The donkeys love getting their ears brushed and rubbed. Rose is puzzled. When we will get to real work?

When animals die, I think of people. Of the people who loved them, and whose lives they touched. If our treatment of animals is a measure of our humanity, so is our treatment of people. Animals don’t live in a vacuum, especially dogs and cats and other companion animals. And when we mourn and grieve them, it might be helpful to think as well of the people whose lives they touched, whose emotions they stirred and who themselves face the travails of life. When an animal of mine dies, I think of them. And of some of the people I lost in my life. My mother. A friend. The people who loved my animals. It helps.