Out and about

orangeBall, originally uploaded by phaird.

I skipped out on my normal visit to the park this Sunday. It was rainy and cold so I decided to enjoy a lazy day at home. It's not so bad though because we went out yesterday and spent a lot of the day outside. I also wasn't sure if Toby would like the park today because when we went to the Acton park, we didn't get 50 yards in before Toby heard the gun shots from the local gun club. As soon as he heard it, he went right back to the car and waited under it until I caught up.

With my lazy Sunday, I ended up reading the newspaper and there was a article by Michael Schaffer called, "The Family Dog, Why we treat our pets like royalty". It is out of his book, "One Nation Under Dog". It talks about how people can "humanize" their experience with their animals. I guess that is true from if we as humans are the center of the universe. It seems to me that there is more of a equality of needs on both sides. We as humans want the companion for any number of reasons and dogs need us for their own reasons. His issue that as society becomes more lonely so we apply human traits, such as a child, to our pets. His view, may not be wrong, but it is only one of many ways of looking at it. With all the time I spend at the park with Toby, it has offered me the opportunity to be more social then anything else I do. The idea that animals have rights and should be treated with compassion applies to the pets we keep as well as the meals we eat. It makes sense to me that as a society, we can consider the other creatures around to better understanding of who we are.