Running for Your Life: Wolf Spirit

The First Domestication by Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg http://bit.ly/2IQczK1

I’ve written about this title in this space recently. And, wow, what a read!

Biggest takeaways?

The pervasive effect of Euro-centric beliefs that would equate wolves with evil, that “wild” – in the vernacular of dog-raising – is synonymous with dangerous rather than intelligent, discerning and noble.

That when it comes to the question of man’s domestication of canis lupus we typically miss a critical point of view, that of evolutionary scientists who study the relationship history of wolves and indigenous peoples from a place that honors both sides.

Wolves to dogs is the first domestication, but man and wolf mark the first predator union of mammals in North America, upon which our continent’s first peoples are blessed with enduring legends and stingy belief systems that hold the wolf as deserving of respect and that she not be treated as an enemy of cookie-cutter progress theories that seek to eliminate those who pose a threat to a narrative of convenient truths.

Bears too … The First Domestication asks that we consider those animals whose evolutionary track is of equal importance to ours and often has a benevolent effect to our mutual histories.

If we are the most developed species on Earth, isn’t it long past the time that we should act the part?

Next: Running for Your Life: Running Goals