stolen from maidengurl

[arliss]

1. Scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd to you.

2. I’ll explain it.

3. Then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests.

Comments

[amy37.livejournal.com]

I'll take "animal behavior" for five hundred, Alex...

[fufaraw]

I grew up with a mother who had a gentling touch with animals, especially frightened baby animals. But she anthropomorphised them, treating them like children and expecting them to behave like humans. I knew that couldn't be right. In my preteens I was dog-mad and horse-mad, and read all the usual fiction, which led to training and behavioral observation books. Through my teens, Jane Goodall was a role model of sorts, and through her books I discovered Iain Douglass-Hamilton and the man who studied orangutans in their native habitat, and the books Goodall did with then-husband Hugo Van Lawick about African wild dogs, hyenas and jackals.

When I married in my early 20s we could only have a cat as a pet, and I began to read up on domestic and wild cat behavior. When we had four cats, watching the interactions between them, and trying diligently to keep from attributing "human" motives to their behaviors was fascinating to me.

Jacques Cousteau's tv work was at its height, and I joined the Cousteau society and the Nature Conservancy, and every penny I could spare went to support ecological and environmental causes. Still does.

Raised a strict Southern Baptist, from the age of 14 on, I never felt a conflict between the biblical story of creation and evolution. Watching animal behaviors, whether personally, or through reading or film, it was so apparent that humans have a very thin veneer of language skill and "civilization" overlying what remain very primal animal behaviors.

You may have noticed what I call the "herd bull" behavior if your eldest son is a teenager, and old enough for your DH to percieve on a pheremonal and primal level as a "rival." I certainly did. The air was thick for quite a few years, there. It brought the whole thing home to me rather forcefully. My study of animal behavior paid off in helping to understand human behavior, and in managing a family of human animals.

I think we were good rescuers for our feral (not an abandoned stray) cat. He only approached humans because he was traumatically injured (foot missing), desperately needed food and was unable to hunt. H became a reliable non-threatening food source, and he managed to establish a level of trust. Because we knew what to do and what to avoid, we've managed to socialize him to be an affectionate, mostly happy pet with a snarky, jokey sense of humor. He tolerates strangers not at all, but we're not excessively social people, so that's not a problem.

It's a minor use of the knowledge, but I'm glad I have it. I still rely on body language at least as much as conversation to tell me about people. I've freaked friends out, and friends of friends, being all "intuitive," but it's really just observation and past study.

Eek. I should have used the short form. Sorry.

[jenlp.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you found the joy in it once it was something you didn't have to do. I love reading about, well, how your garden grows. Heh.

My best friend growing up spent much time in their garden and even out of it, doing garden-related chores; she did not love it. She was also a heck of a lot more disciplined about, well, pretty much everything than I was. Probably a connection there somewhere. Mmmm hmmm.

[jenlp.livejournal.com]

Oops. I posted that in the wrong place. Ah, well. I do what I can.