A Choice-based Life
Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare is a good read
Life is busier than ever at Dog Citizen HQ. It’s a privilege to work with dogs and their human families. Other things like a stack of Facebook posts and ideas that never seem to see the light of day are having to take a back seat. And this month I just don’t have the brain space to write a content-heavy blog. Mine is not a choice-based life currently! But one thing I did want to do was to share with you what I thought was a good book. Before I do, I have begun asking friends and ex-clients what sort of topics they would like covered in Eastside Tails, so if there’s something you would like to see, drop me a line or a comment at the bottom of his post. I would love to hear from you!
I find that as I get older, I tend to shy away from films longer than 2 hours. (If it takes you 3 hours and 18 minutes to say it, don’t say it!). And the same thing with books. I’m old school, I still read books, especially the physical ones. I know some of you are the same! But books in any format are fine. And the current trend of books getting shorter again I think is a good thing too. I don’t mind reading doorstops, but a shorter read can be just as powerful.
A wild animal and her human
Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare had a lot going for it when I read a press release. It is about a hare, and I love hares. It sounds strange to love an animal that you hardly, if ever see, but I do. There is something so noble and majestic about their secretive, silent and stealthy existence. Also the book comes in at a pleasing 250 pages or so. With these boxes ticked, I heavily hinted and eagerly hoped for it to fall in my lap over Christmas.
It’s a true story about the author retreating to the countryside during the lockdowns. She rescues a leveret (the word for a baby hare), after finding it alone, perhaps in some distress, though seemingly physically unharmed. She describes her thoughts and feelings with disarming honesty. Her thoughts and decisions are always carefully weighed by a strong altruism to do the right thing. She wants a choice-based life for the leveret. The idea of rescuing the leveret and taking it home, is not a decision she rightly takes lightly. This is a wild animal. What is best for it? What am I doing?
It’s surprising how little we actually know about hares, and how different and untamed – truly wild – they are compared to rabbits. Though we often think of them in the same way. The author shares with us her journey on how she goes about helping the leveret. Her goal is not clear – it is never regarded as a pet, and she wants it to remain in the wild, but clearly it needs a helping hand. She doesn’t even name it, as this implies a sort of ‘possession’ she doesn’t feel is right for a wild animal.
It’s a wonderful story, a feel-good book, as the two of them co-exist and begin to understand each other. The ‘it’ becomes a ‘she’, as this only becomes evident when she gives birth to her own leverets.
A choice-based-life
For me the biggest theme is choice. The author protects her garden and house so there is a safety boundary for the leveret when it’s very small, but soon opens this out. To give the hare a choice – she can always return to the fields. But even in the winter the door is left open for the leveret. As the leveret grows into a hare and she becomes more daring, she does leave to dance with others of her own kind, but she chooses to come back to the house and garden too. Sometimes to even sleep and rest in the author’s presence. And eventually to even give birth and nest her young in the house.
Remember this is a wild animal, and the author is really good at reminding us what a privilege it is that a wild animal should choose to share her presence with her in this way. She is free to come and go any time, but chooses to maintain some roots in the house with her human ‘mother’. It really is astonishing.
Being with your dog is a privilege
It also got me thinking about our dogs too. Dogs are domesticated (although unsocialised dogs give us a glimpse of the wild side). And there is always an echo of their wild ancestry that can never be totally trained out. And nor should we want to. They are an animal, with this echo too. If they weren’t these things, we wouldn’t need any training in the first place.
Dogs first have no choice in their existence – we choose them. But after that, what choices do we give them? Hopefully a lot, so your dog is making hundreds of little decisions every day. ‘Choice-based training’ is often a term used for force-free training. But this isn’t about training. When your dog chooses to rest and settle down, maybe even in a place removed from you, you should feel privileged. Because you have made an animal feel safe enough to make that choice. To be comfortable, just knowing you are there. And when your dog chooses to come over to you, they are doing so not necessarily because they want a pet. They want to be with you. You should feel privileged, because it is.
