Dr. David B. Adams

I recently viewed an event in which a toddler who was not supervised by his father, ran from a store and then briefly caught his fingers in the closing door.

There was no tissue damage, but the child wailed. He wailed loudly.

The father of the screaming child then yelled at another patron who was entering the store at that moment as if it were the patron's fault simply because he was there.

I had watched this child sitting at a table with his father, thrashing about prior to the accident, attention-demanding, and chiefly ignored by his dad.

For sake of completeness, the father was German. The entering patron at whom he yelled was black. The latter turned, looked at the former and just opted to ignore a clearly absurd situation.

The store manager came forward to try to soothe the father and the boy. The father would not accept the verbal support, and, rather than remove the child from the environment, he allowed the child's cries to continue to escalate.

An employee came forward with ice which father and son also refused. The volume level of the child's screaming increased.

Another patron witnessing this, and having his wife and children with him, came to assist, offered the child ice cream and tried to console the father. He tried to reassure the father after looking at the boy's hand. Again, all was refused as the situation grew in magnitude.

I then saw the child's hand. It was red, neither bleeding nor (as yet) swollen.

Had the father removed his child from the store, he would have been providing what is called a "Type One Cure." When someone is traumatized in a setting, remove them from that setting and do little to remind them of the setting they have just left.

I am certain that I was not the only person there believing that the father was looking at legal/financial recourse for an event that was purely accidental and if anyone was responsible, it was the father's, for being inattentive, and the child's, for being disobedient.

We have a blameful society. When ill-fate befalls us, it is never just an accident. It is almost always "someone's fault, and they are going to pay."

For explicable, but not necessarily optimistic reasons, we have evolved into a society that has ceased to suck it up, tough it out and, instead, feel that we have recourse to the law...rather than responsibility for ourselves.

I had wanted to get my dog, Boomer, a meaningful 3rd birthday present. It is difficult to shop for him. He has a discerning eye and a very precise pallet. I have seen Boomer sizing up a squirrel, keenly focused upon the squirrels probable exit route...calculate with utter precision and then run to the wrong tree where he then spends extended periods looking up for the squirrel who exits via the tree behind him and goes on about doing squirrel business.

Similarly, Boomer's renown interest in universal remote controls is legendary. He is able to select the most expensive remote and disable it rapidly and precisely without relying upon a schematics to delineate the circuits he must destroy.

So, with those realities in mind, I asked Boomer what he wanted for his birthday. I felt he might enjoy a pet (and honestly, I felt if he had a pet that he could learn from that responsibility that taking care of things is an important part of life).

Boomer was all up for that. He ceased bumping into walls long enough to state that he would prefer a cockatiel, a ferret, or an ocelot.

But he was equally clear and firm on his position that he did not want his own human. He felt that humans could not be housebroken no matter the approach or time invested. He felt that humans are too aggressive and that domesticating them has uniformly failed for all who have tried. He did not feel that if he cared for his own human that he would ever receive appreciation for his herculean efforts.

Most importantly, he did not feel that humans were safe. He feels that data support his contention that humans are unpredictable, unreliable and malicious. He noted that while he can wrestle with other dogs, humans take such behavior very seriously. He adds that while dogs are flatulent, people build nukes. While dogs are observant, people rely upon others to tell them what to see.

Of all the things that Boomer dislikes about humans, it is their emotionality which concerns him the most. He remarked that dogs express excitement, but humans express chaos. He also felt that while he loved taking long walks, he did not want to drag along a human who was talking on a cell phone.

Boomer noted that he loves riding in a car with his head out the window. By contrast, he noted that humans like to drive a car while applying makeup and eating a Happy Meal.

Boomer summed it up quite well by saying "when I was a young puppy, I took many risks...now that I am older and wiser, I do not think I want to sky dive, ride around on a Harley or spend a lot of time with humans...all of which are inherently risky."

"Personally," says Boomer, "I much prefer a gerbil. Humans are not very loyal or faithful, they put conditions on compassion and affection and, frankly, I think that they have trouble with impulse control."