To me it is. Domesticated animals, for the most part live very good lives. But they, like their wild cousins, have to kick the bucket sometime. Heck, in china and elsewhere, dog is food.
To me you’re a lower form of life than a domesticated animal. I’m sure you’re hero, Duncan Hunter, would be very proud of you. /s/
Why don’t you run along and play in traffic.
Well here, they are pets.
Probably the most family oriented pet known to man, and people develop bonds with them.
I think the point is not that it is “a” dog but that it is “your” dog. One puts a lot of self into a pet, it provides quiet consolation, cheerful companionship and we project onto our pets a lot. The loss of a pet often represents the end of an era since often a pet is the one constant over a number of years. People may have a dog when their children are small and then the children go off to college and only the dog is left as continuity. In such a case, or similar ones, when the dog dies it is the closing of a door on an era of our lives and it is profound. This even happens with inanimate objects, like when we load the last load on a moving truck and see the house empty, the one we shared dinners and holidays over the years with loved ones, some of them now long gone. Things, people, places, pets, events have meaning beyond themselves in symbolic ways. It is the human experience, or at least I should say, more accurately it is my human experience.
I think the point is not that it is “a” dog but that it is “your” dog. One puts a lot of self into a pet, it provides quiet consolation, cheerful companionship and we project onto our pets a lot. The loss of a pet often represents the end of an era since often a pet is the one constant over a number of years. People may have a dog when their children are small and then the children go off to college and only the dog is left as continuity. In such a case, or similar ones, when the dog dies it is the closing of a door on an era of our lives and it is profound. This even happens with inanimate objects, like when we load the last load on a moving truck and see the house empty, the one we shared dinners and holidays over the years with loved ones, some of them now long gone. Things, people, places, pets, events have meaning beyond themselves in symbolic ways. It is the human experience, or at least I should say, more accurately it is my human experience.