Exceptional canine loyalty
Balto was a remarkable sled dog who led a relay from Nenana, to reach the vital antitoxin against diphtheria, to the people of Nome. Nome is 539 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, on the Seward Peninsula along the Bering Sea. This relay of life-saving drugs by sled dogs became imperative because the only plane that could fly the drugs was incapacitated with its engine frozen. The journey was an extreme obstacle course, in the winter of 1925, through stretches of dangerous landscape and incessant blizzards.
But the dog and his handler (a Norwegian named Gunnar Kaasen) advanced steadily (at a temperature that reached the cruel -23 degrees F), in the company of several other mushers and sled dogs and completed the mission successfully. That was an effort in which the dogs served their masters with unwavering loyalty. On the main road leading north from the Tisch Children’s Zoo, New York is the statue of this special dog. The plaque below reads: “Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs who carried the antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, through treacherous waters, through arctic blizzards, from Nenana to the relief of Nome in the winter of 1925. Resistance, fidelity, Intelligence “.
Hachiko, an Akita, belonged to Hidesamuro Ueno. teacher in Tokyo. Every day, Hachiko would stand by the door and watch his teacher go to work. In the afternoon, at 4 pm, he would jog to Shibuya station to welcome his teacher back home. One day in 1925, Hidesamuro Ueno succumbed to a fatal stroke at his workplace. Hachiko waited for his master at 4 that day and every day after that for the next 10 years! He was a familiar and endearing figure at the station waiting in vain for his beloved master!
Although he was fed and cared for by the people who knew him at the station, his loyalty to his master was absolute as he waited day after day until 1935, when he breathed his last. In memory of this exceptionally loyal dog there is a statue at Shibuya Station! I’m sure most of you are familiar with these two stories. I never get bored reading about these wonderful dogs over and over again … and every time I wonder what it is that makes a dog, compared to other animals, so loyal. Dogs, even before they were domesticated, had a habit of living and moving in packs.
They hunt, eat and sleep in groups. Being alone has never been in the nature of a dog. They also recognize and accept a group leader, the alpha dog, and obey and follow him. Furthermore, with centuries of breeding and domestication, their hunting and wandering instincts have been reduced to an optimum level that can serve man well, without being a threat. When you first adopt a puppy, your family and friends play with it, pet it, and love to care for it. You recognize a group by the herd mentality instilled in it. Apparently, I would like to be part of this group. You will be up to the group, love them, and stay with them, following the accepted leader – you. This is why obeying love and being loyal comes naturally to a dog!
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