We stood at the kitchen window, watching the circus unfold in the empty lot next door.
Four squirrels. We called them Larry, Curly, Moe and Sid. Larry would call out, "Moe! Curly! Watch this!", then he would run into the middle of the lot, dash around in tiny circles and the other three would soon join him.
Sid would say, "Oh, I've got a better move than that!", and proceeded to jump straight up in the air while Curly and Moe ran beneath him.
There was a fifth squirrel, we called him Ralph. Ralph stayed at the corner of the lot but we could tell he really wanted in on the action. It wasn't long before he gave a loud war-hoop and bolted headlong into the middle of the ruckus.
Larry, Curly, Moe and Sid were not having any of Ralph's shenanigans and all four chased him back to his original spot.
Moe gave a "Woooo woo woo woo!", and the 3 ring circus started all over again.
I love giving voices to the animals, I must have learned that from sister Lela. She could entertain her co workers by giving a dialect of what the swans were saying about the guy trying to get close to the edge of the pond, next to the building where she worked. This usually did not end well, swans are pretty territorial and can be nasty.
No matter how much Disney, Pixar or whoever, tries to make us believe that the animals think and have conversations like we humans do, it just isn't so. They have their own kingdom and their own rules.
Don't get me wrong, I love animals and I'm just as guilty when I carry on a conversation with my cats. I do believe animals have feelings, souls and many pets have a great love for their human companions. I also believe that people who are intentionally cruel to animals will pay for that, perhaps on the other side of this veil. But, I also know that Tigger sheds no tears as the baby bird he has snatched from a nest takes its last breath. He didn't need to catch it because he was hungry, he did it because he's a cat and that's just something cats do.
Children need to learn, at a very early age, that there are boundaries within the animal kingdom that should not be crossed. Our second grandson recently learned about one of these boundaries while doing something truly human.
A friend's dog had caught a small kitten and he and his friend were going to save it. I'm not sure, but I think the kitten was probably already toast by the time the boys realized what was going on. They backed this dog into a corner and tried to get the kitten from its mouth. It did not go well. The dog lunged and snapped at our grandson's face, knocking him backwards.
He was not bitten, but he was pretty shook up and he was extremely fortunate, it could have been a lot worse. I remember the time, when I was about his age, sitting on the floor with my aunt's boxer, Sox. Sox was watching her eat a braunschweiger sandwich. I probably would not be able to tell you what I had for lunch yesterday but that braunschweiger sandwich has been eternally etched into my brain. I leaned up on Sox and in a millisecond he turned and bit me. I still carry the scar on my upper eye lid.
Please don't be one of those people who say certain breeds of dogs bite more than others. All dogs bite and if you say yours won't, you're fooling yourself. All animals bite because that is their one true defense mechanism. They cannot ball up a fist and deliver a sucker punch like they do in animation. Sox was merely doing what a dog does, making sure if anyone was getting a bite of braunschweiger, it wasn't going to be me.
Teach your children well. Make sure they have respect for the critters we share this orb with. We can all learn something from the animal kingdom.
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