Many years ago I had a great surprise when I brought home a tame young badger and introduced it to the savage Alsatians which I kept at that time. I fully expected that this strange, wild creature would release all the worst hunting instincts in my dogs, but exactly the opposite was the case: the badger, which had formerly lived in the house of a forester and had obviously been accustomed to dogs, approached them fearlessly, and the dogs, though they certainly sniffed it with an unwonted caution and reserve, made it clear from the first that they did not regard it as game but as a somewhat unusual member of their own kind. A few hours later they were playing with it in unrestrained intimacy [...] From the first the dogs put all their trust in the social inhibitions of the badger and allowed him to roll them on their backs, seize them by the throat, and, according to all the rules of the game, to "throttle" them, just as they would have allowed a friendly dog to do.
via Stan Carey.
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