The Colby Echo

Issue date: 9/23/08 Section: Opinions

Media Credit: Margie Gribbell

A cat is slowly dying on the kitchen floor, and beside him a woman is kneeling, breaking into a thousand pieces. It is a vivid, eloquently written scene in one students' fiction story, but the reaction it evokes from the class is just as emotional and unguarded. "This scene is perfect!" people cry out. "You captured this so well. I lost my cat over the summer so this scene means a lot to me." Suddenly, some in the class are spilling their pet histories while the rest of us try to swallow the warm nostalgia tickling our throats. I have the urge to spill my heart too, to turn our fiction critique into a two-hour group therapy session.

For the first time since I've been at college, I see people publically aching for their buddies who are pawing around home or those who have been buried. It's refreshing! I'm tired of trivializing relationships with pets. When you have been greeted for eighteen years at your front door by a spastic, bounding dog, it's incredibly sobering to open a dorm room door and meet nothing but dead air. I'm not sure we can underestimate the power of having a pet around. When so many of the things that define happiness can be felt in the presence of a puppy-self-worth, comfort, love, and an air of simplicity-it's undeniably hard to let it go.

We miss our families too, of course, when we can't be with them. But there are letters and phone calls and stupid chain e-mails, and we never quite feel like we're entirely out of touch. When I'm on the phone with my mother I can hear my two yappy Cavalier King Charles dogs in the background. Sometimes, my mom humors me and lets me "talk" to them, by which I mean I coo like a complete moron into my side of the phone as they cock their heads in wonder on the other end. They don't know it's me, as my mother assures me that they do. They probably don't understand my words or why my voice is emanating from plastic and wires. They remember me when I come home and they go gaga with excitement but it's hard to ignore the time that's elapsed. I'm like the estranged sibling, the long-lost parent forced to watch my babies grow up from afar. My four years of college is twenty-eight of their dog years! That's more than a third of their life that I'm missing, and though I know it's for a great purpose, it's still a small tragedy.

At the very least, dogs can be clumsy, furry friends. But at best, they are companions who can change your life. A connection with an animal is no less important than that of a friend. It is intensely different in its nature and form of expression, but it can be more pure than any other relationship. There are no words to explain what love is. There is only eye contact and the wagging of bodies, time spent together and pouring your heart into your tone of voice.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools