Why Animals Have Always Been Home to Me. Before I could properly walk, a dog taught me how. She was my mom’s Great Dane. Big, gentle, steady. I would grab her ears and she would scoot backwards until I managed to stand. Once I was up, she kept scooting, slow and patient, while I held on. My mom used to say my knees never wore out on my clothes because I didn’t crawl. I walked. Guided by a dog who somehow understood the assignment.
Animals have always met me where I was.
When I was little, I had a black cat who went everywhere with me when I was home. He slept with me. He followed me. He trusted me completely. One day, when I was about two, my mom noticed the house had gone suspiciously quiet. She came looking for me and found me giving the cat a bath in the toilet. I was fine. Not a scratch on me. The cat was… cooperative. Slightly offended. Covered in soap clumps. Still loyal.
He was great.
We fed the squirrels and raccoons that wandered into our yard. Not as an event, just as part of life. Food appeared. Water appeared. Visitors came and went. One day we found a baby opossum playing dead in the garage. We gave it food and water and left it space. Later, the mother came back. Then she came back again. With babies. Asking, in the way wild mothers do, for help. We helped. Because of course we did.
My great grandma used to sit by her window and watch the birds in the black walnut tree out back. She named them. She knew them. She talked about them like neighbors. That tree was a whole world, and she paid attention to it.
This is why animals are a passion of mine.
If I could change one thing, knowing what I know now, I would have listened to myself earlier. I would have chosen a path that could span a lifetime. Animals would have been that path. Instead, I listened to the voices that said I needed to choose something worth more money. That didn’t pan out either.
Animals are exactly who they are
They do not pretend.
They do not deceive.
They do not gaslight.
That alone is enough to make me take in any animal that needs help. I would think twice about taking in a grown human.
Does that make me a bad person?
No. I don’t think so.
I think it means I’ve learned that humans are not always what they seem to be. Animals never pretend to be anything other than what they are. And there is a deep kind of safety in that.
This page is not about rescuing animals.
It is about recognizing truth.
And choosing to live closer to it.
