Rather than seeing ourselves as pet "owners," I think the more accurate description of the human-animal bond is that we're their guardians. This little vocabulary shift offers a better way to underscore the precious gift of being "natural helpers" that pets offer to their human companions.
During my veterinary years in Spokane, I found that there is one particular time of life when this natural helper role is especially valued. It's when we humans find ourselves separated from our own kind, our own species. I'd like to share some examples.
One morning while examining Max, a rowdy terrier, for his annual vaccinations, his elderly guardian confided in me that she'd recently experienced the loss of her husband to a chronic illness. She said Max was the only other member of their small family left to share her sadness. Max's bond with her husband was strong, and this shared grief helped her deal with those difficult early days of loss.
I once had the pleasure of talking with several men who were inmates at a local correction center. They were involved in training dogs for adoption. They felt their work with pets gave them a feeling of being valued, not only by the correction center but also through their relationship with pets. They knew when they were granted parole or released from the center they would welcome a pet into their lives, helping them in their early days of freedom. Similarly, I've talked with a number of folks struggling with addiction. They too needed a "friend" when leaving their treatment center and having a pet — a natural helper — made them feel more confident in their early struggles to live a sober life.
On one occasion, a client coming through the doors of my veterinary clinic told me of a time when she needed to find work to supplement the family's income, to put food on the table and help pay the mortgage. Her husband had a job that took him away from home for long periods of time making it difficult for them to care for their two young boys. Work kept her away when they came home from school each day. But these latchkey kids did not come home to an empty house. Lassie, their Labrador retriever, greeted the boys with great canine enthusiasm, making their empty house feel more like a home.
This "canine career" of being a natural helper covers so many different situations, and I've heard stories about many of them. These feelings of isolation are not rare. I think we all have moments in our lives when we feel the ache of separation from our human world and, if we're lucky, we may serve as a guardian to a pet who helps us through those times of darkness.
Robert Slack is a retired veterinarian who lives in Spokane. He's the author of Tails: Curious Stories of the Human-Animal Bond.
