Pets

I always find it amazing how attached we as humans get attached to animals. We have a german shorthair pointer dog who is almost 9 years old and we call him our million dollar dog because it seems like we have spent that much on him for all the fences we have built, vet bills we have paid, and time we have spent on him.

Sometimes I get annoyed with him because he brings in dead mice, mud and grass into the house. He swims in the nearby creek and comes in soaking wet and shakes off on my freshly vacuumed carpet. He never eats over his bowl, but takes a mouthful of food into the living room and then chews leaving crumbs all over the place.

And yet, when he is missing for awhile, I get worried that he is sick or dead someplace. When he is sick, I'm the 1st one to suggest we take him to the vet and I'm the one who gives him his pills stuffed in bites of hot dogs. I buy him countless tennis balls that he never brings back, but instead chews to pieces leaving the bits all over the place. I'm the one to rub his back with my bare feet when he comes and sits in front of my recliner at night.

My sister sent a really cool quote about our love of our pets. "We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would have it no other way."

I have had several pets over the course of my life and each one has touched my heart and soul in ways that has given me comfort when no one else has been able too. Their unconditional love allows them to keep coming back when others might turn away, even if we are cruel to them.

Be it dog, cat, bird or fish we humans need to make contact with animals in some small way. I think it reminds us of how we should be, how we should at least try to be to each other.