The Kindness of Mice

Ohio, 1988. We had to drag Buck out from under the deck for this family snapshot. Can you tell he's not really into it?

​Right after we married, Rich and I moved to Ohio, bought an old stone house, and adopted Buck. He was a fine figure of a dog but (and I say this lovingly) not an intellectual giant. He was perpetually baffled by half-open doors, never realizing he could push one all the way open with his nose and walk through. Everything terrified him: loud noises, people he didn’t know, people he did know, his food bowl, and mice, to name but a few. His favorite activity was cowering under our back deck.
 
Occasionally we would drive him into the nearby village of Chagrin Falls to stroll through the park by the river in a vain attempt to interest him in the world. He would shuffle morosely along, looking like he was on his way to the gallows, until we gave up and took him home.
 
And then, one snowy winter day in the park, he spotted ducks landing on the river’s frozen surface. A hitherto unsuspected killer instinct kicked in. He tore his leash free from human hands and galloped across the ice toward his prey. Unfortunately, there had been some thawing, so ten yards out the ice crumbled beneath him. As the ducks flapped slowly away (I swear they were snickering), Buck dropped like a stone into the freezing water, just above the falls.

Chagrin Falls in winter. Photo: David Petkiewicz

Rich dashed into the nearby hardware store shouting, “Dog through the ice. I need a rope!” The owner flung him one. Rich raced back, tied the rope around his waist, handed me the end, and crawled forward on his belly like a reptile to distribute his weight across the fragile surface.

​Buck was pawing at the crumbling ice, his wild-eyed look clearly saying, “See? The world really is a terrible, horrible place!” Slowly Rich inched across the frozen surface, grabbed hold, and hauled Buck out of the water to safety.
 
And it did not lessen the heroism of that moment one iota when we learned that the river was less than two feet deep in  that section, and Rich could have easily kicked through the ice and waded to the rescue. But then, I wouldn’t be re-telling this story decades later, would I?

"Well, I think you're wonderful!"

​​Afterwards, while Buck wallowed in PTSD, Rich basked in the satisfied glow that accompanies acts of kindness. In these cynical times, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the survival of sentient beings over the last four billion years is largely due to cooperation, the simple act of lending a helping hand — or paw — when it is needed most.
 
Scientists and philosophers once defined altruism as uniquely human, but they’ve had to eat their words as experiment after experiment has demonstrated the surprising amount of selflessness in the animal kingdom.
 
Classic trials with rats show they’ll work to free a trapped companion and refrain from pressing a bar to get food for themselves it if means one of their own will get an electric shock.
​

A mouse petforms a kind of rodent CPR on a friend.

A recent University of Southern California report “shows that mice tend to help other mice they know are unconscious. Their response ranges from gentle sniffing and grooming to more forceful actions such as mouth or tongue biting, before finally escalating to pulling the tongue out of the unconscious mouse.” (I'm hoping this means extending the tongue past the lips, not ripping it out altogether.)

​The study’s author, Wenjian Sun, commented, “The behavior was especially unique due to its similarity to how humans behave in emergency responses.” (OK, yes, whew! I think that means the tongue thing is what I said.)
 
“A pawsitively endearing behavioral study on dogs,” reported Huffington Post, “has discovered our four-legged friends exhibit human-like levels of empathy and giving toward each other — but with special preference for ones they know.” In the experiment, dogs literally pulled strings to obtain treats for their friends.

Doggone good behavior from donor on the right, who tugged the cord to give his friend a treat. Photo: University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna

​“Chimpanzees,” noted Live Science, “have now shown they can help strangers at personal cost without apparent expectation of personal gain, a level of selfless behavior often claimed as unique to humans.”
 
Are humans really selfless? Not all the time, obviously. But we sometimes manage to rise to the occasion with breathtaking acts of compassionate courage. Take the evacuation of Dunkirk, for example.
 
For younger readers, this was early in WWII, when the Nazis overwhelmed the Allied Forces and trapped them on the northern tip of France with their backs to the sea. Their only hope for survival was evacuation, but the beaches were too shallow for ships, the harbor was heavily mined, and the Luftwaffe kept circling overhead, strafing and shelling.
 
A call went out, and 850 British volunteers set forth in their own small boats — skiffs, fishing trawlers, pleasure yachts, lifeboats, barges — anything that could stay afloat long enough to get those soldiers off the beach. The organizers prayed they could save 40,000 men. They rescued 338,226.

A flotilla of "Little Ships" rescued soldiers trapped on the beach at Dunkirk.

It took nine days to get them off the beaches.

It seems to me that we are in a Dunkirk moment right now. Our world feels more chaotic and dangerous than ever before in my lifetime. The ultimate outcome is far from certain. Many of us are afraid.
 
And I ask myself, if they were in my shoes, what would all those altruistic mice, dogs, and chimpanzees do?
 
They would look after each other.

Lowland gorillas Jamila and Suwedi comfort each other in a German zoo. Photo: Roland Weihrauch/DPA/AFP via Getty Images

I’m proud to say many humans are stepping up to meet the animal kingdom’s standard of compassion. In the two weeks I’ve been back in California, I’ve been impressed and inspired by all the ways, large and small, my friends and neighbors are helping those around them.

​Their acts of kindness recall the seven Corporal Works of Mercy I was taught in my Catholic schooldays: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, tending the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead. 
 
OK, I’m leaving that last one to the professionals, but the others are as important today as they were in Biblical times. Not to second-guess Divine Wisdom, but I would add more stuff, like helping newcomers, the illiterate, and the technologically challenged. However you define them, works of mercy and compassion matter in this world. And if the nuns were right, in the next as well.

 
​As my regular readers know, I spent the last six months in Seville answering questions from anxious friends about how to escape the US and move abroad if necessary. Now that I’m back in California, I want to explore how folks in America are finding ways to stand firm, build connections, and watch out for one another. Like that ragtag flotilla of little boats heading to Dunkirk, we must endeavor to save as many as we can.
 
And who knows? Maybe our small acts of kindness will add up to something that changes the course of history. I’m still debating what to call my new theme — Dunkirk Moments? Ordinary Heroes? The Kindness of Mice? Whatever I settle on, the posts I write this spring and summer will highlight compassion in action, reminding us that the world isn't always, as Buck thought, a terrible, horrible place. Somehow, in spite of everything, life still offers hope, love, laughter, and on a good day, evidence that humans can be as decent as mice.

THE KINDNESS OF MICE 
This is the first in a series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other when we need it most. Know someone you think should be featured? Let me know in the comments below.

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