Dogs are the first animal that humans have successfully domesticated, with a history of at least 15,000 years. In the tens of thousands of years of living with humans, dogs assisted humans in hunting in the early days, and later their identities changed to helping people guard the house. To this day, dogs are still the most numerous pets raised by humans, providing companionship and spiritual comfort to many people. Therefore, from the appearance of dogs to the present, they have been “helping” people.
It is precisely because of this that among all domestic animals, dogs have become the animals that have been raised for the longest time. Generally speaking, except for those who raise dogs on a whim, most people can “send” dogs away. However, there is a saying in the countryside that “local dogs cannot be raised for ten years, otherwise they will become spirits.” What does this sentence mean? Is there any scientific reason? Let’s talk about this issue together.
First of all, it should be stated that animals becoming spirits is only fabricated in some stories in feudal society. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, animals have not “become spirits”. This is not because the times have changed, but because people’s cognition has improved. So, what is the matter with the old man’s saying that “the dog has become a spirit”? To clarify this question, let’s first look at the life span of dogs.
Among all domestic animals, the horse has the longest average life span, which is about 30 years old. The longest-lived horse known so far is a horse named “Billy” born in the UK. It was born in 1760 and died in 1822 at the age of 62.
Of course, the longest and average life span of a dog is shorter than that of a horse. According to the current available information, the world’s longest-lived dog is a sheepdog named Maggie from Australia. It was born in 1986 and died in 2016. It lived a total of 30 years. According to the growth rate and average age of dogs, 30-year-old Maggie is equivalent to more than 200 years old in human beings. In
addition to Maggie, among the known long-lived dogs, living to the age of 21 can rank tenth, because the average life span of dogs is mostly between 10-15 years old, so if it can reach 20 years old, it can be ranked among the longevity rankings.
The most common dog in China is undoubtedly the Chinese rural dog (local dog). In the dog world, the life span of rural dogs is slightly higher than that of other dogs, and the average can reach between 12 and 20 years old. It can be seen that dogs living for 10 years are still within their normal life span.
So why do some old people say that they will “become a spirit” if they are raised for ten years?
First of all, this is related to the relatively low probability that dogs can stay in a home for 10 years. Let’s take rural dogs as an example. Rural dogs were the most common, or even the only, dog breed in rural areas in the past. They basically stayed in a home for less than 10 years. This is because there are more rural dogs and their offspring output rate is relatively high, so neighbors often send puppies to each other, which leads to some adult dogs being neglected. Some families will sell their original big dogs to vendors after they have new puppies.
In addition, there were many “dog thieves” in rural areas in the past. They stole dogs to either eat them themselves or sell them to dog meat restaurants. Therefore, for various reasons, it is difficult for dogs to stay in a home for ten years. The reason why they are said to be “spiritual” after being raised for ten years is that they are rare.
Secondly, this sentence is actually about feelings. Here I would like to share with you a personal experience of mine. When I was a child, my family lived in the countryside and raised a pastoral dog. I named it “Da Huang”. This pastoral dog was sent to my home by my third uncle when I was 5 years old. At that time, Da Huang was still a little yellow and had just been weaned for a few days, so I had a new friend.
Da Huang and I can be said to have grown up together. When he was a child, he especially liked to follow me to the mountains to herd cattle. With Da Huang, I felt particularly at ease. In this way, Da Huang experienced the transition from an adobe house to a spacious brick house in my family. In a flash, I went to junior high school. At that time, I lived in the school dormitory and rode my bicycle home once a week. Every time I went home after evening self-study on Friday night, in the dark night, I could only hear the sound of the bicycle chain and my own heartbeat (I was so scared at the time, the more scared I was, the faster I rode).
However, every time I arrived at the head of the village, I was no longer afraid, because almost every Friday night, Da Huang would sit at the entrance of the village and wait for me to come back quietly.
In this way, after a few years, I went to high school and lived farther away from home. I only went home once a month. Every time I walked to the door of my house, Dahuang would jump around happily before he saw me (my mother said). When I walked to Dahuang, he would always put his two front legs on my shoulders and lick me with his tongue.
When I graduated from high school, Dahuang was already 13 years old. At this time, he still had a very high status among the dogs in our village, and there was no sign of aging at all. It was also in this year that an accident happened. On a winter night, our whole family had fallen asleep, but suddenly a shrill cry woke us up. I followed my father to the yard to check, and found that Dahuang had fallen to the ground, and the corners of his mouth were still bleeding. My father looked at a half-eaten steamed bun next to him and said solemnly: Someone poisoned the dog, there is no hope!
I remember that I cried heartbreakingly while holding Dahuang. After a sleepless night, I went to the woods east of the village with my mother the next day to find a vacant lot and buried it there. It was where I used to play with it. After that, my family would be sad when we mentioned Da Huang for a long time. Since then, our family has never raised a dog again. My mother said: If a dog dies after being raised for more than ten years, it is just like a family member passing away. People have feelings.
Indeed, in my opinion, what the old man said, “You can’t raise a local dog for ten years, otherwise it will become a spirit”, is true, because how can “not becoming a spirit” make people so sad?
In the end,
dogs are good helpers and friends of humans. Although it is normal for dogs to live for 10 years, in actual breeding, due to various reasons, few dogs can stay in a home for 10 years. Therefore, rarity should be one of the reasons why the old man said it “becomes a spirit”.
In addition to this reason, I think the deeper reason is that after 10 years of living together day and night, people have already regarded dogs as family members, so when they die, people will be very sad. This feeling may only be understood by those who have experienced it.
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