Animals love and suffer, cry and laugh; their hearts rise up in anticipation and fall in despair...they feel.

We might miss the sign or we may be unable to read the expression, but it is almost a contradiction in terms to say that a dog feels something but does not show it. What a dog feels, a dog shows, and, conversely, what a dog shows, a dog actually does feel.

Perhaps one central reason for loving dogs is that they take us away from this obsession with ourselves. When our thoughts start to go in circles, and we seem unable to break away, wondering what horrible event the future holds for us, the dog opens a window into the delight of the moment.

After a lifetime of affectionate regard for dogs and many years of close observation and reflection, I have reached the conclusion that dogs feel more than I do (I am not prepared to speak for other people). They feel more, and they feel more purely and more intensely.

We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us.

Animals love and suffer, cry and laugh; their hearts rise up in anticipation and fall in despair...they feel.

Dogs never lie about love.