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.

Hardly any animal can look as deeply disappointed as a dog to whom one says "no."

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.

Questers of the truth, that’s who dogs are; seekers after the invisible scent of another being’s authentic core.

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.

Every time I told my cocker spaniel, Taffy, my very first dog, that we were going for a walk, she would launch into a celebratory dance that ended with her racing around the room, always clockwise, and faster and faster, as if her joy could not be possibly contained. Even as a young boy I knew that hardly any creature could express joy so vividly as a dog.

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.