Published: July 16, 2009 08:21 pm      

They call it a pecking order for good reason

References are often made to “the pecking order,” and I sometimes wonder how many people have seen it in action and realize it why we call it that.

Judging from things I’ve witnessed or heard about, plenty of folks are either ignorant of it or don’t believe it applies to them.

People frequently assume they have things coming to them that they’re really not entitled to, or that they can take liberties that are denied to other people. This can include disgraced Congressmen and governors or somebody who’s merely a visitor to your home or business.

When confronted with the truth, such folks generally don’t understand why things are not theirs for the taking and may react in spectacular fashion. This can be amusing to watch — as long as you’re not caught in the fallout from it, which I sometimes have been.

Animals don’t have this problem. It usually takes them only one misstep to learn where they fall in “the pecking order.”

The late Boomer, senior among The Dog Shouter’s four dogs, offered an example of how this works.

Boomer was a huge English Springer Spaniel who was 15 years old when I met him. The old boy still had considerable vigor, but conserved it and used it only when necessary. He had little trouble running downhill to the fence to confront trespassers, but he always walked back uphill — a concept I have come to appreciate even more with each passing year.

Dogs own us, rather than the reverse, and The Dog Shouter was Boomer’s property. He tolerated Hadley, Doobie and Lady in their associations with her, but now and then he reminded them who held the title and registration.

At such times, he curled up at her feet in front of her chair and napped, but when one of the other dogs approached, he simply lifted his head, squinted ominously at the offender and growled so softly that I could barely hear him from less than 10 feet away.

It reminded me of Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti western, when he told the Baxter thugs that his mule didn’t appreciate their laughing at him, and they ought to apologize.

“My mistake,” Clint told the undertaker on his way back to the saloon, “four coffins.”

Pecking orders are subject to reshuffling, however, and that’s what Doobie accomplished. Also a Springer, she was the smallest of the dogs (and when I sat down, she often deposited herself between my feet — as if to tell the others, “I rode home from the breeder’s on this one’s lap, and he’s mine.”)

When The Dog Shouter finished a jar of peanut butter, she turned it over to one of the dogs. Dogs have a keen sense of fair play, so this was done in a well-ordered rotation that they seemed to be aware of.

You know how hard it is to get the last bit of peanut butter out of a jar? It’s absolutely fascinating to watch how efficiently a dog does it. (A friend of mine used to amuse himself and me by putting a dab of peanut butter on the tip of his dog’s nose. When his wife admonished him for this, he told her, “Look at him! You think he’s not enjoying this as much as we are?”)

Doobie was awarded the peanut butter jar one day and was making short work of it when Boomer tried to shoulder his way in.

She snarled like an animal three times her size and bit Boomer squarely on his nose, and he yiped like an animal one-third his size. Thereafter, neither he nor anyone else questioned Doobie’s right to a peanut butter jar.

My mom showed me how pecking orders work when I was a youngster. Each morning, she walked out onto the back porch with a few slices of bread that she tore into chunks and tossed out into the yard for the birds. A sizable flock would be waiting in the trees waiting, and they descended en masse onto their breakfast.

When I voiced my concerns that some birds might go hungry during what seemed to be a disorganized melee, she told me, “Don’t worry. They have a pecking order, and they’ll all get something to eat.”

Recently, someone put out several slices of bread in the parklet behind the newspaper, and a dozen or so birds of various sizes were feasting on them ... or trying to.

Each of the larger birds appropriated a slice for himself, but there was more than enough to go around, and the smaller birds were going in twos and threes after what was left. Some birds — obviously the lowest members of the pecking order — bounced around from slice to slice, looking for an opening. They darted in and bit off a chunk when they could, then fluttered several feet away to eat it in peace before coming back to try it again.

One small chickadee hopped up to a piece of bread that had been commandeered by an enormous blackbird who was standing squarely in its middle, eating a circle around himself.

After the little one made it to within an inch or so of the crust, the blackbird stopped eating and just stared at him — letting him know, much the way Boomer once did with his associates — that he had found the absolute edge of the envelope and would be ill-advised to push it any farther.

Four smaller birds formed an alliance and stationed themselves, one to a side, around a piece of bread that had fallen at some distance from the rest. They were eating to their hearts’ content, and nobody — neither the big birds nor the smaller ones — tried to interfere.

Whether the others simply were intimidated by the idea of being outnumbered, or if they realized that here was a plan that worked and should be left alone, I have no idea.

Either way, my money is on those four to survive the coming winter and come back next spring with broods of little ones who are just a little bit sharper than their ancestors.

Others will succumb due to their inability to compete, cooperate or fend for themselves, or because of some other inadequacy, but the flock will be stronger.

There should be a couple of lessons in what we’ve talked about today. I’ll leave it to you to decide what they are.