Let’s begin with the meaning of the word “Empathy”. When we say we empathize with the other person what we mean is we are able to understand and imagine what the other person is going through, their emotions, pains and suffering.

We all show a lot of empathy towards humans in general but when it comes to animals we hesitate to show our real feelings towards them. Many a times we wonder what will people say if they see me petting a stray animal, feeding an animal or caring for an injured, hurt animal. We pass by almost every day seeing an animal dying on the roadside, we take videos of animals being abused, molested and post them on our social media and laugh about it  and yes these videos become a hit and go viral while the animal is helpless, suffering and dying a slow painful death in front of our eyes.

Once I heard two kids on the street saying, let’s catch that puppy and tie crackers on its tail, another said, let’s fling the puppy up high over the wall, or worse lets play tug of war with that puppy. It was a shock for me and I was horrified at such thought and even my heart breaking speech on kindness and animal welfare went unheard and all they did was laugh at my face.

Every day we see and hear hundreds of incidents like this but do nothing about it, I am constantly bombarded with the statement- it is just a dog… and when I reply it is a human just like you and me I am laughed at. In my career as a shelter worker and animal lover I have been called a lot of things- from a dog woman, dog lover , mad person who wastes all her time and money on animals etc  but it has never made me change my decision and attitude towards animals.

I always believed and still believe that the best teachers in life are our animals, the right place to learn about love, compassion , kindness and caring is to be with animals… they are your friends for life and once you start thinking differently and treat them as equals you will see a change within you and you will become a better person.

Feeding, taking care of an injured animal, saving their lives is the most humble and humane act you can do, they are not your enemies, they are your friends, they are human like us, they get hungry, are in pain and need help like us all , the moment we begin to think that we are above them and they are a hindrance to society we lose the ability to call ourselves humans because if we can feel and care for our fellow-being then why not for our animals.

And if you think that they are just dumb animals who cannot speak… you are wrong… they can speak and communicate in ways we cannot. Look into the eyes of a suffering animal, abandoned pet and you can see the pain and tears in their eyes. Learn to recognize the happy wagging of the tail that says they are happy and that is their way of thanking you …

All they ask from us is love, caring, kindness and a right to live freely like all of us… and if we deny them all this we have no right to call ourselves Humans.

So the next time you see a hungry animal feed it, a suffering animal inform the nearest animal hospital and get treatment done, next time you see someone abusing, hurting and injuring an animal, taking videos etc stop them immediately and rescue the animal before it is too late.

It is time to do your bit for our animals and to live a life of  togetherness with them…. they deserve all the love, caring and kindness sometimes more than us.

The best things in life happen to lie in these everyday  easily missed moments… don’t miss them….