Waggin' Tails Miniature Dachshunds

    Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, pass no criticisms.


    Animals have rights in themselves because of their capacity to feel both pain and pleasure.
        - St. Ciaran of Ossory (5 - 6 A.D.)


    Animals share with us the privilege of having a soul.
        - Pythagoras (circa 570-500 B.C.)


    As a man walked the beach at dawn, he noticed another man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Finally catching up with him, he asked him why he was doing this. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.
    "But the beach goes on for miles and there are millions of starfish," countered the other. "How can your effort make any difference?"
    The man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. "It makes a difference to this one," he said.

[To ALL the people who work in animal rescue - you are doing the same thing - God Bless You!]

    Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things.  It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

    Can't decide between a Shepherd, a Setter or a Poodle? Get them all....adopt a mutt!    

    Cleaning and scrubbing
    can wait till tomorrow...
    for puppies grow up
    we've learned to our sorrow....
    so quiet down cobwebs...
    dust go to sleep...
    I'm playing with puppies
    and puppies don't keep.

    Do not fancy that you will lower yourselves by sympathy with the lower creatures; you cannot sympathize rightly with the higher, unless you do with those.



    Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and friendship sealed up until your friends are dead.  Fill their lives with sweetness.  Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier.  The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.


    Dogs are to be treated gently. They are like snowflakes - unique, but only here for a little while.

    First Animal Rights Legislation:

    It's body of liberties enacted in 1641 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony includes the provision: "No man shall exercise any tirranny or crueltie towards any bruite creature which are usuallie kept for man's use."


    First, it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. Now it is necessary to civilize man in relation to nature and the animals.  Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)


    Friendship is a basket of bread from which to eat for years to come. Good loaves fragrant and warm miraculously multiplied; the basket never empty and the bread never stale.

    Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a friend having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.

    Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

    He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave.


    Home - the place where the great are small and the small are great.


    How could one recover from the endless treachery, duplicity and malice of humans, if there were no dogs into whose honest face one could look without mistrust?


    Humaneness  is not a dead external precept, but a living impulse from within; not self-sacrifice, but self-fulfillment.



    I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights.  That is the way of a whole human being.  
        - Abraham Lincoln


    I am only one, but I AM one. I can't do everything, but I CAN do something. And what I CAN do, that I ought to do. And what I OUGHT to do, you bet, I SHALL do.


    I expect to pass through this world but once.  Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now.  Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
    


    I know of no more beautiful prayer than that which the Hindus of old used in closing their public spectacles.  It was:  May all that have Life be delivered from suffering.

    I like a bit of mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog; they're the best for everyday.
        - G.B. Shaw

    I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and protect all natural beauty upon the earth...


    I would give nothing for a man's religion whose very dog or cat are not better for it.

    If a dog will not come to you after he has looked you in the face, you ought to go home and examine your conscience.  
        - Woodrow Wilson.


    If a person habitually thinks optimistically and hopefully he activates life around him positively and thereby attracts to himself positive results. What you mentally project reproduces in kind. Positive thinking sets in motion positive and creative forces and success flows toward you.

    If you look duty courageously in the face you will find it a friend - as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

    If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.  This is the principle difference between a dog and a man.   
        - Samuel Clemens


    In the relations of humans with the animals, with the flowers, with all the objects of creation, there is a whole great ethic scarcely seen as yet.


    Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity - these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them.


    It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.

    It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little.  Do what you can.

    It is worth while to take pains to make children kind to animals. it trains them in qualities of great importance. If calves and chickens are raised on the farm, let the children take charge of some of them, being regular and faithful in feeding them, and gentle in their treatment. If no care of this sort is practicable, make children treat the cat and dog kindly, allow no teasing or harshness, and require them to be uniformly good-tempered with them. If they behave properly to animals, they are more likely to behave rightly to their brothers and sisters and playmates. If a boy is allowed to be brutal and harsh to the cows, the dog, the cat, he will make the worse husband and father, when he grows up.
    - 1882 almanac


    It's a marvelous thing that dogs can enjoy life by just watching little things, and that people can enjoy life by just watching dogs.
    

    Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness.


    Knowledge without pity may well be the greatest danger that besets the world.  
        - Johnn Vyvgan


    Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for to make a dog happy.


    Look well into yourself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if you will  always look there.


    Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another heart, or its flame burns low.

    Mammals are classified thus: man and the lower animals. Man does the classifying.

    Memorable Years:
    Each dog holds a special place - a special place in my heart. Each was different; each a challenge, and we learned together...proof positive that, "he teaches best what he most needs to learn." The years have been mingled with great joys and great sorrows. But, as in the way with dogs, pleasure outweighs sorrow and memories are sweet. The thing that cements the love is the knowledge that just being involved is enough. We are not involved in a contest, but in a very simple and pure journey that promises each day will be different, unrepeatable; those moments with overtones which can never be recaptured nor even quite forgotten. Each time is unique. If there is anything of value to be entered in the diary, let's leave it as a series of impressions...of growth.
    A person with her dog who can smile and say with the kind of conviction that brings warmth, "I'd rather be here...doing this...right now...than anything else in the world," is the person who has discovered that the wealth of the world is not something that is merely bought and sold.
    The glimmer of light in a pup's eye when the lesson is clear and he awakens to the understanding that says, "I KNOW that word! I can do THAT!"
    The loving glance from an old dog who has shared the pleasures of your days and knows you well, as she rests beside your chair basking in the earned contentment of your companionship.



    Most of us miss out on life's big prizes.  The Pulitzer, The Nobel, Oscars, Tonys, Emmys.  But we're all eligible for life's small pleasures.  A pat on the back.  A kiss behind the ear.  A full moon.  An empty parking space.  A crackling fire.  A wagging tail.  A great meal.  A glorious sunset.
    Don't fret about copping life's grand awards.  Enjoy its tiny delights.  There are plenty for all of us.

    "My line of thought about dogs is analogous.  A dog reflects the family life.  Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one?  Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.  And their passing moods may reflect the passing moods of others."   
        - Sherlock Holmes

    No symphony orchestra ever played music like a person laughing with a puppy.


    Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he's owned a dog. He can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.


    Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.  Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.  
        - Thomas A. Edison

    One reason I love dogs instead of people is because they wag their tails instead of their tongues.

    You came into my life and filled a place I never knew was empty.


    She has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust, respect and the love of her husband and kids; who has filled her niche and accomplished her task.


    Some animals can understand but can't talk, whereas it's just the other way with some human beings.

    The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.  
     - Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)


    The best doctor in the world is the veterinarian.  He can't ask his patients what is the matter - he's got to just know.

    The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift demanding no less binding moral responsibilities than the friendship of a human being.


    The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.


    The great tie that binds us to dogs is not their fidelity or their charm or anything else, but the fact that they are not critical of us.


    The greatest love is a mother's, then a dog's, then a sweetheart's.
        - Polish proverb


    The greatness of man can nearly always be measured by his willingness to be kind.

    The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.


    The practice of kindness toward helpless creatures is a sign of development to the higher reaches of intelligence and sympathy.  For, mark you, in every place there are those who are giving of their time and though and energy to the work of protecting from cruelty and needless suffering the animals of the field and streets.  And you will invariable find that these people are amongst the most progressive and sympathetic and intelligent of a city's populace.
        - Reverend George Laughton (1875 - 1941)

    There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammals in their mental faculties - Charles Darwin


    There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.


    There is no religion without love, and people may TALK as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.

    Tis sweet to hear the dogs' honest barking welcome as we draw near home; 'tis sweet to know their eyes will mark our coming and look brighter when we come.

    Training a dog by the book is a good idea, only you need a different book for each dog.

    Why Some People Don't Like Dogs:
        - They follow their owners everywhere.
        - They stick their cold noses into one's hand at
            unexpected moments.
        - They always want to play.
        - They jump on their friends and lick them to show their
              affection.

    Why Other People Like Dogs:
        - They follow their owners everywhere.
        - They stick their cold noses into one's hand at
             unexpected moments.
        - They always want to play.
        - They jump on their friends and lick them to show their affection.


    Would my Maker to grant me a single glance through these sightless eyes of mine, I would without question or recall, choose to see first a child, then a dog.  
            - Helen Keller


    You can never go wrong by giving a dog lots of love and kisses mixed with discipline. Dog training is merely knowing which end of your dog to pat...and when.

    You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
        - Aldous Huxley

    An Old English Tale

    There once was a housekeeper of my proclavity, who looked under the bed one day and found an enormous dustball.  The lady of good intentions sighed and wished it would go away.  That night the good fairy appeared and gave the dustball life.  And instead of going away the dustball had to be fed, and it shed, and produced more pups under the bed.


    Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.


    Anytime you think you have influence try ordering around someone else's dog.


 

    CAVE CANEM - (beware of the dog) is a motto that was worked into the mosaic floors of many Roman houses.  It was not meant to warn against vicious canines, but to prevent guests from stepping on the family Italian Greyhound.

    Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the front of your clothes.


    During the early days of El Al Israel Airlines' operations, their station manager at the London airport occasionally found time to perform extra duties, such as taking any dog passenger for a short walk on the runway while the plane was refueling.
    One day, while checking the cargo of a plane that arrived ahead of schedule, the manager noticed a large dog resembling a rather shaggy German Shepherd.  The dog looked at him with pleading eyes, so the kindly station manager took a short length of rope, tied it to the dog's neck and, patting him lovingly, led him out on the runway.  The dog happily made exploratory runs, bounding and sniffing about in sheer glee, with the station manager hard put to keep up with this unusually frisky animal.
    After some farewell pats, the dog was put back in his cage, and the manager went back to his office to check his mail.  There on his desk was an urgent cable.  It read:  "Please be advised that a wolf, bound for the London Zoo is on board the plane.  Handle with extreme caution."

    Good thing about my  homecooking, keeps the dogs from begging at the table.

    I wonder if other dogs think fancy groomed poodles are members of a weird religious cult.


    If we cannot protect our own pets from pain and death here in America, what hope is there for any animal in the world?

    Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and the bureaucrats.

    Sign: For Sale - Eight puppies from a German Shepherd and an Alaskan Hussy.


    Suggested magazine: Cocker Spaniel Annual Manual

    The measure of a dog's intelligence can be determined by the length of time it takes to resign yourself to his way of thinking.



    The perfect example of minority rule is having a puppy in the house.

    This house is maintained for the comfort and security of my dogs. If you cannot accept that then you cannot accept me. So go away.

    WARNING: I cannot be held responsible for the above because my dogs have apparently learned to type.


    We knew our search for the right veterinarian had ended when, upon our second visit to his office, the good doctor patted our beloved dog and said, "Rocky, so good to see you."  Then, with just a trace of embarrassment, he looked at my husband and asked "What's your name again, sir?"


    What's really upsetting is to have a dog who can trace his ancestry further than yours.

    All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering, the animals are our equals.
        - Peter Singer



    All The Good Dogs

    What purpose did they serve, all the good dogs that once ran through the world and wait now in shadowy quiet of the past?
    They lightened our burdens and drove away our enemies and stayed when others left us.  They gave aid and comfort, protection and security.  They held a mirror wherein we might see ourselves as we long to be.  They gave us a glimpse of the world beyond the narrow confines of our own species.
    Although we make dull students, slowly they help us learn how to command and to protect with wisdom and justice and imagination.
    They taught and still teach us the joy of giving generosity and kindness and love without thought of gainful return.
    And now - all the fleet hounds, the staunch mastiffs, the loyal shepherds, the dancing toys, the fumbling puppies, pets on silk pillows, workers plodding at their tasks, the special ones you loved the best, those of ours we still miss - all the good dogs, goodbye, until on some brighter day, in some fairer place you run out to greet us.



    Be Well Remembered:

    If the dog be well remembered,
    If sometimes he leaps through your dreams...actual as life...
    Eye kindling, questing, asking, laughing...begging...
    It matters not at all where that dog sleeps...at long and at last.
    It is all one to the dog and one to you...
    And nothing is gained and nothing is lost...if memory lives.
    But there is one place to bury a dog, one place that is best of all.
    If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must
        already have.
    He will come when you call...
    Come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death
    And down the well remembered path, and to your side again...
    And though you call a dozen living dogs to you,
    They shall not growl at him or resent his coming...
    For he is yours and he belongs there...with you.
    People may scoff you.    
    People who see no lighestest blade of grass bent by his footfall.
    Who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition.
    People who may never really have had or known a dog.
    Smile at them...
    For you shall know something that is hidden from them,
    And which is well worth the knowing,
    The one best place to bury a dog is in the heart of its master.

    How pitiful, and what poverty of mind, to have said that the animals are machines deprived of understanding and feeling...
Judge (in the same way as you would judge your own) the behavior of a dog who has lost his master, who has searched for him in the road barking miserably, who has come back to the house restless and anxious, who has run upstairs and down, from room to room, and who has found the beloved master at last in his study, and then shown his joy by barks, bounds and caresses.  There are some barbarians who will take this dog, that so greatly excels man in capacity for friendship, who will nail him to a table, and dissect him alive, in order to show you his veins and nerves.  And what you then discover in him are the same organs of sensation that you have in yourself.
    - Francois Marie Arovet de Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

    A Dog's Plea:

    I ask for the privilege of not being born
    ...not to be born until you can assure me
        of a home and a master to protect me,
        and a right to live as long as I am
        physically able to enjoy life
    ... not to be born until my body is precious and
        men have ceased to exploit it because
        it is cheap and plentiful.





    No one knows the troubles I've seen.
    Lost and alone; it was never my dream.
    In a thousand years, I'd never have thought
    That a shelter was where I'd ever be brought.

    They do their best here, but it's still not a home,
    Not what I remember, not what I've known.
    Sometimes I grow scared, and my memory grows dim.
    I wonder what happened - was it something I did?

    Sometimes they sneezed or the baby might cry.
    Sometimes the floor wasn't so dry.
    But did I deserve to be just tossed away?
    Was I so bad?  Was I bad every day?

    I tried my best to love and to please.
    I made some mistakes; I'm aware of these.
    But I'll try again, with all my heart,
    Just hold my paw and we'll make a new start.

    Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. - Thomas A. Edison

    Now what is it moves our very heart, and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes?  I suppose this:  first, that they have done us no harm; next, that they have no power whatever to resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching;......there is something so very dreadful, so Satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.  
        - Cardinal Newman


    Of all animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.


    Personally, I would not give a fig for a man's religion whose horse or dog do not feel its benefits.  Life in any form is our perpetual responsibility.  Its abuse degrades those who practice it.  Its rightful usage is a signal token of genuine manhood.  If there be a superintending justice, surely it takes account of the injuries and sufferings of helpless yet animate creation.  Let us be perfectly clear about the spirituality of the issue before us. We have abolished human bondage because it cursed those who imposed it.  It is now our bounden duty to abolish the futile and ferocious oppression of those creatures of our common Father which share with man the mystery of life...
    I close as I began, with the reminder that this theme is nothing if not spiritual; an acid test of our relation to the Deity of love and compassion.

    Prayer Of A Stray

    Dear God please send me somebody who'll care!
    I'm tired of running, I'm sick with dispair.

    My body is aching, it's so racked with pain,
    And dear God I pray as I run in the rain.

    That someone will love me and give me a home.
    A warm cozy bed and a big juicy bone.

    My last owner tied me all day in the yard
    Sometimes with no water and God that was hard!

    So I chewed my leash God and I ran away
    To rummage in garbage and live as a stray.

    But now God I'm tired and hungry and cold.
    And I'm so afraid that I'll never grow old.

    They've chased me with sticks and hit me with stones
    While I run the streets just looking for bones!

    I'm not really bad God, please help if you can,
    For I have become just a "victim of man!"

    I'm wormy dear God and I'm ridden with fleas and
    all that I want is an owner to please!

    If you find one for me God, I'll try to be good
    And I won't chew their shoes, but I'll do as I should.

    I'll love them, protect them and try to obey
    When they tell me to sit, to lie down or to stay!

    I don't think I'll make it too long on my own,
    Cause I'm getting so weak and I'm so all alone.

    Each night as I sleep in the bushes I cry,
    Cause I'm so afraid God, that I'm gonna die!

    And I've got so much love and devotion to give,
    That I should be given a new chance to live.

    So dear God please, please answer my prayer and
    send me somebody who WILL really care...
    That is, dear God, if YOU'RE REALLY there!



    Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion.  We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.  And therein we err, and greatly err.  For the animal shall not be measured by man.  In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.  They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.      
        - Henry Beston

    .....so, I am glad    
    Not that he is gone
    But that the earth he roamed and lived upon
    Was my earth too;
    That I had closely known and loved him
    And that my love I'd shown.
    Tears over his departure?
    Nay - a smile
    That I had walked with him a little while.



    Stop and Think!
    It's not a question of animals vs. people...it is a question of extending your philosophy of justice to include the animals.  It is a decision to live your life without depending on the pain and death and enslavement of other living inhabitants of our earth.

    The cruel wild beast is not behind the bars of the cage.  He stands in front of it.   
        - Axel Munthe

    The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny....a full grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month old.  But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail?  The question is not, can they reason?  Nor, can they talk?  But can they suffer?  Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?  The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes.  
        - Jeremy Bentham, 1748 - 1832 (Principles of Morals and
                            Legislation, 1789)

    The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.
        - James Thurber

    The dog, in our everyday lives, not only is a mirror of our own nature, but can also be the embodiment of humanity's highest qualities - acceptance, forgiveness, loyalty, truthfulness and openness, devotion and unquestioning, unconditional love.  This is why many prefer the company of animals, especially dogs, to people.  Man had no hand in endowing the dog with such traits, although domestication and socialization help ensure his dog will display such behavior towards him.  Anyone seeing a family of wolves, the dog's "pure" cousin uncontaminated by human interference, will see the same traits.  The lesson of nature is simple:  Although the dog is man's best friend, could it be that man will someday be man's best friend also?  Perhaps being a dog's best friend is a start in the right direction.

    The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.  
        - Gandhi

    The one absolutely unselfish friend
        that a man can have in this selfish world,
        the one that never deserts him,
        the one that never proves ungrateful
        or treacherous.....is his dog.

    A man's dog stands by him
        in prosperity and poverty,
        in health and sickness.

    He will sleep on the cold ground
        where the wintry winds blow
        and the snow drives fiercely,
        if only he may be near his master's side.

    He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer;
        he will lick the wounds and sores that come
        in counter with the roughness of the world.

    He guards the sleep of his pauper master
        as if he were a prince.

    When all other friends desert he remains.

    When riches take wings
        and reputation falls to pieces,
        he is as constant in his love
        as the sun in its journey
        through the heavens.
            
            - Senator George Graham Vest



    The price one pays for pursuing any calling, is an intimate knowledge of it's ugly side.

    The reasons for legal intervention in favor of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind -- the lower animals.
    John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873 (The Principles of Political
                            Economy, 1848

    The time will come when civilized man will feel that the rights of every living creature are as sacred as his own.




The World's Need

    So many gods, so many creeds,
    So many paths that wind and wind,
    While just the art of being kind
    Is all the sad world needs.

    I am the voice of the voiceless;
    Through me, the dumb shall speak;
    Till the deaf world's ear be made to hear
    The cry of the wordless weak.
    From street, from cage and from kennel,
    From jungle and stall, the wail
    Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
    Of the mighty against the frail.
    
    For love is the true religion,
    And love is the law sublime;
    And all that is wrought, where love is not
    Will die at the touch of time.
    Oh, shame on the mothers of mortals
    Who have not stopped to teach
    Of the sorrow that lies in dear, dumb eyes,
    The sorrow that has no speech.

    The same Power formed the sparrow
    That fashioned man - the King;
    The God of the whole gave a living soul
    To furred and to feathered thing.
    And I am my brother's keeper.
    And I will fight his fight;
    And speak the word for beast and bird
    Till the world shall set things right.
    
        -     Ella Wheeler Wilcox



    The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to be indifferent to them.  That's the essence of inhumanity.          - George Bernard Shaw.



    There Are Dogs in Heaven

    It is the eternal whistler
    Who goes whistling up the sky,
    and at the heels are the weary dogs
    That come to him to die.

    He whistles them over far-off clouds
    And up to the shining gate.
    And while he whistles a different tune,
    They sit and pant and wait.

    He whistles a sudden piercing note
    And slowly the gate swings wide:
    And when nobody's looking,
    Peter winks--and hustles them inside.

    These great dogs - all of them - are what the dog shows are about.  Every dog entering the ring has one thing in common with all the others.  They are there for one reason - their master's bidding.  The look in their eyes is one of trust and love, not of trying to become a club president in order to have more `power'.  The TAILS wag of both the winners and losers, not the tongues.  Their thoughts are of their master's caress; a warm, dry bed; and a simple meal - not of vindictiveness or revenge.  Are we really the masters?

    Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals, "love" them.  But those who respect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more.

        A Dog's Plea

    Treat me kindly, my beloved friend, for no heart in all the world is more grateful for kindness than the loving heart of me.
    Do not break my spirit with a stick, for though I should lick your hand between blows, your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me learn.
    Speak to me often, for your voice is the world's sweetest music, as you must know by the fierce wagging of my tail when your footstep falls upon my waiting ear.
    Please take me inside when it is cold and wet, for I am a domesticated animal, no longer accustomed to bitter elements.  I ask no greater glory that the privilege of sitting at your feet beside the hearth.
    Keep my pan filled with fresh water, for I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst.
    Feed me clean food that I may stay well, to romp and play and do your bidding, to walk by your side, and stand ready, willing and able to protect you with my life, should your life be in danger.
    And, my friend, when I am very old, and I no longer enjoy good health, hearing and sight, do not make heroic efforts to keep me going.  I am not having any fun.  Please see that my trusting life is taken gently.  I shall leave this earth knowing with the last breath I draw that my fate was always safest in your hands.



    True benevolence, or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathises with the distress fo every creature capable of sensation.
        - Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719)

    Until man extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.  
        - Albert Schweitzer

    Until we establish a felt sense of kinship between our own species and those fellow mortals who share with us the sun and shadow of life on this agonized planet, there is no hope for other species, there is no hope for the environment, and there is no hope for ourselves.



    We are all animals and the way we treat animals is a far worse sickness than the sickness we're trying to cure in animal labs across the country.

    We are all in the same boat, both animals and men.  You cannot promote kindness to one without benefiting the other.
     - Edward Everett Hale (1822 - 1909)
    

    We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.  Rachel Carson (1907 - 1964)

    We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.

    We have not two hearts - one for the animals, the other for man.  In the cruelty toward the former and the cruelty toward the latter, there is no other difference than in the victim.

    We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and trevail of the earth.



    What is man without the beasts?  If all the beasts were gone, man would die of great loneliness of spirit, for what happens to the beasts soon happens to man.  All things are connected.

    When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
        - George Bernard Shaw



    When the Man awoke he said, "What is Wild Dog doing here?" And the Woman said, "His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always."        
        - Kipling's Just so Stories

       While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on earth.  
        - George Bernard Shaw

    Who will kill a sick deer?  A hunter, untrained in the field of zoology, cannot determine by looking through a rifle scope if that particular animal will be the one to starve.  He is looking at the rack of antlers and how good they will look over the fireplace in his den.  He is killing the strongest of the species, not the weakest, thereby weakening the entire strain.
    It is estimated that for every clean kill, 2 maimed animals get away to slowly die later of gangrene, fever or starvation.  A high percentage of animals which starve to death are those wounded by bullet or arrow.  In no state is marksmanship a prerequisite for a hunting license.



    You are not living in a private world all your own.  Everything you say and do and think has its effect on everything around you.  For example, if you feel and say loudly enough that it is an infernal shame to keep larks and other wild song-birds in cages, you will infallibly infect a number of other people with that sentiment, and in course of time, those people who feel as you do will become so numerous that larks, thrushes, blackbirds and linnets will no longer be caught and kept in cages.
    How do you imagine it every came about that bulls and bears and badgers are no longer baited, cocks no longer openly encouraged to tear each other to pieces, donkeys no longer beaten to pulp?
    Only because people went about shouting that these things made them uncomfortable.
    When a thing exists which you really abhor, I wish you would remember a little whether in letting it strictly alone, you are minding your own business on principle, or simply because it is comfortable to do so. - John Gallsworthy