Our Silent Partners

My entire life has been saturated with loving canine companions. I’m amazed with the intelligence of my three current Chihuahuas in interpreting my family’s emotions when we are with them.

Pets have an instinctive ability to communicate to us their needs in a variety of body gestures and animal commands (without ever vocalizing anything to us in a human language).

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could converse with our pets in vocabulary we could both completely comprehend? It would make caring for their health so much easier. If your pet could talk in your current native tongue, maybe some variation of this speech below would come out of their mouth:

“Treat me kindly… for no heart in [the entire] world is more grateful for kindness than the loving heart of me. Do not break my spirit…your patience and understanding will more quickly teach me the things you would have me do.

Speak to me often, for your voice is the world's sweetest music, as you must know by the fierce wagging of my tail when your footstep falls upon my waiting ear.

When it is cold and wet, please take me inside for I am now a domesticated animal; no longer used to bitter elements... and I ask no greater glory than the privilege of sitting at your feet. [If you were homeless], I would rather follow you through ice and snow than rest upon the softest pillow in the warmest home in all the land…I am your devoted [follower].

Keep my pan filled with fresh water…I cannot tell you when I suffer thirst. Feed me clean food, that I may stay well, to…play… and to walk by your side. [I] stand ready, willing, and able to protect you with my life, [if your existence should ever] be in danger.

My friend, should [the Great Master] see fit when I am very old (and I no longer enjoy good health) to deprive me of hearing and sight. Do not turn me away from you. Do not make heroic efforts to keep me going. I am not having any fun.

Please see that my trusting life is taken gently. Rather hold me gently in your arms as skilled hands grant me the merciful [benefit] of eternal rest. I shall leave this earth knowing with [my] last breath… that my fate was always safest in your hands.”*

Take just a moment with me, and consider how these two verses from Proverbs on friendship (from The Message) could also apply to a loyal non-human companion.

“Friends love through all kinds of weather, and families stick together in all kinds of trouble (17:17)…Friends come and friends go, but a true friend sticks by you like family.” (18:24)

What lessons of true friendship can we gather from our devoted pets?

*Adapted from “A Dog's Prayer “and “A Dog’s Plea,” which are both by Beth Norman Harris