It was a time when everything was loving and beautiful. It was a time when dog lovers knew what was right or wrong just by the way their dogs wagged their tails or sulked. It was a time when vets and dog-catchers and local humane shelters knew their contributions to pet lovers. It was a time when no one was afraid of their emotions or the mysterious connection between dogs and their owners. It was a braver time. It was a more passionate time. It was a golden time.

A wise man once said to his grand-kids: “When you think about it, Change is just about the only thing we can really count on.”

He said this, as he jingled a few coins in his worn and gnarled hand. He wore a hat and he looked good in it. He wore suspenders and they seemed just right for him. So did the dog lying at his feet and the flock of sheep in the pasture beside his rambling, country house.

I sat there on the floor with my cousins, in my grandfather’s West Virginia farm-house. Resting my young hand on the dog’s side as she breathed in his words, I tangled my restless fingers in her hair and watched my grandfather’s eyebrows press tight. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Just look at it like a big adventure.”

Easy enough for him to say, I thought. He’s got white hair and a beard and wrinkles all over his skin. He’s not the same as the rest of us. He’s – well, he’s almost an angel.

Not too much later, my grandpa really did become an angel. Or, at least, he had his chance to be one. I never found out if he actually made it to angel-hood. And, by now, I’m not sure I knew him well enough to say “angel-hood” was even what he wanted. Truth, however, is a different matter. Grandpa always wanted to know the truth. (At least, when it came to his grandsons). But, not nearly as much as Grandma did!

Through the years, I have often remembered Grandpa rolling a coin in his hand, and talking about change. Was it a lesson about money? Yes, it was. But, even as a child, I seem to recall sensing that it wasn’t only about the coin in his hand. Grandpa was talking about changes in life. He was talking about the kind of changes that turn the color of our hair to white, the texture of our skin to a map of memories, and much of what we hold dear … to dust.

Is it any wonder that we rebel at changes in our lives? Is it any wonder that we fight to hold on to what we love and stand up for what we believe?

Those of us who love dogs are a rare breed unto ourselves. Whether it’s something in our genes or instilled in our minds, we are no strangers to limitless and shameless love. Our hearts are open and flowing with feelings that many other people never even remotely begin to touch. This is a good thing. It is a beautiful thing. It is a tender and wholesome thing.

Like many of you, I seek inspiration, comfort and knowledge in books, music, theater, paintings, sculpture and films. Such forms of expression are the result of concentrated effort by their makers. As such, they deliver insight and points of view that are sometimes quite different from my own … and they make great “cinema therapy”(to use a term that describes how much they can affect our mood and our outlook).

Seeking comfort during a particularly rough spell, my attention was recently captured by a film called The Golden Compass. I knew about the film, and, when the chance arrived to purchase a copy, I gladly did so.

I wasn’t prepared for one of the concepts of the story, but quickly adapted to the idea of people having soul-mate animal companions which followed them throughout their lives. I’m not so sure I would have called them “demons” like they were called in the movie, but I could certainly relate to animals guiding us throughout our lives, and beyond. This is nothing new or foreign to my readers.

The film was about a changing society, in which the ruling Authority and Magisterium had destroyed people’s ability to discern the truth by golden compasses that once had been available to everyone, and now they were cutting people off from their animal souls. Telling people that it was “for their own good” they had decided to start with children, and their campaign for world dominance was under way.

Naturally, a good story has to have conflict. As fate would have it, one of these golden compasses still remained. And there was a child – a brave and intelligent girl who, for all the world, reminded me of my niece – who could read it.

As I watched the movie, I began to sense a familiar and distant truth. I might have been watching a film, but something about this felt very real to me.

The love of the people for their animal spirits rang true … the “spin”of taking something away from us – of cutting us off from our hearts – felt real … the “Authority” with its agenda – hurting us at the very same time they are smiling and saying “but, it’s for your own good” … where have we heard such things before? Where ae we hearing them now?

We are animal lovers. We are among the most sensitive and perceptive people in the world. Who, among us, does not sense something changing toward us in the regulations, laws and teachings affecting animals and those who love them.

It took a few years – many years, in fact – and lots of mistakes along the way, for me to understand that this “shift in mood” was, perhaps, the real “change” that my dog-raising Grandpa was talking about. Whether it happens as fast as a slash of lightning on a summer sky, or as slowly as the drip of raindrops on a granite mountain, it is just as effective. Change isn’t coming, it is already here.

Laws, by their very nature, can be adjusted. They, themselves, are vulnerable to change. Just as the people who drive legislative changes against us have done, we, too, can effect change in a direction that we would like to see it flow.

We have access to the same processes of law that they do. Let’s use this. Let’s seize this opportunity to affect public perception by doing exactly what they are doing against us: Making presentations in schools, using every chance we have to get people excited about dog shows, raising purebred dogs and having fun! They don’t own the media – it’s a neutral force waiting for all of us to use. So, send out press releases with photos! Build dog shows into a national event – we’ve got it started (some of our great shows are on TV every year and they’re watched by millions of viewers). The media is ripe for us to go mainstream.

Who can resist our world? Who can not fall in love with our puppies, and admire our champions? Who can not be enraptured by some of the fascinating people in our dog show community as they spin silken fables of dedicated breeders, glorious kennels and dogs of legendary greatness?

Like a child holding the golden compass of Truth in her hands, we stand at a cross-roads in the light of a Golden moment. Within our power, is the chance to set things right – to restore the beauty of how things used to be for dog lovers — and stake our claim once again in the public consciousness. Be strong. Be as brave as a child riding on the back of a giant polar bear and rushing into battle. For, make no mistake about it, a battle it is. A battle for our hearts, our souls, and all the finer emotions of which we are capable.

Our pets can not do such things alone. They can’t get online and research the latest legislation to mutilate them by spaying and neutering without regard to valuable bloodlines. They have no power to say, “I love my master – please! Leave us alone!” Their lives depend on us – as they always have – on the people who love them from long before they are conceived, at their birth, all the way to their graves and beyond. Dogs and their animal friends can not defend themselves against callous groups and organizations trying to break the bond of love that we, alone, understand so very well.

“We stand at a cross-roads in the light of a golden moment.”

If ever there was a “silent majority” it is the animals we love in this country. With the mysterious power of love they teach us, we can speak for them and make that golden moment stand still. We can send our light into every school and every church and every town and every radio show and every newspaper and every magazine and all over the internet in this whole country. We can do this until we unchain the heart of a nation smothering in emotional darkness. We will know – truly know – that we have honored our stewardship for all living things and taken charge of the changes affecting us. And our golden moment will flow into golden hours and years for us all.