Chapter 1
Drawn together
When I was 3 or 4 years old, as the family chronicles go, we were driving home from somewhere or other when we passed a dead goanna on the side of the road. If you're unfamiliar with the goanna, it's a large, carnivorous lizard that's native to Australia; they're known elsewhere as monitor lizards. 'Dead' doesn't mean anything to a small child, of course, so according to my dad I badgered him all the way home about the goanna, asking questions such as “What happened to him? Why is he dead? Who made him dead? Will he be alright? Where's his mummy? But who's going to take care of him?”
I don't remember that particular incident, but I also can't recall a time when I didn't love animals. They're absolutely magical to me, and I'm utterly fascinated by them. I love the character of Newt Scamander, the “magizoologist” JK Rowling created for the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He's never met a creature he didn't love, and he feels more comfortable around animals and connects better with them than with people. She's onto something there!
We animal lovers are drawn to animals,
and they hold a special place in our lives.
It's a simple fact that we animal lovers are drawn to animals in a way that others don't understand and we can't explain very well. Nor do we feel any particular need to explain. It's just the way we're made, and we wonder what on earth is wrong with people who don't like animals!
It's as if animals have a tractor beam that draws us inexorably to them. We may be moved — our mood brightened, our heart lifted, our mind expanded — by spending time in nature or by music, art, dancing, surfing, gardening, cooking, … any number of things; but animals hold a special place in our hearts and thus in our lives.
Perhaps it's simply that animals, being sentient and expressive in ways we recognise as similar to ours, respond in ways we find meaningful. If so, then we're attributing meaning simply to please ourselves, which is one definition of anthropomorphism (attributing human thoughts, emotions, and motivations to other species), a scientific mortal sin. But that explanation reduces us to cravenly transactional creatures, where we only love animals as long as they (seem to) love us in return. That's certainly true of some people, but assuredly not all. No; in my experience, there's vastly more to it — and to us — than that.
We are inexplicably drawn to certain individuals,
and we form deep and lasting connections with these special ones.
Furthermore, that explanation utterly fails to account for a phenomenon that interests me greatly and which is the subject of this book: While we love and care about animals in general, and we may have a decided preference for one species and even one breed, we are inexplicably drawn to certain individuals in particular, and we form deep and lasting connections with these special ones.
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