Friends: Humans can do something animals could never imagine doing ...

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Labels: humanity, G.K. Chesterton, nature, Orthodoxy, our dog Kramer, wild animals

Spirituality Column #1034

September 8, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Imagine That

By Bob Walters

“Man is the only truly wild animal.” – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Our little dog Kramer – marking his 16^th birthday last week as a slightly pudgy, aging Bichon Friese that’s blind and deaf but otherwise healthy, hungry, continent, and in seemingly good spirits – has exhibited some surprising talents in his life.

Now a 20-pound white fluffball, we got him as a puppy from a very nice kennel – Tea Pups – in northern Indiana near Lake Wawasee. We had first pick in the litter, and he chose Pam and me as much as we chose him. He had a big head and was sitting on top of the other male pups. I picked him up and he licked my face, then went for Pam’s.

The previous 15 years Pam had a Bichon named Kramer, who died in the spring of 2010. In November that year, figuring she’d never reset her brain for a Bichon with a different name, we dubbed our new 10-week-old puppy, “Kramer Too Walters.”

He has been a great dog.  If he wandered, he found his way home. Like most dogs he barks when it is meal time and stands by the door when it is time to go out. He has never shown fear of fireworks or thunder. He loved splashing in the lake up north and riding around town with his head out the window … on days that are now past.

As a young dog Kramer developed a uniquely creative trick and we could never understand how he came up with it. We were living in an apartment with a carport requiring a walk across the complex’s main drive. Kramer just naturally “heeled” – we don’t know why – so we typically didn’t leash him at home. Then one day as we all exited the car headed toward our apartment, Kramer sat down by the rear bumper.

We didn’t notice his absence until we traversed the dozen or so paces to the main drive. When we checked to make sure he was with us and safe, we looked back and saw him sitting – his head slightly cocked forward, intently peering at us – waiting.

Waiting for what? Waiting for one of us to signal, “Come!” From then on, he’d wait by the car until we checked traffic and signaled, then come tearing across the drive to our door like it was a game. He had trained us. How? We’ll never know. Smart dog.

But was he creative?  I think most likely not. Animals recognize patterns and places, sense danger, are drawn to those they “trust,” seek food and shelter, and somewhere in that equation Kramer mimicked what to us looked like intelligence.

But to Chesterton’s point that man is the only “truly wild animal,” what Kramer can’t do, and no animal can do, is to go against its nature. They can be trained to mimic intelligence or observed behaviors, but their natures are set by creation, i.e., by God.

That is where, Chesterton observes, man is wildly different. Created in the image of God, man can do creative, intellectual, philosophical, and charitable – or horrible – things. That is the spark of freedom and creativity God placed in no other animal.

Survival instincts? All living things have those. Man is the only creature that can disrupt his own survival instincts. We have an imagination, gifted by God, to do good or evil. You can’t blame an alligator that eats, say, Kramer, and call it evil. It’s an alligator obeying its natural, uh, nature. It is instinct: not creativity, not hostility, not morality.

I heard someone say last week that man (i.e. humans) cannot create anything because God is the creator of everything. I get the sentiment, but not the practical reality.  I’m on the side that understands why smart dolphins don’t build hospitals, and why God-given human talents and aspirations can imagine, and do, great things or terrible things.

Of course humans can create – or destroy – at will. And I notice, so can God.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes man’s first job was to create names for animals (Genesis 2:19).