| Sitting in my backyard is a 1500 pound animal that my husband likes to refer to as the large brown dog. "Samson" is a registered American Quarter Horse and an escape artist. Perhaps a better name for him might be Houdini as this is an animal who can undo any lock or chain. Many a morning we have had the local police knocking on our door to inform us that "Sam" is taking a stroll up the middle of the street, or is grazing in the neighbors yard. And this seems to always be around 5:00 am!
We rescued Sam. The man who owned him was not a very nice owner. He was the type of person who was determined to make the horse do what he wanted him to do...just because he could. On the other hand we call my daughter in law Mrs. Dr. Doolittle. Animals just naturally gravitate to her. Perhaps she has a bit of St. Francis in her as well. So far this year we have rescued two dogs, rehabilitated an orphaned squirrel, a chipmunk and at the moment an orphaned baby rabbit residing in our shed, being nursed back to health after a run in with the larger animal which undoubtedly was the cause of it's being orphaned.
We are not a partcularly religious family in the strict sense of the word, and indeed, as the recent advertising on the sides of some NYC buses proclaims," You don't have to believe in God to be a moral or ethical person."
I guess we see ourselves as keepers of the earth which translates into doing what we can to take care of it as well as those other animals who share it with us. But there are some who do not see animals as anything other than a fat wallet, and what happens to them after the money has been collected is of no concern. When one cannot show compassion to the other animals, is it any wonder that wars and the killing of humans is not considerd any big deal? |
