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" When I was very young, my nanny was a big Newfoundland dog... whose task was to keep me from drowning. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Task
Young
Big
Related Quotes:
" As far as I'm concerned, I own my dogs as I own my body. My legs are with me when I take a shower, and I feel no shame. If I were to lose one, I'd grieve, and people would send sympathy cards, but it would be my condition that evoked the sympathy, not the fate of the leg. That's like losing a dog. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Sympathy
People
Me
" Hundreds of species are facing extinction due to human impacts on the environment. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Human
Extinction
Environment
" Not even a maggot is an it, and to refer to any animal in that manner is an affectation, an ignorant stab at science-speak. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Ignorant
Even
Refer
" With all due respect to the nation's fish and game departments, more deer die because people hunt them than because people feed them. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Respect
Nation
Game
" Cats and dogs are a very good window into the natural world: a chance to see how another species lives and deals with its problems, what they like and what they don't like. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Window
Cats
See
" The dogs and I are a single thing, and thus we share our interests. With them, I'm bigger and better than I am without them, and vice versa. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Dogs
Without
Better
" When I write about animals, I use anthropological techniques and the language you would use for a person. You don't have to anthropomorphize animals, just acknowledge their individuality. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
You
Animals
Language
" The story of cats is a story of meat. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Cats
Meat
Story
" We fill the woods with invasive primates camouflaged to look like piles of leaves who sneak around, sprinkling estrus doe urine and manipulating gadgets that sound like antlers clashing. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Look
Woods
Gadgets
" If you don't have manufactured items or anything we think of as 'civilization,' then you're living according to your species. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Civilization
You
Your
" We are surely the primary agent of death for all members of the cat tribe. For many if not most cat species, our depredations must surpass accidents, disease, and even starvation by a considerable margin. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Accidents
Death
Cat
" No other creatures of the savannah sleep as deeply or as soundly as lions, but after all, lions are the main reason for not sleeping soundly. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Sleep
Sleeping
Savannah
" Primates feel pure, flat immobility as boredom. But dogs feel it as peace. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Pure
Boredom
Dogs
" You have to be able to love members of your own species before you can branch out and apply that to other species. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Love
Before
Your
" One of the best and most responsible things a scientist can do is to write for the popular press. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Responsible
Things
Best
" Dogs who live in each other's company are calm and pragmatic, never showing the desperate need to make known their needs and feelings or to communicate their observations, as some hysterical dogs who know only the company of our species are likely to do. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Never
Calm
Need
" We used to go in the woods by ourselves, and you can't help noticing the world then, especially animals. People used to know a lot about the natural world, especially in the country. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
You
Animals
Help
" Many expressions of a cat's feelings seem deeply related to the capture of live prey. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Feelings
Capture
Cat
" Every day, the humane societies execute thousands of dogs who tried all their lives to do their very best by their owners. These dogs are killed not because they are bad but because they are inconvenient. So as we need God more than he needs us, dogs need us more than we need them, and they know it. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Bad
Every Day
Day
" Every dog might wish to be Dog One, but like us, most dogs want membership in the group even more than they want supremacy over others. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Dogs
Dog
Group
" In my cosmology, indigenous wild deer are more important than exotic ornamental shrubs. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
More
Important
Deer
" This was what you did in the '50s: You get married, get a job, put your husband through graduate school, and have two kids - a girl and a boy. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Husband
Boy
You
" Dogs like to learn stuff, if not from another dog, then people are OK... They love activity, playing, interesting walks, and just belonging, being together. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Together
People
Love
" People acquire a dog, don't understand it, can't train it, get fed up, and... offer it for adoption, hoping to pass on the problem to somebody else. But nobody wants a problem dog. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Train
Up
Dog
" We may never find a way to live in suburbia with deer as we do with raccoons, say, or squirrels. So for this reason, it's very important that we make sure always to save enough wild or open land so that they can live in their normal manner. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Wild
Find
Enough
" When we became sedentary, lived indoors, and started to raise livestock, we began to see wolves not as occasional fur-bearers or fellow hunters but as robbers. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Lived
See
Wolves
" You can look at your dog and see that it's thinking and has strong feelings. And if it does, so do wolves. And if wolves do, so do elephants. People aren't the only beings that think and feel. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Thinking
Think
Strong
" Barring some competition from whales, wolves are probably America's most popular wild animal. Wolves are also contenders for America's most unpopular wild animal, with perhaps some competition from coyotes. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Wolves
Competition
Animal
" Animals need to understand other species, if only to prey on them or escape from them. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Escape
Understand
Prey
" People didn't think animals thought or remembered or had minds! They most certainly do: any pet owner knows more than a lot of scientists about animals. "
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Animals
Thought
Think