I was born as an animal. As a mammal, I was in mother‘s brook nine months and two weeks. It was a laborious birth, so I have no memory of it. In my first weeks I was incubated, fat and hungry. My mother suffered from my thirst. I spent the first three years of my life in my parents‘ house. They tried to show me how to behave. They call this process education. A continuation of domestication. Institutions were developed to transfer this education from parents to establishments. The idea is to bring everyone up to the same level of knowledge, morality and behavior.

 

I refused to obey, I crawled under tables and behind the sofa and as a protest against my educators I peed on the living room carpet. Disobedience was punished with degradation, withdrawal of love and ignoring my existence. I have a brother, a human-animal, who broke these punishments by caressing me and putting a bowl of milk under the table as consolation. The most important thing I learned in the reformatories is how to interact with other animals. Play- ing was always easy. I caused amusement among the others. They chased me around the playground, stroked me and sang songs about me. But what they and I liked most was taking a walk on a lead. In contrast to my mother, who was so ashamed to lead me through the neighbourhood. She was also uncomfortable that I loved the food under the table so much. She would have preferred to see me at a solid place to eat, which corresponds to the human-animal. That would not have had to ll her with shame when we visited someone outside the house.

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When being a child was slowly coming to an end, they did not begin to accept my being-a-dog anymore. They decided to make me human. It started with language. I had to learn to express myself differently than by looks and gestures. I had to form my sounds into words. The social order should be kept. The human being is able to speak. By this he defines his identity and writes his own history and culture. This story says that human beings are aware that they are animals, yet they do not define themselves as such because they have ability of language. They define themselves as speaking creatures that live in a binary system.
In a system in which some of them take the right to deny others their humanity, I later decided to become a dog again.

 

 

 

 

(Story of a dog socialized as a woman)