One of the things animal lovers so often say is, “They teach us so much.”

I agree with that sentiment. Animals (or, to the point, raising them) do, indeed, teach us a lot. Having purebred animals teaches us even more and actually connects us with others of a like mind-set (on a world-wide basis) in a way that simply having a pet never will. To clarify that point, all animals under human care are pets from the greatest and most successful champion to the most mongrelized and half-forgotten resident of a shelter. Strays? Well, just like stray people, they’re trying to find their way in a tangled and confusing world – and many of them do.

Saying that animals teach us a lot is a pretty easy (and over-worked) remark. It’s the remark only rarely expressed (and sometimes never) that fascinates me: What about what we teachthem?

After all, we are the ones who teach them how to survive in a modernized world far different from anything their kind ever knew before. Not that this makes any difference to a newborn. It doesn’t. Newborns take the world they arrive into exactly as they find it. Each new thing they learn, through trial and error, is just one in a phenomenally long chain of experiences leading to “maturity.” And, some of them “mature” quite early. I’m not speaking about emotional maturity here. Emotional maturity of animals – just like in humans – is unpredictable and uneven. Filled with gaps and peaks and valleys. Some will be filled in as time goes by, others won’t. Hey, some things you get over, some things you never will. So be it. That’s what you’ve got, that’s what animals have got, so that’s what you deal with.