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I'm one - with a Miniature Schnauzer and Cocker Spaniel.

Dogs are wonderful companions, but it's also so very sad to see what happens to so many dogs that end up in the pound. People are so irresponsible when they do not get their dogs fixed.

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I thought you loved pigs!!

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My wife was tired of his dripping water after taking a drink, after a little training, he wipes his own mouth!

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OBJECTS OF OUR AFFECTION

The object of my affection in sixth grade was a cute, freckle-faced girl named Debbie who treated me with a mixture of disinterest, scorn, and ridicule. But love at the age of 12 is pure and true, so when I acquired a dog that year, I named her Debbie. This Debbie and I had a lot in common. We loved to roam the hills around our home in eastern Pennsylvania. She was part beagle hound and poked her nose into every rabbit and groundhog hole she came across. I was always looking for fruit, berries, or nuts to eat, and I remember sharing wild grapes with her one thirsty September day.

We spent two or three years as inseparable pals, that dog and I. Until the black day when my brother told me she was dead, down by the highway, and I went down full of fear and denial, and learned that death was something real and incredibly painful.

I recount this typical story of a youngster and his dog because I'm still in awe of the depth of my affection for that animal. She was full of fun and play, she was loyal, and she loved me with wet licks and a perpetual smile on her black lips. And I loved her as only a 12-year-old can love a dog: with silly songs, and using her for a pillow when I watched TV, and wrestling together in the tall grass.

Love and affection are always healing, and surely that's why studies show that elderly persons are in better health and live longer when they have the company of pets. Loneliness debilitates, companionship rehabilitates. Many communities around the country have volunteer organizations that place pets in the care of the elderly.

Not only the elderly benefit from having pets. Pets require all of us to be faithful, to feed them on time and care for their health, and to never treat them cruelly. These requirements of love bring us out of ourselves, especially older people who may have lost their lifetime mates and threaten to sink into a closed-in, lonely despondency.

Human relationships are oftentimes complicated, murky, difficult, and stressful — as well as sublime. By contrast, our relationships with our pets are refreshingly simple, straight-forward, and direct, with no hidden agendas and no psychological quagmires. We love them; they love us. No questions asked; no questions needed.

I've read studies by animal scientists looking into whether animals feel pain the way we do. I've always been amazed that they could even ask the question. Anyone who's had a dog has seen it yelp with pain when the rocking chair goes over its tail. And not only physiological pain. Who hasn't heard the pitiful cries of a dog left in the house or on the chain when the family drives away? (Cats couldn't care less, of course, until they want affection, when they jump into your lap, arch their back for a scratch, and purr.)

These familiar pets aren't the only animals that love human contact. Before I got my dog, I'd be lonely and walk down to the local dairy farm to take an afternoon snooze with the pigs. I'd scratch their tough, hairy hides and they'd grunt happily. Those particular pigs were just as jolly as animals can be, and good feelings triumphed in that sunny, straw-strewn pigpen. Poorly-managed, stressed pigs, on the other hand, can be ornery critters — but so can human beings.

The cowboy's love affair with his horse is legendary. I tasted something of it at the dude ranch a couple of miles up a dusty dirt road when I was a kid feeding fresh grass to a sweet-eyed palomino mare I favored named Sugar.

We county kids also gained a distant acquaintance with the fey, skittish deer, and the elusive wild turkey. Occasionally we'd glimpse the fox, or — horrors! — surprise the skunk. In the almost incomprehensible freedom of the wild animals we came to know of the wildness in ourselves.

I learned that animals are not alien. We both smell the sweet pines, feel the wind, taste cool water. We can understand and include their purposes in ours. That's what ecology is about. But not vice versa.

The animals, in some ineffable way, are limited. Some say they don't have souls, but only God knows where such seeds are sown. For sure, humans have certain mental capacities that most animals don't seem to possess. We can feel the fright that they feel, but they don't know the fear and dread that comes with human knowledge. We can feel the warm affection they feel, but they can't know the sweet torment of human love. Human beings have a capacity for reflection upon the thoughts in our minds, and that makes all the difference — and all the trouble. Animals know things, but only human beings know that we know things.

This ability to reflect upon our actions brings great power but also great responsibility. To some extent, pets become what we make of them. By trying to make pets human, we can corrupt them and turn them neurotic. By beating them, we can make them mean. We must respect the animalhood of our pets, but that shouldn't alienate them from us for we share that animalhood. What's most interesting to me is that while mental capacities differ between humans and animals, we share an ability for bottomless affection.
As the poet says,

"Animal brothers, take this love from me, for I reach a world you cannot see and catch a ray of light for thee."

— Article by Jeff C. Cox

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Had an anti-social cat...got a puppy in January...anyone want a cat? I love 'em both but there's nothing like the unconditional love you get from a dog. Our German shepherd is now 7 months old and 80 pounds (he weighed 8 pounds when we got him)!!! I cannot believe how smart he is. He flew through his puppy training class (I was so proud to see him in a little graduation cap ).

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Shepherds are incredibly smart animals. My Lab, on the other hand, was asked not to come back to obedience class until he "matured" a bit. My last dog, a Bearded Collie, did not do very well in class either, but he always won the speed races.