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Lesson 4
Dogs Are Real Friends
"His name is not wild dog anymore, but the
first friend,
because he will be our friend for always and always and always."
-- Rudyard Kipling
When it comes to friendship, I think it would be exceedingly difficult for
my best human friends to compare favorably with my dogs. In fact, I think
dogs should be put into some sort of super-friend category.
For many years, when giving presentations about Ethics, I have asked the
participants to jot down the virtues or traits of character that they most
want to see exhibited in their best friends. Invariably traits like loyal,
kind, faithful, fun-loving, optimistic, enthusiastic, and trustworthy head
the lists. It will probably come as no surprise to you that they have just
given a pretty fair description of the family dog.
I know for certain that my dogs are even more accepting of me than those
people I consider to be my best friends. I’ll wager that if you give
it some thought, you will agree.
My best friends, for example, have come to expect gourmet cooking, fine
wine, and scrumptious desserts when they come to my house for dinner. I’m
pretty sure that they would be ex-friends if I started feeding them out
of a can or a sack, and it was the same meal every time. My dogs accept
such treatment without a hint of complaint.
Do you think that my human friends would wait in the car for a couple of
hours while I take in a movie, work out at the gym, eat in a nice restaurant,
or do some shopping? To my dogs, it is a great privilege. They beg to be
taken along on these outings.
Suppose I asked my friends to stay in the yard and wait patiently while
I go off to work. Or, worse yet, if I asked them to stay in the yard and
entertain themselves while I am entertaining other friends. I think not.
Do you think my friends would roll over and let me clean their ears with
Q-tips and alcohol or bathe them with water straight from the garden hose?
What if I started following behind them expectantly with a pooper-scooper?
Let’s see, there are so many other things that my friends simply would
not allow. I can’t imagine them letting me dress them in silly outfits
and then pulling them in a wagon for a Fourth of July parade. Or, what if
I started telling perfect strangers all about them, including very intimate
details about their sex life and plans to have offspring. Even worse, what
if I decided when, where, how often, and with whom they would have sex?
For that matter, do you think my friends would let me decide whether or
not they should be “fixed?” (I do think that several of my friends
would have benefited, however, by turning these decisions over to me.)
I’m sorry, but my friends would rebel if I gave them my finished plate
to lick or started scratching them behind the ears primarily because it
felt good to me. No, the friendship exhibited by my dogs is in a class all
its own. It is so special that “best friend” doesn’t quiet
express the true nature of our relationship.
Occasionally, when someone has done something for a friend that is way beyond
the normal call of duty I have heard people remark, “Now, that took
a real friend!” So, that’s the category that I have saved for
our dogs. Dogs are our real friends.
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