Man himself cannot express love and humility by external signs, so plainly as does a dog, when with drooping ears, hanging lips, flexuous body, and wagging tail, he meets his beloved master.
—Charles Darwin
My favorite time to get to the zoo is just in time for sunrise, before the first of the keepers arrive, while the visitors to come that day are barely beginning to wake and stretch. I’ve always been an early riser, grateful for that sacred hour or two to be alone. At home, I mostly reflect and write while savoring the unruffled quiet, except sometimes for the scratch of footsteps from a chipmunk or mouse nestled in the attic. To sit in my office and sip on a cup of tea while the first rays of sunlight filter through the windows sets a pace to the morning that I carry with me through the day. All the same, to trade my desk for a frosted patch of ground at the zoo is even more beguiling.
The security guards at the gate recognize me, though I suppose they think me odd to arrive so eagerly and early. Backpack slung over my shoulder with cameras and notebook tucked inside, I hike along the empty road that weaves its way around the exhibits. Today, I hop a split-rail fence and forge a path between the bushes to follow a hidden service trail. After climbing for less than a minute, I reach a shallow lookout and turn back toward the public viewpoint, level with where I’m standing, but a stretch away across a gully. Between us sprawls their habitat. I find the flattened mats of grass where I’ve sat on other mornings, shed my bag, unpack, and wait. The first hint of sunrise filters through the trees across the gully and dapples the ground with splashes of gold.
But for the waking calls of songbirds, the morning around me is still and silent. Most of the zoo’s residents, though now awake, are still indoors, sheltered in their holding quarters to keep them safely through the night. Although I watch her step into the barn, no sound signals their keeper’s arrival—not a scuffle of bodies from inside the walls, no bark or whimper before the door opens, not even the softened pad of paw steps. Nothing betrays that the three now roam freely—to reclaim the range of their habitat—except for a flash of fur in the trees. Phantoms in the woods. Elusive. Fleeting.
Although I blend well with the shadows sitting within the shade of a spruce, I sense that they are watching me. Even without a trace of fragrance from soaps, colognes, or other scents, their noses point to where I am sitting. In spite of my effort to stake them out secretly, without disturbing their morning routine, the tiniest sounds betray I am watching: the soft click of the camera shutter, the snap of a twig when I reach for my notebook, the rustle of pages as they flutter in the morning breeze. At home in the forest, instead of the zoo, they could hear an elk passing six miles away, and even farther if out on the open range.
I scan the edges of their enclosure, tracing a roughened, bare dirt path they’ve worn along the outer rim, without discerning a hint of movement. The snatches of the inner trails that I can see from above are lifeless. Nonetheless, I sense they’re below me, hidden somewhere inside the thicket, exploring what’s new since yesterday evening—a fallen tree limb knocked down by the winds, the scent from a rabbit grazing just before dawn, a fishsicle of ice left this morning by their keeper. Yet, from what I can see of them from where I sit, they’re as good as ghosts. But then I hear their distinctive howls—first the male, Kaskae, deep, resonant, and bold, then Kesuk and Neka, higher pitched and more melodic. Even in the light of day, I feel a primal instinct stir.
Humans’ fascination with wolves predates our existence as a species. Long before the caves of Chauvet and even before our forerunners were human, reaching back half a million years, skeletons of Homo erectus pekinensis, more well known as Peking man, have been found intermingled with those of prehistoric wolves, suggesting that, at times, they likely shared a common shelter. Before they ever reached that point, they watched each other from a distance. And we still do to this day. When hiking in the wilderness, we find their paw prints crossing our paths. From time to time, in woodlands and pastures, we spot the remnants of their prey. Comfortably settled inside our cabins, we hear their howls from the darkness around us—sometimes a lonely voice answered only by a distant echo and other times an eerie choir, chanting in the black of night.
A trapper once described the howl: “Take a dozen railroad whistles, braid them together, and let one strand after another drop off, the last peal so frightfully piercing as to go through your very heart and soul.”
The wolf’s howl both haunts and enchants us. It conjures images of mystery and menace, of kindred spirits and beasts lurking in the shadows biding their time, waiting to devour us, more aware of us than we can ever be of them.
Although there’s no truth to the story, some imagine that wolves howl to the moon, inspired, perhaps, by some mystical urge. For wolves, however, their howl has meaning. Sung in solo or joined in chorus, they howl not only on moonlit nights but also at new moons, dawn, twilight, and, now and again, during the day. While apart on their nightly hunt—lone wolves treading for miles through the forest or scouting across the open range—they stop to howl to keep in touch as well as to gather the pack together to rendezvous, to chase for prey, and, when they are done, to return to the den. Where the pack’s terrain runs close to that of other wolves, a group howl can ward off outsiders, avoiding the risk of a confrontation as well as protecting a recent kill. Two wolves howling together, varying in pitch and tone and echoing off the walls of a canyon, can easily sound like many more, daunting even the bravest of strangers.
To those in the group, though, howling works as a sort of glue, helping to strengthen the bonds they share. But wolves connect with more than just howls. Scientists sort their vocalizations into squeaks, whimpers, barks, and growls; however, in truth, these are man-made abstractions. Wolves speak in a spectrum of voices in order to relate with one another. Squeaking, for instance, a high-pitched sound offered when close to other wolves, can be expressed in many ways—softly, loudly, cut short, or drawn out—to take on different meanings in play, in greetings, or when a wolf is anxious. Each distinct utterance conveys to others a different intention, somewhat as does language for humans. But unlike our human words, wolves’ sounds lack precise definitions. Their timbre, tenor, duration, and pitch, the context of what is happening at that moment, and the details of their relationships can change the meaning of their message. And sounds form only part of the picture.
Despite their nuanced use of voices, wolves rely on their other senses at least as much to communicate. Often without a single sound, wolves relate in a ballet of movements blended with postures and facial expressions to convey what they think and feel. A twist of an ear, an indirect gaze, turning aside in another direction, a raised paw, a chin on a shoulder, a brief flash of white in the eye, a tentative lick of another’s muzzle—each subtle gesture is telling, but joined together they are filled with meaning.
As they finish their morning howl, Kesuk and Neka head into the open and, after a few inquisitive sniffs, start to lick at the block of ice. Kaskae follows them into the clearing, approaches the pair, and lingers a moment—tail extended straight with his back, ears and whiskers fully turned forward, focused on Neka crouched just beneath him. He angles his chin just above her shoulders, suspended an inch or two in midair. Young Neka shifts in less than an instant and leans away from the elder wolf. She tilts her head, flattens her ears, subtly tucks her tail a bit tighter, and stretches back the corners of her lips to bare her upper row of teeth. What I see as a deferring grin many mistake as overt aggression.
Even among trained observers—graduate students studying wolves day in and day out in the field for months—it’s easy to misinterpret signals. A snarl of teeth, a grimace, a growl—each cue by itself means little, when dissected, analyzed, and annotated apart from the moment. In human language, a single word can be defined in many ways until we join it along with others and link them together to form a phrase. In a flash, our manner of speaking, a nuanced inflection, our choice in words infuse our sentences with meaning. Despite the linear flow of prose, we express our thoughts in a world of dimensions. In their own language, likewise do wolves.
The wolf pack is a tightly knit group mostly made up of a nuclear family: a father, mother, young and old pups, and, in certain instances, others. The idea that wolves come together—a disparate league of loners and rogues—to form a band simply isn’t true. Instead, much as in human families, the ties between wolves are close and strong with parents assuming the leading roles. Contrary to popular myth, there is no alpha wolf in nature. This outdated notion is coined from old research based on studying captive wolves grouped by humans—instead of by their instincts—and forced to live with one another. Nowadays, the concept of an alpha wolf is obsolete. Wolves in a pack don’t rule by conquest, directing others by will and force. Instead they lead inherently as parents, guiding the pack with confidence and, when needed, correcting with directions, not unlike what we aspire to do in human families. Evolution favors the wolf who focuses on what matters most: finding food, remaining healthy, resting, breeding, caring for young—not confronting and dominating others. The same is true for every species.
The dominant alpha never existed—neither did his subordinates—except in the minds of human observers imposing structure upon the pack. No wolf rules supreme until he dies or is weak and feeble. Instead, wolves assert, defer, and cooperate with one another, negotiating their relative roles situation by situation. Though no doubt the parents lead, everything is contextual. Overt conflicts do occur, but not nearly as much as most people believe. Often, signals shared by wolves observers mistakenly view as aggression. Yet, in wolf language, they are crucial displays, ripe with feeling, intention, and meaning.
Together with dingoes, dogs and wolves comprise the members of Canis lupus. Though all belong to a single species, each remains discretely unique. Circumnavigating the globe, wolves diverge into many subspecies—thirty-seven to be exact—each discernible from the others. Because of widespread obliteration across much of their natural range, many of these are now extinct, or their status is listed as “unknown” (which means one hasn’t been seen for years). Within the survivors that do remain, most are endangered; a few are not. Although we can distinguish each by genetics, features, or habitat, behaviorally they all are the same. Mexican, Arctic, or Eastern wolf—why they howl, how they lead, what they convey in their postures and signals endure unchanged between subspecies.
From Newfoundlands to Lhasa apsos, despite the amazing array of breeds, all dogs belong to a single subspecies, Canis lupus familiaris. And yet, they are distinctly different. Intrinsic with their domestication over the past millennia, humans bred dogs for different traits—aptitudes, skills, appearances—all to suit our wishes and needs. Along with favoring physical features—massive bones for hauling and pulling; long, sleek bodies to chase after prey; strong jaws and short legs to ferret out vermin—we’ve also bred for specific behaviors, often by intention but other times without a clue. Once essentially nonexistent among a number of popular breeds—Bernese mountain dogs, golden retrievers, and Labradors, to name a few—aggression is now more prevalent among the canine cases I see. Obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicts more dogs in certain breeds, causing Doberman pinschers to suck at their flanks, German shepherds to chase their tails, and miniature schnauzers to stare at their rears. At times we’ve been so focused on selecting dogs for certain traits that we’ve unwittingly let others slip by us, sometimes unnoticed for generations.
From man’s contrivance through the years, the traits we’ve chosen for each breed add a twist to how they express themselves. A boxer’s idea of wagging with glee—his full rump wiggling side to side—is different from that of an Irish setter, broadly sweeping her feathered tail. A Sheltie eager to go outdoors spins in circles and barks in fits; beside her a Newfoundland licks his lips, pants, and soaks his bib with drool, while gazing longingly out the door. No wonder they look at each other befuddled and end up misreading the other’s cues. Comparably, wolves have it easy.
Wolves live in packs, but dogs do not. Even in groups of feral dogs, what keeps them together is different from wolves. Among those dogs without a home, living by their own devices in cities or the countryside, they band together to defend by numbers—to protect their food and territory from other dogs, wild canids, and scavengers of other species. But without abiding family ties, hunting, breeding, and caring for young are not supported by the group. They lack the cohesiveness found with wolves. Without the intimate bonds of the pack, how well they relate to each other suffers. Not sharing the depth of connection of wolves, they depend even more on how they use signals. And therein lies a challenge. Their differences in body shapes, aptitudes, and temperaments affect how they communicate—how well they move, their tone of voice, the ways they respond to one another. Some disparities are obvious, but many more are unobtrusive, even to a skilled observer.
With over five hundred breeds of dogs that have been contrived and bred by man, I find it truly remarkable that so many relate as well as they do in most conditions and situations. Without the structure of the pack, and often at the end of a leash, to be controlled at people’s whims, most dogs manage to signal each other and interact surprisingly well. Even when they are set free to roam at the park or in the country, they somehow seem to overlook or allow for all their differences. Yet, among all the files that line my shelves lie the exceptions in which they do not. Such is the substance of interdog conflict, human-directed aggression, and more.
Most dogs, such as Murray, express themselves quite capably, regardless of their body shape, character, or temperament. I’ve come to visit him this evening along with Kim and Michelle, his owners, to see how well he has improved at playing in the dog park. Three months ago, when I last saw them, Murray had lingered near the fence, refusing to look at other dogs, or closely clung to Kim and Michelle, eyeing them for any clue that they were ready to head back home. At barely twenty-four inches tall and weighing somewhere near seventy pounds, he’s roughly average in height and weight compared with the other dogs today, the smallest being a papillon and the largest a Scottish deerhound. Two other Labs—one chocolate, one black—pull at opposite ends of a stick, stubbornly growling and wagging their tails. Murray watches a few steps away, his buff-yellow coat highlighting his features: eyes squinted; eyebrows shifting; tail wagging haltingly; hackles smooth—raised—then smooth again. He studies the tug-of-war for stretches, but stops at moments to look away. Everything about his manner signals his ambivalence, a marked improvement from his earlier fear. Although he finds their play attractive, together his features convey his doubt. He hovers near, but he’s uncertain whether or not he’d like to join in, what to do, or how to do so, and he clearly expresses this.
A large dog—I can’t make out the breed … perhaps a terrier-mastiff cross—just off-leash rushes up to Murray. With the stranger standing a half foot taller, directly in front of him nose to nose, Murray understandably freezes. His eyes avoid the other’s stare. He raises his hackles and drops his tail, tucking it lower between his legs, unwagging except for a trace at the tip. The stranger steps forward now cheek to cheek and boldly sniffs at Murray’s ears. Standing several yards away, I still see Murray’s body tense. He crouches slightly, leans away, pulls his upper lip back in a grimace, and flashes his teeth in a nervous smile. Although the setting and actors differ, I think back to Neka deferring to Kaskae. All the while, the other Labs continued earnestly at their game, oblivious to—or ignoring—the stranger.
Murray chances a step away, and the larger dog shifts to sniffing his rear. In turn, Murray stands still as stone—head low, shoulders rigid, no trace of a waver in his tail. Only his eyebrows dare to move, first darting one way and then another. A nervous drool builds at his lips and begins to dribble down to his chin.
Instincts heightened to full alert, I turn to look for the stranger’s owner and see him frantically running our way shouting, “Kafka, no! Get over here. Now!”
A sudden yelp, deep bark, and growl jerk my attention back to the pair. The larger dog now towers over Murray, forepaws squarely on his back, sounding a menacing, guttural growl. In our rush to intervene, Kafka’s owner, Michelle, and I converge upon the pair as one. Kim arrives a moment behind us.
In an instant with stunning speed, the owner snatches Kafka’s collar and swiftly wrenches him off Murray with such proficiency I’m certain he has practiced this before. After a terse apology, with Kafka now solidly clipped to a leash, he hurriedly tugs his dog away, across the pen and out the park gate.
As I look Murray over for wounds, I hear Kafka’s owner scolding from a distance, “Listen to me! That’s it—we’re leaving. I’ve had enough of you today.”
Although I missed the instant when Kafka jumped on Murray’s back, it’s safe to say that Kafka’s response did not match up with Murray’s cues.
From watching Murray’s signals with Kafka as well as with the other dogs, I’m certain he clearly expressed his intentions. On that evening, as other days, Murray signaled his deference. In contrast, Kafka asserted himself to the point of ignoring Murray’s cues, possibly by choice or perhaps because he did not recognize them.
The manner in which puppies are raised, how and when they’re socialized, their experiences while growing up as well as when they are adults, their genetics, and their personalities (the essence that makes each dog unique) all factor into determining how dogs relate and respond to one another. The same can be said for all other species, humans as well as animals. How each of us relates to others is intrinsically based on who we are: our essential nature or character, experience, and disposition. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, how two different individuals, both in the very same situation, can respond in entirely different ways. Likewise, when we reach out to others, as we convey what we think and feel, who we are inherently affects how we express ourselves.
The very act of communicating depends upon two separate beings: a signaler, who sends a message, and a receiver, who perceives it. Setting aside the message itself, whenever we act as a signaler, what and how we communicate relies upon three crucial factors: how well we convey ourselves (what are we thinking, intending, and feeling); by what means we are sending our message (sight, sound, touch, smell, or perhaps some extrasensory means); and how the other perceives our message (how well they comprehend what we wish to convey to them).
Expressivity is a quality of being that reflects how well we convey our thoughts and feelings. Murray and Neka express themselves through an eloquent repertoire of signals—gestures, postures, facial expressions, manners of touch, vocalizations, and even secretions from glands in their skin. Mingled together to form a picture, these signals clearly portray to others what they are thinking, intending, and feeling. Though Kaskae responded in a way that made sense for the message received and Kafka did not, Neka and Murray both conveyed themselves expressively.
When humans communicate with others, most often we think of relying on words. As I sit now and write these pages, I often spend hours reflecting on words—which ones to use and how to arrange them so I can best be understood. Poets, playwrights, lyricists, authors all rely on written words to convey their message in place of signals. Yet, beyond the written page, words, of course, can be spoken and heard—shouted loudly, whined, shrieked, moaned, or whispered in confidence, softly into another’s ear—all with an array of intonations and inflections. Even as we talk together, informally and one to one, we often try to pick and choose the words we use to best portray our inner thoughts and feelings.
Through our human use of words, we distinguish ourselves from animals. Woven together in intricate ways, words represent a world of symbols, as meaningful to us as Murray’s signals are to him. But though our language—spoken and written—is inextricably part of us, it also can be our Achilles heel. The English poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson once wrote:
We focus so much on what we say, putting stock in our choice of words, that we often fail to pay attention to all the many other ways that we portray our inner world. Just like other animals, we convey what we feel by unspoken signals.
Our facial expressions; how we stand; which direction we look when we’re speaking—a glance away, a brief look downward—our eyes opened fully, squinting, or closed; the movements and gestures we make with our bodies—arms stretched wide, reaching out for a hug, or folded together across our chest—our depth of breath and the rate we are breathing; and even our secretion of pheromones, released and wafting through the air—all convey our feelings to others, whether noticed with awareness or registered without a thought.
Extensive research with human beings clearly notes and underscores how much of what we relate to others occurs outside of language and words. And while we often must sift through phrases in order to grasp what another intends, we pick up on nonverbal cues in an instant. Even when words disguise others’ feelings, we notice these signals instinctively. Yet, though the essence of this research is common knowledge in modern times, we continue to focus mostly on words when expressing ourselves in our day-to-day lives. We talk to family, friends, and strangers most of the time oblivious to, or at least ignoring heedlessly, all that our other signals reveal of us.
For all our emphasis on words and the beauty and detail that they can convey, in using them to express ourselves, we often fail to take the time to relate well what we are feeling. Particularly with written notes, scribbled hurriedly onto a page or hastily entered into a keyboard and sent by email with only a click, sometimes without a second thought, we offer little else to interpret except for the literal meaning of the words. Without our cues in intonation, expressions, gestures, or manners of touch, it’s easy to send a misleading message and easier yet to be misunderstood. Even watching people speaking in conversations one-on-one, far too often I see them talking on and on without a pause; their words say one thing, their bodies another, and all they want is to be understood.
In the frigid waters of the North Pacific, somewhere far offshore between the Aleutian Islands and California, a single whale swims by himself away from others of his kind. The course he travels differs from the migration routes of other whales, and it varies widely from year to year, mostly tracking a north-south axis but sometimes heading far out west, reaching toward the mid-Pacific. Other times his route seems aimless, a random series of lines on a map.
Although no human has ever seen him, scientists have tracked his movements for years through an extensive array of hydrophones first set up by the U.S. Navy to listen for Soviet submarines at the height of the Cold War. What sets this whale apart from others and allows his path to be traced at all is the distinctive stream of sounds he makes as he roams beneath the waves. Presumably, he’s a baleen whale (a filter feeder, lacking teeth) because of the nature of his calls.
Toothed whales (or Odontocetes)—such as porpoises, dolphins, and beluga whales—produce a range of high-frequency clicks that help them forage and navigate as well as to communicate. Baleen whales (or Mysticetes)—such as blue, fin, and humpback whales—in contrast, create low-frequency sounds, some below our human range of hearing, it’s believed for social reasons—courting, mating, caring for young, and connecting with others in the pod—but also, perhaps, for navigation.
Most of the baleen whales in these waters sing near 15 to 25 hertz, except for the well-known humpback whale, which reaches vastly higher notes. The song of this solo whale, however, hovers near roughly 52 hertz—in the low range of a contrabassoon or tuba—unlike that of any known whale. Although no one can even be certain, most scientists believe that he’s a male and his songs are his searching for a mate.
The researchers who’ve studied him most have suggested a number of theories for why this whale’s song is unique. Most likely he suffers a deformation, which probably happened before his birth, that affects the patterns and notes of his songs. It’s possible that he’s the first of his kind—the unique offspring of an unlikely mating of blue and fin or humpback whales. Or, although it’s considered unlikely, perhaps this whale is the last survivor of some long-lost cetacean species. Whatever the cause, he swims alone, wandering through the vastness of the ocean and singing songs that go unanswered.
Dubbed the “52 hertz whale,” he caught the attention of scientists after he was first identified and noted in an obscure report. Then, after being tracked for years with a research study devoted just to him, he captured the imagination of the greater public after Andrew Revkin wrote about him in the story “Song of the Sea, a Capella and Unanswered,” which was published in the New York Times. And through the years, from reports in papers, podcasts, blogs, and dinner conversations, he’s continued to touch people’s hearts and minds.
I believe it’s more than coincidence that a whale who cannot connect with others of his kind can so profoundly speak to us as humans. Though few of us have heard his calls, his message somehow reaches us. Among those who have heard his voice, none can begin to fathom the meaning of the moans, clicks, purrs, and trills of his songs. Of course, we lack a whale’s perspective: his underwater view of the world, shaded in hues of green and blue fading deeper into the darkness; the otherworldly landscape of oceanic rifts, canyons, and plateaus; the array of creatures swimming beside him and the spectrum of sounds that they create, surging for miles beneath the waves, enveloping him and passing on. But beyond their foreign land and language, whales relate with a different awareness than we do as human beings.
The animals right within our grasp—the dogs and cats in our own homes, the foxes and deer that roam around us, the wolves and elephants at the zoo—can speak to us as effectively as one lonesome, singing whale endlessly searching for another with whom he can communicate. Instead of running on automatic, relying on words to convey to others everything we think and feel, the animals right by our side can remind us of the other ways we can express ourselves—and, truth be told, already do. But first we must be willing to notice, take stock, and be accountable for all the messages we relate, spoken and unspoken.
Our ability to express ourselves—to be seen, heard, and understood; to connect with others, as we long to do—depends upon us fully claiming all the ways we communicate. As we accept how we convey our thoughts and feelings beyond words we use—through the tone, pitch, and pace of our voice as we speak; our postures, gestures, and facial expressions; the ways we look into another’s eyes (or don’t)—we more fully relate to those in our lives. And as we communicate with clear intention, while being mindful and sensitive, we more fully embrace our human nature.