Home & Family Facts and Notes

When entering a relationship, or even considering it, we always talk about unconditional love. We miss it. We sometimes received it from our parents and more often from grandparents.

We finish high school or college and find out the world is not the same as the safety of the academic womb with someone holding our hand down the hallway of academia. We are on our own. We have to learn to love and be loved or be alone. Is that all there is to life? Not quite.

Owning and caring for a dog or cat is primary education for learning unconditional love. Sounds like the word of some “animal-cause” nut, but read on. We may train our dogs and cats, to do certain tricks (it impresses our friends), but have you considered what we learn from them?

The story is so clearly told in “As Good As It Gets” with Jack Nicholson, a dried up writer with writer’s block. He simply sits in a restaurant and complains to the waitress of whom he has a crush. As fate has it, his neigbhor is mugged and stabbed and someone has to take care of his prissy dog. That neighbor is Jack Nicholson. I wouldn’t have believed the story could happen until it happened to me, almost exactly two weeks after the movie was released. It has to be based on truth. It is very honest. Pet care changes us by what we learn from the pet.

I will give a silly example but think about it. More often than not, we have our pets spayed or neutered, which is a smart thing, unless we are breeders of them.

But dog is still man’s best friend. Can you imagine having the same procedure done to your own human best friend, and he or she come home and lick you in the face the next day wagging his/her tail and wanting nothing but your love or attention? It is a strange reality but a reality nevertheless. A pet simply wants shelter, food and attention. What we get back is priceless. It is a better investment than Fidelity Mutual Funds in my book.

A dog (and even a cat) loves you simply for being you. There is an old Irish prayer, “Lord, please make me half the man my dog thinks I am”.

And if you think a dog or cat will love you unconditionally, you can take that a step further. Try adopting one from your local shelter. Cats and, it seems especially dogs, have a keen 6th sense and memory that is better than an elephant. They will appreciate you and show you a kind of love you’ve never had, simply for saving them. And believe me, they know. I don’t know how but they do and remember it forever.

I just lost “Thor”, my mixed breed that I found in the woods in rural Ms. He looked a lot like Benji. That was 12 years ago. He lived, the vet believes, to be almost 22 years old. Ironically, the first Benji, (there have been more) was found not far from where I found Thor.

After caring for this dog for several years, I noticed passersby to be much more pleasant to me. I thought it was because I had such a cute friendly people-loving dog. Maybe that was a part of it, but the major part of it was Thor had taught me something I had never experienced before, unconditional love like I’d never seen. That dog loved me no matter what, and I could tell in his face he wanted me to “pass it forward”. I did.

Thor became my baby and I dstill think of him often and grieve. I also remember the happy healthy times which were most of the time. I fed him the b.a.r.f. diet only and plenty of herbal tinctures. I will soon adopt or find another dog and know that I will experience this most unique phenomena that can be found nowhere else. What a blessing this is to anyone.

Rick London is a cartoonist and e-store owner who created the Internet’s top cartoon, Londons Times Cartoons. He focuses a great deal of his work on animal-related cartoons, particularly dogs and cats and manufacturers funny gifts and collectibles with their images. One of his stores that features such dog and cat products as mouse pads, tee shirts, sweats and hoodies, aprons, and much more. A percentage of all sales benefit various animal charities.

Tags: home business, pets