I love nature documentaries.

Although, I haven't seen one in quite a while now, but a fraction of my childhood memories revolve around sitting in front of the television, binging on Nat-Geo and Discovery. It was back then when neither of those science channels had kid-friendly variants, like the Discovery Kids! you have now.

It was entertaining, watching the unfiltered glory of nature.

One of my favorite segments has always been the predator-prey. There's a frisson of excitement, some sort of a thrill during those parts. Watching the big cat stalk the puppy-eyed deer through the greens, that always gave me goosebumps. There's a sense of anticipatory excitement during those segments.

This anticipation, and excitement was not because I wanted to watch the tiger shred its prey, but more so, to watch it fail.

I often rooted for the underdog - prey. The predators are often big, dangerous, and willing to kill in contrast to an animal which survives at expense of none. It was no competition. Anything with canines long enough, was the villain, and whatever it hunted was the hero.

During such segments, whenever the prey lived through the chase, I felt happy. It was easy enough for my child-brain to draw a parallel to the media I consumed during that time. A hero of any literature had to overcome great odds, in a situation where a misstep will result in their demise, or defeat, and this felt strangely analogous to the predator-prey dynamic.

I believe such is the same for most of the people. We develop a foundation of our morality through the literature we consume. The classic textbook hero dynamic is something abundant in children's literature. Of course, even in those literature, there's always justification for the villain's deeds, but at that point, I doubt there's enough braincells in any of us to think that through.

Children find it easy to label things as black and white. It is not their fault. Morality is something that develops over time, through experiences. Often, for children, morality is as hard as cement, barely cracking. When you begin to take this firm moral standpoint into adulthood, it turns into prejudice, and prejudices are the root of most of the evil we see around us. Stereotypes, racism, all of it is based on unfounded and assumed prejudices.

To make one's morality malleable, that is not something that happens in a day. One can read through a book on morality, yet not learn a word from it. I believe I am much more open-minded now, compared to the person who I was before, and that is through my own experiences.

My childhood hatred for the predators too, was nothing more than a prejudice.

Every animal does what it needs to survive, and none of it is their fault. All they are is a product of nature. These animals, they did not have a say when they were being made, did they? They do what they're programmed to do, and to hate them for something they have no control over, that is thinking constrained.

All they do, it is a part of who they are. Dogs fighting to protect their territory, lions killing infants of another male to prevent competition in the long run, or a nightingale baby pushing other eggs off the nest, all of this is nothing more than a part of their own programming.

What I call programming, is nothing more than what a certain species has done throughout ages to survive. In face of survival, I doubt morality has a place. I don't think a baby bird, with its eyes closed has any idea of what's right or wrong, all it does is push out the competition off the nest because that's all its species has been doing. It's like a fixed rule in that creature's brain, and that rule will always be followed, no matter what condition.

Yet even with such knowledge, humans continue to label some of these animals as evil, and I find myself doing this more often than I realize. I am guilty of the same crime I charge my fellow humans with.

I have a few dogs in my neighborhood whom I've fed for quite some time now. I remember their faces clearly, adorable little noses, and ears which perk up when they see me. I think they consider me a part of their group now. Five dogs in particular, I've been feeding them since they were babies, and I've seen them grow to healthy adults. I saved them on numerous occasions, held them when they were barely as big as my palm, I have grown attached to them.

They're just dogs, but sometimes, they do things which I can't really defend.

I've seen them chase people who are minding their own business, I've seen them hound a defenseless calf, although not biting, but certainly chasing it away in a group.

A couple of days ago, they almost tore up a dog from a different territory. It was violent, it was brutal, and I could not help but be angry. I did not recognize them anymore. All that anger, that was something I did not expect them to have.

People often talk of sometimes not recognizing the person in front of them, like a parent, looking at their child, barely able to recall anything they love about the person in front of them in the face of this new persona they've just witnessed. All of what I witnessed, and experienced, I suppose it is similar.

All of this, it made me angry. It wasn't an inexplicable anger, this anger made sense. I cannot stand violence, much less in an event that can certainly be resolved in peace. But, are these dogs capable of such reasoning?

Humans are intelligent. We are beings capable of thought, and therefore by extension, we are beings capable of choice. Can this be said for the dogs as well?

Over time, I've understood that morality isn't always black and white. There's a huge gray in between, and no matter the situation, there's a bit of both the blacks and the whites, and a bunch of gray. I've done questionable acts myself, like cheating in a test, or stealing from my mother's purse, but I could've easily justified them, but that doesn't make those actions any less bad. I always had a choice when I did such actions, as I am capable of reasoning, but for an animal who is only doing animal things, can you call them bad?

I wonder though, is it a good dog who's good at doing dog things, or would you call it a bad dog for doing dog things?

Funny how human morality fails when it comes to nature. We can't really project our own frameworks onto nature. The society we live in, is nothing more than a giant bubble in a much larger forest.

Yet, I suppose as a human, you would still be inclined to protect. If you saw a cat hunting a bird, I believe you would find your own body reacting in a way to save that bird, but are you not doing it at the expense of a different life? Maybe you saved one, but in turn, you starved another.

As a child, it used to plague my mind why the cameramen never did anything to save the prey, but yeah, it makes little sense now. To save one, at the expense of another, that isn't right, is it? Who are we to decide who gets to live, and who doesn't? As a human with the ability of choose, should we be putting our moral standpoints into practice wherever we see fit?

It's a strange dilemma.

Maybe, morality is subjective.

If I see my dogs hounding a dog they don't know, I will intervene to save this dog I do not know over the dogs I know. This is because I am certain that this dog will not survive, and it has only made a small mistake of entering an unfamiliar territory. If I see my dogs chasing a man, I will stand in the defense of the man, because I know they cannot harm a human who has not done anything wrong. If I see my dogs chasing a calf, I will stand in defense of the calf because it too is a baby, and that baby does not know how the world works.

During all of these acts, even though I would be acting in opposition to the dogs I am close with in favor of someone I will never see again, I know I am right, but also, I can not hate the dogs for being dogs.