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Okay, the background story...

This past week I have been hiking up in the mountains with my dad and brother. And by hiking I don't mean day-trips with one or two nights in a tent, I mean a five-day, 60-mile hike in, around, and over various mountains in the Canadian Rockies, parts of which almost nobody ever goes.

While the scenery was gorgeous, needless to say there was an abysmal amount of mosquitos, at least in the wooded areas. As I sat in the tent killing the mosquitos who had, despite our best efforts to keep the tent door zipped at all times, managed to get in as we ourselves passed in and out of our shelter from mother nature, my rather gentle nature abandoned me in favor of a far more sadistic one. I sat there, just daring the little bloodsuckers to try and land on me so I could end their pathetic existance and watch their broken bodies spiral down...
And then the thought came to me; Am I being prejudgmental? Why do I assume that all mosquitoes will act a certain way? In the past humans have mistakenly assumed that other humans of a certain color or creed would all act a certain way or were all undeniably flawed, just because of what they were. While I am aware mosquitoes are far from human, this sort of brings us back to the What-separates-us-from-the-animals debate. Animals such as dogs, cats, horses, etc, I would never fully judge their personalities upon their species, becasue each being has a different soul (or at least a different personality for those who think they don't have souls...)

So where does the difference come in? Where do animal's behavior become so entrenched we should automatically assume thir actions? How do we judge and where do we draw the line in where we should be judgmental? Should we ever be judgemental at all, and assume the best until proven otherwise, even when events in the past have shown us this may not be the best course of action (i.e. should I give every mosquito a chance until it bites me, even though all the other mosquitoes have bitten me when given the oppertunity? And then, since it has already bitten me, should I let it get away so it can feed its children?)

Or was this whole idea just brought on by my mental breakdown from anti-mosquito delirium? sweatdrop (I am not kidding, I was dreaming about mosquitoes for two of the nights we were out there...)

Pitbulls. And yes.

The dogs example is good, but only so far as you understand why. They are as we see them because that is what we've turned them into. So, in a manner, it's still the unintelligence of people that created this issue. Kind of a double whammy on us.

A) Well, only if you really want to
B) Yes

But we can't blame everything on human stupidity. Yes, most things, and I agree, I love to attribute most everything that is unpleasant to our own ignorance or folly, but somethings really aren't because of human idiocy. Take the example of our Mosquitos. They have a natural bloodlust to survive, humans didn't create that. We did create our view of them as bloosuckers, but is that not justified by the fact that they, well, suck blood? Everything isn't humanity's fault, just most everything. xd

As for pit bulls, I love them. My 87 year old grandmother had a pitbull until we had to move her into a foster care facility after her second stroke. They're very sweet dogs if you treat them well. Same with Rottweilers (sp?) and Dobermans. It's all in the way they're raised. It always makes me sad that so called "dangerous" breeds have little to no chance of being adopted when they're rescued off the street or end up in the pound, so they are almost always euthanized.

And Poodles used to be hunting dogs. The funny hair cut has something to do with helping them swim or stay afloat. Creates a funny picture in my head at least.