Monday, August 22, 2005

Who Would You Choose?

I had a conversation awhile back with a friend who swore if he had to make a decision between saving his dog and saving a person, he'd save his dog. We argued over this silly question for quite awhile. My thing was when would you possibly stumble into this scenario? All of a sudden you look out your balcony...lo' and behold your mother and your Schnauzer are hanging side by side by their fingertips?? There is no time to save both...who would it be? Okay yes silly but we all have those goofy conversations. So my brillant answer was...it depends on who the person was. My mother? Annoying most times, but she'd win this contest. Ted Bundy? Nope let him sail to the ground. A boyfriend? Hmmm, I guess I'd have to see who I thought would be around longer, him or the dog.

So that conversation went largely forgotten for awhile. Then I went to a off-leash park with the nine year old child of a friend. We were walking through a large group of Rhodesian Ridgebacks. They were very nice dogs but sounded just awful during play...snarling, barking and growling. My little eighteen pound dog was there too. Suddenly this large group of dogs felt menacing, very scary. My immediate reaction was to grab the child, pull her from the area and then look for my dog...sigh. I love my dog dearly but I guess I still appreciate the value of humans too. Most humans....some of you? And you know who you are...well don't hang from a balcony with my dog.

1 comment:

hopemcp said...

Yesterday I had a similar conversation with a missionary-friend. Must be something in the stars that has this idea going around these days?

Years ago a professor recounted to us in class about research in which people were asked to imagine this senario: They are in a sinking ship and can save only one person: their spouse or their child. Who would it be?

The women overwhelmingly said they'd save their children; the men overwhelmingly said they'd save their wives.

The professor suggested that we tend to save the person closest to us--but weaker (i.e., we feel a duty to protect that person).

Adding in our dogs to the choice? I'd throw in that 1) my dog is fast and may stand a better chance to escape than I would; 2) his well-honed survival instinct would kick in giving him more advantages if I stayed out of the way; 3) yet I feel a duty to protect him and (if I'm doing my job) would probably get bitten as I try to save him...