that bit of rebelliousness when he refuses his father's offer of a car suggests 18-months in dog years and 17-18 in human years. Yet by human age, McCandless was older. He had recently graduated from college, making him in his early twenties and 24 when he died. Humans oddly may never grow out of their puppyhood and McCandless, died for his lack of judgment.

One may not be the human equivalent of the Chihuahua, one might be the equivalent to a short-haired hunting dog of some sort or a sleek sight-hound meant for warm-weather life. Rare is the human who can survive low temperatures without a good coat and not the kind one grows oneself. Yet even the Labrador and the Saluki want to join a pack. Dogs and humans are social animals and when they hear the call of the wild, they hope it is an invitation to run with a group of undomesticated cousins or domestic dogs uneducated in the ways of humankind and the luxuries of that life. They do not mean to wander out into the night to live and survive alone. From a dog's perspective, I would fault Penn's movie in this respect. There is nothing heroic about unwisely leaping into the wild and dying because one was unprepared. When humans make heroes out of fools, it can only encourage other romantic humans to be even more foolhardy as a way of gaining fame. After all, they didn't make "Grizzly Man" and "Into the Wild" because these men survived, but because these men died in ways that could have prevented had they exercised some human common sense.

I suppose that if one can't be Jack London or Jon Krakauer (who wrote the book on which the movie is based) or Sean Penn and become famous for one's own writing or work, one can become posthumously famous through the good work of famous people who write or make movies. As a dog, I find this human striving for fame quite puzzling.

ADVICE: Greenery and Gastronomic Catastrophe

Besides Christmas trees, there are other holiday greenery that can cause gastronomic catastrophes. I'm not quite sure why greenery suddenly becomes so important at this time of year. My secretary explained that in some places things become grimly brown and gray--no leaves, no grass and nothing but wet and something white like snow. Again we come upon this human obsession with color! Dog are blessed in this sensory situation since all the world is black, white and shades of gray. Green, it seems is not only a way of living in harmony with the world, it is also the color of plants although not all plants are green. If that makes any sense at all!

Living in California, I haven't had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of snow fairies or snow angels. My secretary tells me there is no smell to snow although since she is human and as all humans are olfactory-challenged, one can hardly take her word for that.

In any case, holidays bring out such greenery as lilies. These are not particularly harmful for the average canine although greens in great quantity are never in the best interest of carnivores. Rather, our friends the cat, also carnivores, can mistakenly give an absent-minded chew to lilies--tiger, Asian, Japanese show, stargazer and Casablanca--only to find the ER their next stop. Ingestion of lilies results in feline kidney failure.

Now there's also holly and mistletoe. For some odd reason, even though neither is commonly found in the Los Angeles area, the season finds humans making a mad rush to buy them. Something about kissing under the mistletoe? A dog might wonder why kissing should wait for a special occasion and why that occasion should necessitate the presence of some kind of plant although I'm told that a dozen long-stemmed roses, color red because humans seem to find color of the utmost importance, are a good reason for kissing. Seriously, I consider a good piece of bacon or a slice of pizza worthy of a kiss. What good is a rose when a pizza will hit the spot nicely?

In any case, holly causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and lethargy if eaten by a pet. Mistletoe, will cause gastrointestinal upset and cardiovascular problems. Sounds more like a reason for crying than kissing, but as always humans are often confused. Perhaps some distant ancestor kissed after thankfully surviving this gastrointestinal crisis giving rise to this strange custom.

Poinsettias, a favorite flower for this holiday season, was rumored to be poisonous to dogs. This is an exaggeration, probably started by some drama queen who got sick and milked the matter for hours, weeks or months. In reality, they will make the dog stomach queasy, might make one drool (although with some breeds this would be either hard to discern since they already do or greatly increase the size of the drool pools). I imagine in the case of a bull mastiff one could practice swimming. What will catch the attention of one's human companions would be the vomiting and diarrhea.

So what ever special greenery might pop up during this frantic season of irrationality in humans, do not nibble, do not chew up the scenery or you might find yourself on a quick trip to the doctor's. One can suggest plastic (as in fake flowers and not as in credit cards).

While this might be the only way one can get the attention of one's human companions during this season of madness, I do not recommend it. One should never resort to histrionics or other bad behavior such as self-harm, suicide and self-pitying whimpering even if one's companions are being quite impossible. Always, canines should act with class, hoping that one's human companions will follow suit.

Do not worry. The season does indeed pass and one's human companions shall regain their sanity and what little dogsense they may have.

ADVICE: Boxes and Bafflement

During puppyhood (or kittenhood), one quickly learns that humans find it amusing when one plays with boxes or tackles paper bags. They even make smaller bags for dogs to be carried in. As especially beloved canine will often find odd little objects brought home in which one is encouraged to roll or toss it until some wonderful little treat falls out. Or there's that lovely rubbery thing that is often filled with peanut butter. You might even be invited to play a game of search, looking for an object filled with some taste tidbit.

So one could easily be misled at this time of year. For once the ceremonial tree is up, humans begin to pile up boxes on the floor under the tree.

Somtimes, they will put things that smell so lovely inside of boxes, wrapped in enormous amounts of a paper. From the smell of things and by the very fact these are placed on the floor where most dogs eat, where most dogs receive special treats after properly waiting for their signal, one might think these treats are just complicated puzzles for the dog to figure out and unravel and unwrap.

After all, humans don't normally leave a plate full of cheese on the floor. One rarely sees them eating from the floor and even then they don't know how to do it properly as a dog would, licking up every trace so the ants and other pests won't come around. Yet during this season of madness (the holiday season my secretary informs me it is called), they will place boxes of salami, cheese, candies, beef jerky, smoked salmon and cookies on the floor as if a thin box and a few layers of paper could easily disguise the smell.

One must recall that humans are singularly olfactory-challenged. This is the PC term to describe their inability to smell most things unless the air is simply laden with the odor. Smells and aromas must be strong because their senses are quite weak. So they think we can't smell it if they can't and thus must not know it is there.

Still this hardly excuses the placing of temptation within a dog's reach, on the floor where any dog would expect to find treats. One might want to assume that those sweet smelling treasures are meant for the dog of the house, but this would be dog logic and not human logic. If the humans had any sense at all, they would not leave a dog alone with food on the floor in any form and expect to leave the dog alone with it and not eat it. Not all humans have dog sense and my secretary tells me that common sense isn't that common at all.

Another peculiar thing they might do is they sometimes they might even hang up socks.

If one's companion is a logical and well-mannered human, one will know that socks are not for us to pull or tear into. Some of the sillier specimens of the human sort will encourage that in a young pup, only to become bitterly angry when the pup carries on the same habit into doghood. T'is a puzzlement.

So, of course, most well-mannered dogs will not pull down socks and yet silly humans will often put food in these socks and hang them up. What's worse, they might even fill them with food obviously meant for dogs and leave them there, hanging, within easy reach of one's snout or maybe just a slight hop above nose level. What ARE they thinking?

This is part of the madness of the so-called holiday season. There have been suggestions that it's the cold weather that makes humans somewhat mentally disturbed during this time period every year. My secretary states it is part folk custom and part religious, and yet how often does one find that customs are used to explain away natural occurrences such as covering one's mouth when one yawns?

Further research on biorhythms and the seasons as well as the effects of natural light should be carried out. Perhaps the answers lie there in.