Animal Ken and Human Kindness

A couple of days ago I realised something amazing. Jolene, the vet assistant at my dog's vet clinic, who has kindly agreed to house the dog while I'm away has two dogs of her own. Benji, a border collie and Chiyo, a mixed breed who had followed her home. She tells me Chiyo doesn't usually like people, but when I was there to drop my dog off, Chiyo came up to me and sniffed and nudged and licked. Jolene was surprised, "Wah! You can go and buy lottery already, Chiyo never does that to people!"

Apparently I have a certain dog magnetism I've never realised before. (haha)

But that made me think about a few things in my life. I've always had an affinity for animals. When I was younger, I have had (at one point) 2 budgies, 40+ guppies, a few (on average 2 - 5) re-homed kittens and a dog. I think my parents never expected they'd end up with a zoo when they had me. Neither of them are completely animal people. They're friendly enough, but too concerned about practical things like personal hygiene and responsibility to commit to keeping an animal in the house for the long term.

It's another thing however, to come to the happy realization that perhaps, if only and just, perhaps, that affinity for animals might be reciprocated. That as much as you love animals, animals can sense the difference between friend and foe, and have an affinity for pet-friendly people likewise.

I used to think that I had a soporific effect on small animals, and once contemplated a career as a pet anaesthetist. Notably in the course of my childhood, I've had an angora rabbit fall asleep on me during history class - a classmate brought her to school and I didn't think it was the History tutorial that put her to sleep. My godfather's Alsatian did likewise for half an hour, nearly cutting off blood supply to my lap while I was sitting down reading a book. And my brother's quite unfriendly cat... when she was a newfound stray kitten.

I have a long-kept belief that the goodness of one's heart as humans can be, in some strange and inexplicable way, sensed by animals. Animals sense danger and threat far keenly than humans do, and their perceptions can be uncanny at times. It usually is the initial stirrings of horses that sound the alarm of approaching storms, and the inexplicable hissing of a usually friendly cat that heralds a person with ill intent. That's not unheard of.

So I've always believed in a rawer than religion sort of way that animals can inadvertently sense the hidden intents of the human heart. Sometimes more so than humans can. Sometimes even before humans know it themselves. As such, I'd run my prospective mate by with my dog on principle, and their "pass/fail" verdict would ring more true to me than the opinions of my mother.

Chiyo's lick was a wake-up realisation to me in some ways. It reminded me that as long as there are animals out there who think I am possibly a good and not evil person, then I am a person whose life is worth living.

My newfound resolution is to always be a person that animals will instinctively find friendly. That sort of karma, I believe, is something that cannot be faked. It goes beyond false smiles and the pretence of words. It speaks in body language, in universal and unmistakable terms. And to be that someone who can so easily put people and animals at ease, who is genuinely warm and friendly. Now that is someone who honestly has the innocence to enter the kingdom of heaven.