From the beginnings of human history we’ve had predator/prey relationships with all around us. Though we are large bodied, soft creatures who no longer have claws and huge teeth, we are the dominant predator species on our planet. We have used our enlarged brains to give ourselves the tools to prey even on those creatures who once preyed on us.

I often wonder if the original source of our intellect lies in the pack.

Pack animals like wolves, coyotes, jackals, even hyenas have found a good, functional evolutionary niche in which they fit and work. The “Pack” instinct is so strong that we have found ways to “trick” many of these animals into domestication by becoming surrogate “Packs”. Dogs do not think of themselves as pets, certainly. They see themselves as members of their family “Pack”. Cats and “pride” behavior are probably similar.

The more dogs you have, the more you understand that the dogs find their own place in the pack, and interference in their struggles will lead to trouble. If they don’t decide among themselves who is dominant, there is always fighting and trouble as they jockey for leadership.

Few wild species predate themselves, to my knowledge. It isn’t until you get to primates that you see individuals who will hunt and kill other members of the same species, even the same tribe. It also, incidentally, isn’t until you get to primates where you see different types of primates working in cooperation.

Humans not only predate each other (and I’m not talking about war here, that’s another thing altogether) but they have found unique ways in which to predate- when once a predator was simply something which would kill, todays predators have become sophisticated in a ratio to the sophistication of the species. Predatory behavior went from murder, (When life was the only posession of permanent value) to sex crimes (when life was more certain but virtue became valued of itself) to theft (when primates developed posession) and proceeded until today, when our free will and our intellect are our most valuable and prized posessions and they are stolen from us by the most sophisticated types of predators, those who prey on us using the political, educational, and media systems. They cut the weak, slow, and stupid from the herd, and far from killing or eating them, they use those very stupid and weak as tools against us. Sure, those tools are disposable, and sometimes that disposition- like a Rachel Corrie- is a predation in and of itself.

If you have a hunter’s soul, if you think of yourself as a predator, you understand these things. You look around you and separate your companions on earth into other predators, and prey. And because we are come from pack animals, we often ally ourselves with other predators, be they human hunting companions or animals. We domesticated dogs to this purpose untold ages ago, and the purpose of the dog as a pack member is to be small, fast, lithe, and use his speed and scent and instinct to bring prey to us. Boar dogs will sacrifice their lives, as will dogs that hunt bear and big cats. We stand next to our dogs in the field knowing that we have chosen our companions wisely.

For this reason, humans with a predator mind and hunter soul have a unique relationship with dogs, and there is almost no dog which has not been domesticated, including coyote, wolf, and jackal. People have been interbreeding coyote, wolf, jackal, and domestic dogs for years, to produce specific qualities. I’ve hunted over white fang wolves and have wanted a coy-dog for years. In Africa I heard the yapping of jackals at night, and it was a happy, familiar sound.

If I had chickens, or other animals who would be in danger, I would kill a jackal or coyote or wolf in a new york minute. Coyotes have no place on a farm, or in a closely populated area where small housepets would be in danger. A tethered dog alone or a dog or cat in a fenced yard is just a prepackaged, TV dinner for a coyote. As the leaders of our packs, we have the responsibility to protect our pack from outsiders- and this is the basis of our modern wars, in one way or another- the leaders of our packs taking responsibility for the protection of the pack from outsiders.

Under other circumstances, though, I have great respect for the canine predators of the planet. They were here before us, and will probably be here after us. They are the purest form of the family bond that we can observe, and their system works so well that there has never been any need whatsoever for them to evolve past it. Canine predators like that have been surviving in the wild for millions of years, and they deserve respect and they deserve to be left alone, when their paths do not cross Man’s. They are a page of a lesson book from the Creator, and he leaves it open for us to observe and learn. We choose not to learn at our peril.