We tend to understand our limitations and our responsibilities in relation to wild animals—if we do too much, they will disappear—but we place the burden of behavioral adaptation on domestic animals. We forget that a domesticated interspecies relationship is a social one and should come with a kind of social contract. In “The Little Prince,” a fox approaches the prince and asks to be tamed, because doing so would create meaning for both the fox and the prince: “If you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” The fox explains the process of taming, which the prince understands because of his experience with the rose he dotes on and cultivates; he has been “tamed” by the flower, because he organizes his behavior around it. He visits it, waters it, thinks about it—and, in his doing so, the flower has become essential to him. Now, when the prince looks at a field of a thousand roses, he notes that they are “beautiful” but “empty,” because he is not connected to them. Taming, and being tamed, transform the prince’s view of the world, and make him feel at home in new ways. But there’s a catch, the fox explains: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

Anna Heyward, “Bad Dog”