蜜芽传媒

"Love Island star freed in dangerous dog case鈥�: That 蜜芽传媒 headline caught me by surprise recently. Do they now have dogs, and dangerous ones, on the TV dating show, Love Island? Have they revved up its reality-format by merging with I鈥檓 a Celebrity鈥�Get me out of Here! While I鈥檓 no avid watcher of either Love Island or I鈥檓 a Celebrity, I鈥檇 definitely tune into a programme that combined the two. Imagine couples trapped in a jungle having to do their courting while fending off wild animals鈥�.

But no, the headline was actually much more serious about former Love Island winner, Jack Fincham, who鈥檇 been convicted and briefly imprisoned for dangerous dog offences. The case sparked a media buzz in different directions, from legal wrangling to celebrity gossiping, to debating breeds, putting dogs down, and what they contribute to society in the first place. I got a new puppy myself recently, a Bernedoodle, so I鈥檝e been thinking a lot about this human-canine bond, which goes back at least 15-20 thousand years.

Classical literature has some striking examples. There鈥檚 Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld, and Hecate鈥檚 spectral and Diana鈥檚 hunting hounds; not to mention Odysseus鈥檚 best friend. In 蜜芽传媒r鈥檚 telling, Odysseus leaves his native land for twenty years, and while he鈥檚 gone his wife Penelope is endlessly pestered by suitors. She turns out to be a model of fidelity and would surely be a very watchable contestant on Love Island. But interestingly, when Odysseus does eventually return home, disguised as a beggar, Penelope doesn鈥檛 recognise him, and neither does his loyal servant. The only one who does is his dog, Argos.

What does this ancient tale tell us? The monks of New Skete, an Eastern Orthodox monastic community based in New York State, are famous for their German Shepherd breeding. In their books on the subject, they make the case that training a dog means loving it. Instead of punishment, they counsel learning to communicate, especially to communicate without words. If you manage that, they say, something extraordinary happens, because dogs, being guileless, mirror us back to ourselves very directly. They can therefore make us more self-aware about what signals we silently express to the world. Such advice is highly practical, but also deeply spiritual. They point to St Francis who tamed the wolf and the prophet Daniel who quieted lions 鈥� not with fear, but through a wordless communion between fellow creatures.

More than a third of UK households own a dog, and it鈥檚 intriguing to consider how learning to communicate with them might encourage better relationships with other humans too. Now out of prison, Mr Fincham has said he wants to become a dog trainer. It鈥檚 an unexpected twist to the story. Let鈥檚 hope he and all those who work with dogs might learn the logic of the monks of New Skete, and take the lead with love.

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