It is the lot of the female, for the most part, to bear the greatest burden in caring for young. And instinct insures that the female is especially suited to this. To watch the young with a jealous eye. To watch the environment with a cautious eye. To eye the jealous with a vicious mind. To keep the young together. To teach them the ways of the particular species. To feed the young. To teach the young to feed.
The list of the duties of motherhood is long. And, for the most part, the rewards are purely hormonal (aside from the reward of passing on genes which I'm not getting into here.)
I've sat here and watched this little mother caring for her babes and at the same time watching another bigger mother going through paroxysms of her own in response to the little mother's brood.
Instinct.
The little mother has never given birth before. This is her first time. Imagine what it must be like to be an animal and pregnant for the first time. Instinct and hormones promote behavior but they cannot promote understanding. Six little puppies were wriggling around inside of her. Fighting for space. Imagine what she must have thought was happening. Parasites? Worms? Of course, she most likely never even considered the matter with that degree of understanding (although she had worms as a puppy and might equate the sensations as something similar. I.e. something inside moving around.)
The hormones made her feel good about the situation. Made her not worry. Made her unconcerned (I should think). She didn't seek to understand her condition. The hormones were enough.
(I understand that dogs don't seek understanding of things. I am unable to prevent a touch of anthropomorphism here.)
The day of the birth she woke up acting strange. We had prepared a kennel for her. Nice and dark. Plenty of padding to round off the corners. She spent the day in there. Normally she is whining for release but on the day of birth she knew that was where she needed to be. She would go through cycles. In the kennel for a bit. Then out of the kennel for a while. I imagine it was a consequence of the coming and going of uterine contractions.
But she knew.
Instinct.
And finally. At the end of the day. When the birth pangs began in earnest. She knew just what to do. She showed no surprise that these little gooey sacks of wriggling vermin were excreting themselves from her contracting uterus. She didn't pause to consider the oddity of the situation. She merely bent down and ate the placentas off of them. One by one. And cleaned them of the amniotic fluid. And chewed off the umbilical cords. All in accordance with the will of nature.
Instinct.
And now. She lays there. Teats full of milk and nourishment for these strange gifts she has been given and she guards them. The other dogs come close and she guards them jealously. The children come near, the same. Only with the adults that she has come to trust does she allow them to draw near to her precious little things. But, even then she cannot withhold that surge of jealousy when one of us reaches for her babies. She hunkers in and sniffs and licks. Puts her legs over them. Inspects us closely making sure we haven't surreptitiously abscounded with one of her wriggling brood.
Instinct.
She can't count. And I wonder if she can be sure that they are all there? Does she suspect that perhaps some have been taken? She was taken to the vet for a checkup and she was angered by the casual treatment this stranger treated her young with. Her little things. Does she, in her secret heart, suspect that there has been a theft? Does she wonder?
I wonder.
Instinct.
Strange and wonderful instinct.
And the big mother, you ask?
Ah. Thought you never would.
My sister-in-law. With a brood of her own.
Not only her own brood, but at the moment she's fostering two children from another family because their mother was unworthy of children. Unwilling to care for them as they must be cared for.
This big mother is full of the mothering instinct and she is willing where the other is not.
(And yet, remember the jealousy. Imagine the jealousy of the deprived mother of this usurper who has her little ones? And imagine the contempt (reversed jealousy) of the big mother towards the other mother. Ah. Motherhood. Lovely, isn't it?)
Now. I mention the big mother here for a specific reason. Because as I've been observing the little mother, so too have I been observing the big. Just days ago, she laid out such care onto her foster children. Little baby waking up in the night crying and loving mother awakes to care for baby. So sweet. Lovely. Innocent?
But now. With these new babes. Babes of another. What has happened to that care for these foster children? It still exists, certainly, but diminished. Last night when the baby cried, she came out and was not very nice at all with it. No, cooing or kissing. Just. "Shutup." "What are you crying for?" "Go to sleep." Flat. Almost unemotional.
And. Guess who she checked on first?
Guess?
You can guess.
So. I'm curious as to the fickle nature of instinct.
The problem with this observation is a simple one.
The two broods are broods of other.
It'd be far more telling if the child that she was treating more casually with the advent of the new brood was her own.
Perhaps I'm witnessing a shifting of a secondary instinct. Could there be a difference in instinct directed towards one own true offspring and the offspring of other?
And as to the jealousy. Little mother does show jealousy towards humans but devotes the brunt of her aggression towards her own species. Significant?
One final thought. What of males? What part do they play? I have no males to observe. Not of the same species as little mother, anyway. That male is off somewhere else unconcerned with the result of his breeding.
And the males of my own species? They're all coo-coo for puppies but practically indifferent to foster children.
Just last night the big mother was talking about the deprived mother. Talking about how three of her children were already 'adopted' (their father now has full custody) and the tone of her voice was pure smug. My brother then takes part in the conversation saying that by the fact that the deprived mother isn't in jail that means that she is at least on the right track and that he wants her to have her children back.
At this point, the big mother looked a bit chagrined and agreed. But, she did so half-heartedly. She would kill the deprived one if she had to.
Motherhood.
Maternal instinct.
Fickleness.
Jealousy.
The body is a strange thing.
Edit:
An added thought.
The puppies are valuable. A minimum of 600 dollars each. So this likely adds to the incentive of the big mother. But nothing to the little mother. Heh.
Also. This is in the wrong forum. Isn't it? SHould be in behavioral science. Sorry bout that. Not used to the subdivisions in here.