After reading my columns on human body parts, you may be asking yourself how a hairless creature with no tail, a nose that can barely smell dinner, ears that can hardly alert them to another human at the door, feet so tender they have to cover them to step outside, eyes that can barely see in the dark—how, you ask yourself, can such a creature have even survived, let alone risen to the top of the animal kingdom? Why didn’t they become someone’s lunch a long time ago?

In a word: thumbs. Somehow, by some random twist of fate, these two-legged, hairless apes have grown thumbs—and that has made all the difference. They use their thumbs to build our crates, fasten our collars, open doors, pick up sticks, deliver our food and take us to the vet. Thumbs make humans, well, human. I think that’s why Rex, my buddy down the street, calls them “thumbs.” “Oh, there goes a bunch of thumbs,” he might say. Or, “You suppose that thumb will throw a stick for me?” Or, “Guess what my thumbs have done now!”

A whole lot of their brain power must be devoted to their thumbs, because it sure isn’t dedicated to catching a scent or hearing a noise. No, I think humans have paid a big price for those thumbs. On the other hand, they do make life easy for us. Without them we’d be sleeping with the wolves instead of on their comfy beds, we’d have to forage for food and, worst of all, we’d have no one to throw a stick for us.

Chow,

Baxter

Thought for the month: Love your humans—love their thumbs!