My Relationship with Animals

All my life, I was always told "no" by my parents whenever I would ask to get a puppy, kitten, hamster, or any furry pet animal at all. So growing up, I never had any pets other than the occasional fish or turtle that was sold in China Town. However, for a short period of time, my family was living at my aunt's house where she had around 5 dogs, so I guess that was my source of animal interaction. I always treated the puppies with love and affection, always being playful around them. It is well known that dogs are pure and can sense emotions whenever you yell or get upset at them, so my perception of animals only got deeper once I began this class. Upon reading Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson's book excerpt about how dogs are have a "more symbiotic relationship [to] humans" (63), it really goes to show that these animals are capable of more than we think, hence the reason why cats and dogs act so differently with their human owners. In the past, understood that animals have emotions and are smart enough to learn commands, but I never the exact extent of their emotions. My perceptions didn't necessarily change when I read about these TIME articles, it, in a way, became more solidified and clear. Seeing as to how I had an idea of animals' intelligence, it didn't shift but became stronger and certain that animals are just as smart as I thought they were. My perceptions were reinforced when I read about how animals are capable of feeling loss and sadness, especially when they lose a child or companion. Vanessa Woods mentioned how the bonobo mothers "carry [their] dead babies" (59), and this indicated to me that animal brains are just as complex as human minds, that they have the ability to comprehend love and connection to others. It is because of this kind of information that makes me want to be more of an advocate for animals, since they, in a way, are unable to stand up for themselves. Although I do not have a pet of my own right now, I do understand that they are intelligent and deserve better treatment. They deserve to be treated as more than an object for entertainment (referring to zoos) and an object for tests. They have feelings and emotions, and until we can confirm that they do not, we should be treating them like how we would like to be treated.

(an image of my cousin's puppy who was curiously staring at my cousin's hamster)

The provided Safina prologue gives a lot of insight into animal's identities and the way us humans view them. As I read the prologue, the ideas that I get are that humans become so blind to the point where we don't recognize simple things such as community, whereas, animals only have the sense of community. The way we see it, if they don't speak the human language and act as humans do, we are free to view animals as prizes and objects because they don't know any better, right? These are the main ideas that I got from the prologue, or at least it got me thinking about these things. This prologue is similar to the TIME articles we have been reading because as Safina mentions, animals "know who their family and friends are" (2) just as James Serpell states that "'Pet dogs do form friendship-type relationships with other dogs in the same household'" (48), proving that animals are capable of such comprehension. Honestly, these readings make me shocked by the behavior of humans and how we forget that we, too, are animals. We may not be able to communicate the same language or act the same way, but we did evolve from, ultimately, the same source if we go all the way back in time.

(a photo of me an my friend on the morning of prom, when I almost brought home a puppy without asking my mom)