Dog-eared
In the fall of 1976 I started medical school, and like everyone else in my class — and in every class and every American medical school in those days, for that matter — I was immediately thrown into the deep end, i.e., Anatomy Lab. During Anatomy Lab my classmates and I would convene in groups of five in a spacious room lit by large picture windows with no air conditioning that held 25 regularly spaced metal tables with semicircular metal covers that rolled and retracted, much like a hot buffet at a wedding. Underneath each 6-foot-long cover, however, was not a selection of pasta and fish fillets but a human body, donated by its generous former occupant, for the purpose of being studied by medical students. Each body had been embalmed and was wrapped in plastic under the metal cover in this room that reeked of formaldehyde.
Medical students become very close to their lab partners, and in order to abate the grim reality of sweating in white lab coats over a dead body three times a week over a period of months, we would sometimes engage in sophomoric humor. For example, we dubbed our body, apparently a thin gentleman who had passed away in his 80s, Abra Cadaver because arteries, nerves, and sesamoid bones never seemed to be where they were supposed to be, often magically transported to another part of the body or vanishing altogether into thin air.
Week by week, we dissected part by part and system by system. The head was the last and, of course, the most difficult. When working on other parts of the body, it was possible to think of them as just a thing, an object of interest, but getting to the face, cutting into it, going layer by layer… Well, that was a whole different thing.
And as always, to break the tension, we would sometimes crack wise. As we were delineating the muscles of the face one afternoon, our instructor, Dr. Kaufman, came over to see if we needed any help, and I decided it was my turn to lighten the mood.
“I have a question,” I asked. “I know that the masseter muscles do this,” I said, chomping my teeth, “and the orbicularis oculi muscles do this,” I said, blinking my eyes, “but what muscles do this?” I asked, as I wiggled my ears.
“Oh,” he said dryly, “those are the external auricular muscles. They are very well developed in dogs.” With that he turned on his heel and walked to the next table, as my lab partners quite appropriately howled at my feeble attempt at wiseguyness.
Apparently, only about 20% of human beings can actually wiggle their ears. I have found a use for this minority trait of mine as I do neurological exams on kids. When I’m looking at the facial muscles, I ask them to raise their eyebrows, squeeze their eyes shut, chomp down with their teeth, and then wiggle their ears. Most of them can’t do it, but they think it’s very funny that I can. I then ask the parents if they can do it, and if there’s a medical student with us, if they can do it. With the entire room laughing, I then give “extra credit” to any kid able to wiggle their ears or claim it for myself if I’m the only one.
On the other hand, as my anatomy professor noted, I’ve never met a dog who wasn’t able to wiggle, or at least raise their ears. This includes our dog, Malcolm. Domesticated dogs also have genes and muscles that allow them to furrow their brow and to cock their head to one side when they’re interested in something.
Dogs are, of course, related to wolves. Wolves, from what I understand, do not have that eyebrow thing as part of their genetic complement. I’m not sure about the ears or the head cocking either, but together, that makes wolves look much more impassive to us humans. When a wolf looks at you (and frankly, I’ve never been in a situation like this), the human-centric interpretation of a wolf’s pitiless gaze might be, “I don’t much care about you, and I might very well bite your head off if I so choose.”
In reality, wolves are NOT like that. They do not need to relate to humans and likely prefer to avoid contact with us. From what I understand, they just want to be left alone to care for their family and howl at the moon.
Domesticated dogs, on the other hand, have become domesticated because over millennia the traits that make them seem most human have been rewarded by humans. We feed the ones with the desired traits, allowing them to breed.
These traits, of course, include those muscles of facial expression that seem to allow a dog to be an emotional mirror for us humans.
I’ve read the dogs have sometimes been thought of as mere parasites, spectacularly successful at having genes promoted that make them more attractive to us humans so that we are then more likely to feed and house them.
This, though, raises the question of what consciousness even means. Not just animal consciousness, but human consciousness.
Is what we feel, what we do, merely programmed into our genes? Or is there something else, some spark, some consciousness or sentience that allows us to make choices about how we act? Do we have Free Will? And if we do, is that also true of other animals? Conversely, if it’s not true of other animals, is it even true of us?
Last night I was reading, sitting in my chair in the sunroom, and Malcolm came over with a toy that he was chewing on. He sat right next to me, put his paw on my foot, and leaned against my leg. Was that merely programmed? Or does he feel something in the way that humans feel things?
I know that I felt something. I certainly feel a warmth, a love for this creature that, for me, is particular to him. He is about 12 years old now. At least that’s the estimate based on when my housemate Robert got him at Stray Rescue over two years ago. I often wonder what his life was like before he came into this house. Was he in another household? Was he abandoned? Did he run away and not find his way home? How long was he on the streets, fending for himself, eating out of garbage cans and dumpsters before he was picked up? If I look at his coat closely, there seem to be some scars under there. I wonder how he got them.
When Malcolm was first brought here , he would try to run away whenever the door was open. In fact, he managed to a few times, and luckily Robert and I were able to catch up with him. He didn’t even bark for about two months. I never heard a peep out of him. Perhaps he had learned that, to survive, it was best just to run away, hide, and stay quiet.
Now, though, if the door is open, he will look out but not run. He might even walk out onto the porch, but I can’t remember the last time he tried to run away. And now he does bark. He barks when the letter carrier comes. He barks when he sees other dogs out on the street. He barks when he hears me unlock the front door. He barks at the dog park as he tries to herd the other dogs because he is likely part Australian Cattle Dog.
Malcolm has, dare I say it, learn to trust. He has learned that he will be fed, that he will be cared for, that if he leans up against someone’s leg, here at least, that person is not going to hit him or pull that leg away.
There is a study that goes way back that quantifies communication among humans as being about 50% body language, 43% tone of voice, and only about 7% actual words. I’ve always wondered about that statistic. How could that even be quantified? And could it really be true? Well, I will endorse that, since Malcolm has joined this household, I have given more credence to these data. Because, Malcolm, although he has rediscovered how to bark, has never said a single word, yet I understand him as clearly — sometimes even more clearly — as I do other human beings.
As I think of the muscles of the face, the human face, the canine face, there is so much more there than just strands of protein stimulated by nerves. It goes to some deeper place. There is something about looking at a face, taking it in, and letting that face look at my own that affects me in ways that I simply cannot quantify. I know that this gaze involves neurotransmitters and electrical impulses in my brain that stimulate other parts of my body and releases hormones. But there is something more…
And I do wonder if some future group of first-year med students sweating in their white lab coats in a hot, bright Anatomy Lab, when they gingerly explore my face, will pick up on my weirdly overdeveloped external auricular muscles and themselves ponder what good it does anybody to be able to wiggle their ears.
I don’t know. But I do know this: Dogs share 83% of their DNA with humans. I am sure that, among that 83%, are the genes for Love, and that, when I see a furrowed brow, a cocked head, and raised, wiggly ears, I know that I am looking into the Face of Dog.
