Pet Learning!

When I was growing up, we had a pet, her name was 'Whitey'. She was snow white in color (Tibetan Terrier). My relative in India used to have a few of them, and they gave us 'Whitey' when it was a few weeks old. My relative invited over to take a puppy. Whitey's mom had a litter of 2 puppies. The moment I saw Whitey, it was love at first sight! I loved it so much. It'd run around shaking it's tiny tail, roll over like a ball, it'd pee all over the place and I just was in awe of it. It's a love story that has lasted a life time. My mom was a little hesitant in taking it to our home. She raised concerns of who would look after it, where would it stay etc. I had a solution for it; I just told her 'you get me Whitey & I'll get you A+ grades in school! She too liked Whitey, and when she heard about me committing to studies, (which I rarely ever did!) She agreed.

I literally grew up with Whitey, it'd make me run around, it'd sleep with me in my bed, it'd even bark at me if I ever fought with my sister or mom. It was such an intelligent Animal, you won't believe! It only barked at people that were dubious..dodgy. or all others, it was a playful friend. Occasionally though, my mother would discover a stolen pen, potato and even some toys in Whitey's den. My dad those days used to work really hard. Not that he doesn't now, but he hardly ever had time for us. We all appreciated his hard work, as it was his hard work that got us all the comforts we were living in. Often he would return really late in the night from his work. My mom and all of us would be fast asleep by then. Although my mom did wake up for him as much as she could, majority of the times, she kept the food for him on the table. My dad would often say sarcastically to us 'Even my own children don't care about me as much as whitey does'! We(me and my sister) would be get mad at him and ask him how could he say that? To which he'd reply 'poor whitey wakes up in the middle of night every single day when I come..and it would shake it tail till it gets my attention. It also would sit right by me while I'm having my dinner. It goes to bed when I do so, is what he said'

Me and my Sister realized how true that is. Agreed it's an animal, it can't talk like us, or convey it's messages in a greeting crd, or even an email. But it does what ever it has in it reach. It never gave us any problem, never did it bite us, nor did it ever bark at us for silly reasons. I often wondered what is it, that makes it so full of affection for us, I mean is it our food that we give her? is it the care that we take of her? We do take care of so many humans too, I mean buying stuff for friends, helping relatives, some other times helping strangers, doing things for loved ones. Why don't we see such conditional love among humans as we see in Animals? I see love in parents, friends, strangers in humans too..but it kinda is conditional it feels to me. My mother made food for us a life long, and still does.. but if one day she put too much salt, we crib about it and often we say 'well we've had too much of your food..let's go out and eat' but does an animal say that? Whitey was so bona fide that it never once not eat the food we gave it. Please remember, it always was so happy to get what it got.

Ages ago, we too were animals (at least if were to believe Darwin's theory of evolution). The olden days, families, marriages, society used to be so much more peaceful. I agree, even then there were occasional conflicts, invasion etc.. but relatively way much less right? Marriages were simpler..going over to a different country was too (immigration, I mean), people didn't pay for water and there was no sales tax. I agree we have fast cars now, we can cover continents in no time, we have nuclear power, medicines etc.. but back then people lived, there were diseases, natural disasters back then too. My question is..in achieving all these, have we long lost something ?

Something so basic that we can learn easily. We don't have to go to schools and universities for it. Look at plants, they too have life..but they give us food, fruits, timber and so much more unconditionally, Our animal folk around, they too do their business with out mingling into ours. We are the ones who are day by day making their lives extinct one after the other species, and yet we claim, ''one fox strayed into a farm land, and that goodness it's dangerous for us'. What a load of crap is that? You go kill generations of animals and plants.. and if one of them comes looking for some food, we go crazy. We say we have a just society, yeah right! If we were to look at our pets, plants and the life forms around us, we could learn one thing very easily that is so lacking today; LOVE.

I read some where ''Love is to give and to forgive, self is to get and to forget''