Rescued Animals Quotes

Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.

She sighed, annoyed at her restlessness. “So,” she said, disrupting Wolf in another backward glance. “Who would win in a fight—you or a pack of wolves?” He frowned at her, all seriousness. “Depends,” he said, slowly, like he was trying to figure out her motive for asking. “How big is the pack?” “I don’t know, what’s normal? Six?” “I could win against six,” he said. “Any more than that and it could be a close call.” Scarlet smirked. “You’re not in danger of low self-esteem, at least.” “What do you mean?” “Nothing at all.” She kicked a stone from their path. “How about you and … a lion?” “A cat? Don’t insult me.” She laughed, the sound sharp and surprising. “How about a bear?” “Why, do you see one out there?” “Not yet, but I want to be prepared in case I have to rescue you.” The smile she’d been waiting for warmed his face, a glint of white teeth flashing. “I’m not sure. I’ve never had to fight a bear before.

At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.

If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued." "If you don't blow, we'll soon be animals anyway.

When people say that animal rescuers are crazy, what they really mean is that animal rescuers share a number of fundamental beliefs that makes them easy to marginalize. Among those is the belief that Rene Descartes was a jackass.

I hated cats. I was a dog lover," Des says with a shrug. "What's the point of a cat? They're not affectionate. But that's because it's not my cat. I mean, your wife wouldn't jump on my lap. That's because she's your wife, not mine. Until you have your own cat, you really don't understand.

You can't be sad when Daisy is around, she won't let you.

Kaz had rescued her from that hopelessness, and their lives had been a series of rescues ever since, a string of debts that they never tallied as they saved each other again and again. Lying in the dark, she realized that for all her doubts, she’d believed he would rescue her once more, that he would put aside his greed and his demons and come for her. Now she wasn’t so sure. Because it was not just the sense in the words she’d spoken that had stilled Van Eck’s hand but the truth he’d heard in her voice. He’ll never trade if you break me. She could not pretend those words had been conjured by strategy or even animal cunning. The magic they’d worked had been born of belief. An ugly enchantment.

Being a hero to someone, even if it is a dog, is a feeling like no other. Though it can be frustrating, it can be the most rewarding thing to give someone a second chance at a happy life.

If a person fights, that's their own choice," Angel says. "But getting two roosters to fight or two dogs like pit bulls to fight, the animals don't have a choice there. They can't decide not to fight.

Cat rescue is like a virus," says Des placidely about the cat obsession that has taken over his life. "And once you're infected, it's incurable.

Plenty of animals had pets, but few were more devoted than the mouse, who owned a baby corn snake—“A rescue snake, she’d be quick to inform you. This made it sound like he’d been snatched from the jaws of a raccoon, but what she’d really rescued him from was a life without her love. And what sort of a life would that have been?

It's a little Anxious," Piglet said to himself, "to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could escape by -- by Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, surrounded by water and I can't do anything.

Shall we all open our heart to be a forever home for lost pets.

You went from worrying about being weak to wanting a fence with me?" "I don't give a flying fuck about being weak. You're the only thing I care about. You make me whole. You make me feel. You make me..." He searched for the word. "Everything." He pulled her tighter to him. "It's always been you, Holly. And it always will be. Say yes." "Yes," she said instantly. "To everything.

One trained dog equals 60 search-and-rescue workers.

It is a clear indictment of how ingrained our state of cognitive dissonance is that we see attempts at moral consistency as signs of extremism. Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but some one who rescues a piglet suffering on a far is a criminal?

The strange thing is, this truly horrifying experience planted a seed deep within my heart that germinated and grew into a desire that, I have to admit, I've never completely overcome.

I'm not too chicken," she said. "I know exactly what I want. I honestly thought I could do this with you, the whole friends-with-benefits thing." She slowly shook her head, her eyes suspiciously shiny. "But as it turns out, I can't. Now with you, Adam. With you, I want it all." (...) "It's not that simple for me," he heard himself say. "Of course it is. Life is as simple as you make it, Adam. You're born. You live. You die. I don't plan on dying without doing the living part, though.

The greatest book in the world, the Mahabharata, tells us we all have to live and die by our karmic cycle. Thus works the perfect reward-and-punishment, cause-and-effect, code of the universe. We live out in our present life what we wrote out in our last. But the great moral thriller also orders us to rage against karma and its despotic dictates. It teaches us to subvert it. To change it. It tells us we also write out our next lives as we live out our present. The Mahabharata is not a work of religious instruction. It is much greater. It is a work of art. It understands men will always fall in the shifting chasm between the tug of the moral and the lure of the immoral. It is in this shifting space of uncertitude that men become men. Not animals, not gods. It understands truth is relative. That it is defined by context and motive. It encourages the noblest of men - Yudhishtra, Arjuna, Lord Krishna himself - to lie, so that a greater truth may be served. It understands the world is powered by desire. And that desire is an unknowable thing. Desire conjures death, destruction, distress. But also creates love, beauty, art. It is our greatest undoing. And the only reason for all doing. And doing is life. Doing is karma. Thus it forgives even those who desire intemperately. It forgives Duryodhana. The man who desires without pause. The man who precipitates the war to end all wars. It grants him paradise and the admiration of the gods. In the desiring and the doing this most reviled of men fulfils the mandate of man. You must know the world before you are done with it. You must act on desire before you renounce it. There can be no merit in forgoing the not known. The greatest book in the world rescues volition from religion and gives it back to man. Religion is the disciplinarian fantasy of a schoolmaster. The Mahabharata is the joyous song of life of a maestro. In its tales within tales it takes religion for a spin and skins it inside out. Leaves it puzzling over its own poisoned follicles. It gives men the chance to be splendid. Doubt-ridden architects of some small part of their lives. Duryodhanas who can win even as they lose.

But perhaps the most damning argument came from nature herself. Had David followed his own advice to look to nature for truth, he would have seen it. This dazzling, feathery, squawking, gurgling mound of counterevidence. Animals can outperform humans on nearly every measure supposedly associated with our superiority. There are crows that have better memories than us, chimps with better pattern-recognition skills, ants that rescue their wounded, and blood flukes with higher rates of monogamy. When you actually examine the range of life on Earth, it takes a lot of acrobatics to sort it into a single hierarchy with humans at the top. We don’t have the biggest brain or the best memory. We’re not the fastest or the strongest or the most prolific. We’re not the only ones that mate for life, that show altruism, use tools, language. We don’t have the most copies of genes in circulation. We aren’t even the newest creation on the block.

Is it not strange that we call those who kill dogs animal abusers, those who kill pigs normal and those who kill neither extremists? Is it not odd that someone who smashes a car window to rescue a dog on a hot day is viewed as a hero but someone who rescues a piglet suffering on a farm is a criminal?

It is so hard for a queer person to become an adult. Deprived of the markers of life's passage, they lolled about in a neverland dreamworld. They didn't get married. They didn't have children. They didn't buy homes or have job-jobs. The best that could be aimed for was an academic placement and a lover who eventually tired of pansexual sport-fucking and settled down with you to raise a rescue animal in a rent-controlled apartment.

Just because you're down to your last strike, you're not out yet. You can always do more. You'll always have more at-bats to take. That's true in baseball, in rescuing animals, and in life generally.

On this planet are every kind of deadly animal from across the stars. The only people that come here are hunters looking for the most dangerous of trophies. No rescue. You either get your prize or you die.

Whether people need nature or not, it was clear that nature needed people. But perhaps nature needs us like a hostage needs her captors: nature needs us not to annihilate her, not to run her over, not to cover her with cement, not to chop her down. We can hardly admire ourselves, then, when we stop to accommodate nature's needs: we are dubious heroes who create peril and then save it's victims, we who rescue the animals and the trees from ourselves.

An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. ....The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney, therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow fell into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair and came out looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive, But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once." Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?

I suppose someone had tossed the puppy out of the car, since we were in the middle of nowhere, too far out for a puppy to get to on her own. Who on Earth would do such a thing?! People like that need to burn in hell, I tell you that much.

Who knows what the long-term effects of saving rescue dogs are and the healing lessons and love they bring to Earth? Each one of us has the capacity to influence hundreds - even thousands of people or animals through the way we live our lives.

By immersing yourself in nature, you can experience a form of enlightenment. This is when the soul is free of fear and absorbs, almost by osmosis, the energy of life.

I howl like a wounded animal, but there’s no one to rescue me. I am the dumb lamb that wandered from the fold, and I’ve stumbled into the razor teeth of a hunter’s trap.

Most of us humans have no idea how stressful any change is for animals.

Sanctuaries are magical places – dare I say holy?

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy need only one hour of animal-assisted therapy a week to see their depression and anxiety reduced by half.

You never know what you are capable of until the day comes when you have to go places you hadn’t planned on going.

Also, Moss liked to rescue whatever animal or plant needed it. She believed they had earned it.

Animals, Huss felt, could teach us a lot about how to live if we paid attention to them. She had chosen to pay attention.

To step inside a sealed, twelve-by-twelve-foot space with a wild animal that is many times your size is extremely hazardous to say the least. Yet sending these frightened animals out into the real world without giving them tools to safely deal with a new environment...could be disastrous. It would not be unlike sending a soldier on a mission without any training. Clearly, it was not a scenario lending itself toward safety or success for either horse or new owner.

I’m tougher than this.” He shook his head. “Somehow it doesn’t matter how tough you are. You can be tough as hell and still be leveled flat without warning.” She looked at him. “What do you do when you’re leveled flat?” “You make a plan, you move on that plan, and you keep breathing

I leafed through all the men I had known to see whether or not I hated them. But then I realized it wasn't the men I hated, it was the Americans, the human beings, men and women both. They'd had their chance but they had turned against the gods, and it was time for me to choose sides. I wanted there to be a machine that could make them vanish, a button I could press that would evaporate them without disturbing anything else, that way there would be more room for the animals, they would be rescued.

And then I knew for sure what I had been trying to avoid for so long. Everything rushed to the surface. I cried as I remembered throwing the dress I had received for my third birthday on the floor. I cried as I remembered wanting to be best friends with a girl in fifth grade because she was so pretty. I cried as I remembered always rescuing the girl, played by a stuffed animal, while pretending to be Indiana Jones. I

I can only say that the experience of being a person alone with a cat for so long and in such wild country depends to some extent on the person, but far, far more on the individual cat. And in Masha was embodied a very rare animal indeed: a cat who expanded the limits of courage, caring, and sacrifice. Think that’s beyond a cat? Think again.

Over her years of caring for unwanted animals, Lady Penelope Campion had learned a few things. Dogs barked; rabbits hopped. Hedgehogs curled up into pincushions. Cats plopped in the middle of the drawing room carpet and licked themselves in indelicate places. Confused parrots flew out open windows and settled on ledges just out of reach. And Penny leaned over window sashes in her nightdress to rescue them- even if it meant risking her own neck. She couldn't change her nature, any more than the lost, lonely, wounded, and abandoned creatures filling her house could change theirs.

A saving grace of the human condition (if I may phrase it like that) is a sense of humor. Many writers and witnesses, guessing the connection between sexual repression and religious fervor, have managed to rescue themselves and others from its deadly grip by the exercise of wit. And much of religion is so laughable on its face that writers from Voltaire to Bertrand Russell to Chapman Cohen have had great fun at its expense. In our own day, the humor of scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan has ridiculed the apparent inability of the creator to know, let alone to understand, what he has created. Gods seem not to know of any animals except the ones tended by their immediate worshippers and seem to be ignorant as well of microbes and the laws of physics. The self-evident man-madeness of religion, as well as its masculine-madeness in respect of religion’s universal commitment to male domination, is one of the first things to strike the eye.

Ensuring that our home planet is healthy and life sustaining is an overwhelming priority that undercuts all other human activities. The ship must first float. Our failure to grasp these fundamental tenants of existence will be our undoing. And one thing is for certain. No calvary is going to come charging to our rescue. We are going to have to rescue ourselves or die trying. Workable solutions are urgently needed. Saving seals and tigers or fighting yet another oil pipeline through a wilderness area, while laudable, is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The real issue is our elementary accord with Earth and the plant and animal kingdoms has to be revitalized and re-understood. The burning question is, How?

Laika,” she would say, “the first dog in space. She died of heat and stress after a few hours. She was rescued from an animal center, she must have thought she was going to a home, to a family, and instead they sent her to the loneliest death in the world.

When we hear the phrase “rescue animal,” we tend to think of a dog or cat being rescued by a human. But when Enzo came into my life, I learned that more often than not, the rescued animal is the human, and the rescuer usually has four legs (or sometimes three).

People like you and me, we have too many nerves and not enough skin. That’s the issue. Too many nerves. Not enough skin. We feel things straight to our bones. We’re radar dishes. We take in everything and we feel everything. We feel pain that doesn’t even belong to us. We are the animal shelter of feelings. We rescue everything.

The work to protect one species benefits us all.

Acting compassionately creates happiness in our own lives

When you're on the path to do what's right, you're never alone.

From a vegan perspective, rescuing a cat or dog and then feeding them flesh from countless other innocent butchered animals is a clearly speciesist choice, not a compassionate one!

Heroes aren't built from cloth and string. They're built from bravery, and from love.

That was one of the things she loved about him. He assumed she could walk and chew gum at the same time. He never second-guessed her, and he didn't try to change her. He accepted.

Having another creature absolutely committed to me is a big boost to my ego, makes me feel like the king of my castle. But its no way for a dog to live.

Inside, the two men holed up in Donald's office for a few minutes, where apparently no vaginas were invited.

Most people thought that training animals was about obedience and control. But in reality, the center of any search and rescue training program was play. For the dog, searching was a game. Animals who had a strong play drive would keep playing indefinitely—through ice and snow, over hard terrain, for hours upon hours—until the game was won. Until they found their target.

The history of the world will, one day, be defined by the people who witnessed the tragedy of impending extinction and were able to turn humanity's destructive patterns into creative solutions.

Chloe, wake up. I really, really, really need to pee.” I moan and sink deeper into Jorge’s arms, pulling my hand back. “Chloe, wake up. I’m dying here. I have to pee.” Ugh, why won’t that voice go away? I crack my eyes open and see Ringo by the bed prancing around doing the doggy version of a potty dance. Ringo starts prancing toward the bedroom door. “Thank goodness. I’ve got to go.

Animals store their fears and at times OUR fears in the body and manifest physical illnesses like we do. Like us, these fears may have occurred in infancy and are still carried in the adult body.

tranquility, and its same small scale indicates that it lacked sufficient grazing for the number of animals needed to support a large army or even a large court of retainers. The location indicates

To my astonishment, within minutes, the dogs dragged Chucky’s bed and toys from the porch to the grave site and started to play on the mound of freshly dug earth. Chucky was gone, but they still included him in their game. At that, the floodgates opened. Dennie’s face crumpled. He turned and strode quickly away. In my mind, I heard Mom’s voice: “Have a good cry, Laurie. The more you cry, the less you pee.

In the weeks after the flood, the Humane Society of the United States organized the biggest animal rescue in history. Hundreds of volunteers from all over the country came to New Orleans. They broke into boarded-up houses, plucked dogs and cats from rooftops and trees, and even rescued pigs and goats. Many animals were reunited with their owners. Others were sent to shelters across America to be adopted by new families.

animals are often fed mechanically, so their only human contact comes, and this is only in the case of breeder dogs, in the form of artificial insemination and, nine weeks later, a pair of hands snatching babies away. If Dante

He wagged his tail, and his whole body tingled. He realized the emptiness inside was not filled with happiness. Blue felt a glow within that was a result of more than just the warm sunshine on a spring day. It was more than just the gentle tumble of the waterfall, or the wind or the sound of birds. It was much, much more he knew. He looked about him and he knew he had found what he had been looking for. He had found more than his true heart's desire... He had found a forever home!

Of all the things that happened during the war, this one -- making your children go away to try to keep them safe -- was surely the most terrible. I don't know how they endured it. It defies the animal instinct to protect your young. I see myself becoming bearlike around Kit. Even when I'm not actually watching her, I'm watching her. If she's in any danger (which she often is, given her taste in climbing), my hackles rise -- I didn't even know I HAD hackles before -- and I run to rescue her.

We have the power to build a new consensus, which rejects killing as a method for achieving results. And we can look forward to a time when the wholesale slaughter of animals in shelters is viewed as a cruel aberration of the past. We have a choice.

Cats can be a very affectionate type of animal, but it's an affection you have to win. Pretty much the way you earn the affection of your friends and your lovers and your wives and your girlfriends and anybody else that's meaningful in your life,' says Des philosophically. 'There's a period of time where you don't know your positioning, and you work for it. And then all of a sudden, the relationship is established and it's yours, it belongs to you, it's something tangible. You can feel it, you can touch it.

Often, when a human suffers through major emotional traumas, a lack of well being follows if their feelings about the trauma are not completely expressed. When the trauma is severe and the suffering is continuous, their animal companion’s condition may deteriorate too.

I know Dad killed himself because of me. Mom thinks that his recent jail stint tipped him over the edge, that his many chemical imbalances caught up with him. Now I keep searching for happiness so I don’t end up like he did. I learn about this town called Happy in Texas and think about how that must be the greatest place to live. I teach myself how to say and read and write happy in Spanish, German, Italian, and even Japanese but I would have to draw that last one out. I discover the happiest animal in the world, the quokka. He’s a cheeky little bastard that’s always smiling. But it’s not enough. The memories are still rattling around my head, twisting into me like a knife. I don’t want to wait around to see what comes next for me in this tragic story I’m living. I open up one of my father’s unused razors and cut into my wrist like he did, slit in a curve until it smiles so everyone will know I died for happiness. I was expecting relief but instead it’s the saddest pain I’ve ever experienced. I never once stop feeling empty or unworthy of anyone’s rescue, not even when the thin line on my wrist makes everything go red. I

Forever afterward, Steve and I referred to the Cattle Creek rescue as our honeymoon trip. It also marked the beginning of Steve’s filming career. He was gifted with the ability to hunt down wildlife. But he hunted animals to save them, not kill them. That’s how the Crocodile Hunter was born.

The face that Moses had begged to see – was forbidden to see – was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20) The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth’s rebellion now twisted around his brow… “On your back with you!” One raises a mallet to sink the spike. But the soldier’s heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner’s wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier’s life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on – he grants the warrior’s continued existence. The man swings. As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm – the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless – the nerves perform exquisitely. “Up you go!” They lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe. But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around his nose, but his heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being – the living excrement from our souls. The apple of his Father’s eye turns brown with rot. His Father! He must face his Father like this! From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross.Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes. “Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped – murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, over-spent, overeaten – fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held a razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk – you, who moles young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp – buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves – relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath? Of course the Son is innocent He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed. The Father watches as his heart’s treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah’s stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction. “Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!” But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply. The Trinity had planned it. The Son had endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.

Follow your doctor’s orders. For me that means antidepressants and behavioral therapy. Exercise thirty minutes a day, six days a week. Get sunlight, or if you can’t, use light therapy. Do not overuse your light therapy lamp even though you want to. Treat yourself like you would your favorite pet. Plenty of fresh water, lots of rest, snuggles as needed, allow yourself naps. Avoid negativity. That means the news, people, movies. It will all be there when you’re healthy again. The world will get on without your seeing it. Forgive yourself. For being broken. For being you. For thinking those are things that you need forgiveness for. Those terrible things you tell yourself? Can you imagine if the person you love most were telling themselves those things? You’d think they were crazy. And wrong. They think the same about you. Those negative things you are thinking are not rational. Remember that depression lies and that your brain is not always trustworthy. Give yourself permission to recover. I’m lucky that I can work odd hours and take mental health days but I still feel shitty for taking them. Realize that sometimes these slow days are necessary and healthy and utterly responsible. Watch Doctor Who. Love on an animal. Go adopt a rescue, or if you can’t, go to the shelter and just snuggle a kitten. Then realize that that same little kitten that you’re cradling isn’t going to accomplish shit but is still wonderful and lovely and so important. You are that kitten. Get up. Go brush your teeth. Go take a hot shower. If you do nothing else today just change into a new pair of pajamas. It helps. Remember that you are not alone. There are crisis lines filled with people who want to help. There are people who love you more than you know. There are people who can’t wait to meet you because you will teach them how unalone they are. You are so worthy of happiness and it will come.

Are we simply self-conscious animals improbably appearing for a moment in a cosmos without purpose or significance? If so, that has implications for life, which even ordinary people can work out. Or are we rather illusions of individuality destined to dissolve into the ultimately real Absolute? That would make a difference. Are we instead really materially acquisitive hedonists or carnally desiring sensualists who have nothing higher to which to aspire than the gratifications of possessions and physical sensations that we can use our money and relations to consume? Or maybe only bodies with capacities to define by means of the exercise of will and discourse our identities through self-description and re-description? Or perhaps are we children of a personal God, whose perfect love is determined to rescue us from our self-destruction in order to bring us into the perfect happiness of divine knowledge and worship? Or maybe something else? The differences matter for how life ought to be lived, how we ought to live, as individuals and as a society.12 And ultimately we have no choice but to adopt some position, even if by default our culture adopts it for us. I think we ought to want to embrace a position that is deliberately considered and believed for good reasons.

Strolling through Białowieza's mass of life, one would never guess the role it played in Lutz Heck's ambitions, the Warsaw Zoo's fate, and the altruistic opportunism of Jan and Antonina, who capitalized on the Nazis' obsession with prehistoric animals and a forest primeval to rescue scores of endangered neighbors and friends.

The basic common denominator of all life is the urge to survive, and the survival of life on Planet Earth is achieved only as a shared initiative with and through all life-forms. Life is a joint effort; no 'man' separate from 'nature.' Homo sapiens as individuals and as species are as much a part of life's overall thrust for survival as any other species. As living organisms, we are part if the greater whole, and as such, we are embodied with exactly the same fundamental purpose: to survive. And to do so--as individuals, families, groups, and as a species--we have to live in dynamic collaboration with the plant and animal kingdoms in a healthy, life-sustaining environment.

In its full-blown intensity, anxiety is the most painful emotion to which the human animal is heir. “Present dangers are less than future imaginings,” as Shakespeare puts it; and people have been known to leap out of a lifeboat and drown rather than face the greater agony of continual doubt and uncertainty, never knowing whether they will be rescued or not.

The faeries took no notice of my cry. No doubt they were used to lost travelers screaming for help. One of them grabbed me by my cloak and wrenched me painfully back and forth, like an animal wishing to drag me to the ground. But I did not need to call for Wendell again. He stepped out from behind a tree---or perhaps from the tree; I didn't see. He reached a hand out and snapped the neck of the faerie gripping me, which I had not expected, and I staggered back from both him and the crumpling body. He saw the mark on my neck, and his entire face darkened with something that seemed to go beyond fury and made him look like some feral creature. The faeries scattered like leaves, though they were too intrigued and too stupid to run. "Are you hurt?" "No." I don't know how I made myself speak. I have seen Wendell angry before, but this was something that seemed to surge through him like lightning, threatening to burn everything in its path. He moved his hand, and a hideous tree rose up from the snow, dark and terrifying, all thorns and knife-sharp branches. The boughs darted out, and he skewered the faeries on them. Once they were all immobilized, held squirming and screaming above the ground, he moved from one to the other, tearing them apart with perfect, calm brutality. Limbs, hearts, other organs I did not recognize scattered the snow. He did not rush, but killed them methodically while the others howled and writhed.

Ever wonder why your cat jumps on the lap of the guest that doesn't like cats? It is because people who don't like cats will do things cats like during greetings. They squint their eyes, turn their heads and avoid direct contact with the cat. The cat's view is these people are saying hello and being non-threatening, and, sure enough, he ends up on their lap.

went to a rescue and found the ugliest animal there. The one so hideous, nobody else wanted it. This dog’s got an underbite and mange, and he’s missing half an ear. He’s a little Brussels Griffon, so he’s got that deep frown—he looks like a judgmental gremlin. I adopted him and named him Chad since the dog is now my new best friend. If you’re reading this, you’re dead to me, human Chad.

the biggest damage to the Baghdad Zoo had not been done in battle, fierce as it had been. It was the looters. They had killed or kidnapped anything edible and ransacked everything else. Even the lamp poles had been unbolted, tipped over, and their copper wiring wrenched out like multicolored spaghetti. As we drove past, we could see groups of looters still at it, scavenging like colonies of manic ants.

Are you sure? Because it looks bad. And you’re pale. You’re never pale.” “I’ve seen him look much worse,” Dell said. “Like last year, when I signed him up for this online dating thing. He got all scared. He was pretty pale then.” “Because I was stalked,” Adam said. “By a crazy person.” “Aw, she wasn’t that bad. And she bought you that teddy bear, remember? Because you were her cuddle umpkins. How scary can a woman who says ‘cuddle umpkins’ be?

It was to Noah that God gave instructions to make an ark in which he was to be rescued from the devastation of the Flood, together with his family, that is, his wife, his sons and daughters-in-law, and also the animals that went into the ark in accordance with God’s directions. Without doubt this is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world, of the Church which is saved through the wood on which was suspended ‘the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’.

I gave up trying to duplicate Nara’s hunting skills. He could make animal calls from leaves. He put a leaf in his mouth and mimicked the sound of a chicken. A short time later, chickens walked over to him and he killed them. I could never attain that level of expertise. Animal impersonation skills must be genetic, because I could never make the proper sounds. When I tried an animal call it seemed that some creatures made sounds in reply. Nara said it was just the animals laughing at me.

sweet feed—the stuff did have a shelf-life, after all, and those bags were getting close—when her cell phone rang. She’d been able to prepay it this month, although it was a bare bones plan. She’d gotten rather good at stretching her limited income. The small inheritance from her father was her mainstay, and she supplemented that with her work as a freelance photographer, although she donated those services to the animal shelters and other rescues who called. But the horse rescue expenses

he ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles said that two forces – love and hate – govern the universe. Love fuses things together. Hate splits them apart. In a foundation myth of ancient Egypt, the god Osiris was killed by his brother Set, and his body cut into many pieces and scattered across Egypt. His wife collected all of the dismembered parts together and then, with the help of Anubis, the god of embalming and funerary rites, and Thoth, the god of magic, she restored Osiris’s body to life. This is a creation myth based on fission – the god is torn apart – followed by fusion – the god is reassembled. Dr. Frankenstein, the modern Thoth, the scientific Thoth, fused body parts of dead criminals together then animated the creature. Human society is full of fusion forces that bring people together, and fission forces that break them apart. Fusion forces unite. Fission forces divide. We now live in a Fission Phase, with extreme polarization evident everywhere. There’s no sign of any Fusion Phase coming to the rescue any time soon.

I remained silent, scarcely daring to breathe. I felt as if I was present at an intimate moment, watching a wild animal give birth. Although Alicia was aware of my presence, she didn’t seem to mind. She occasionally looked up, while painting, and glanced at me. Almost as if she was studying me. Over the next few days the painting slowly took shape, roughly at first, sketchily, but with increasing clarity—then it emerged from the canvas with a burst of pristine photo-realistic brilliance. Alicia had painted a redbrick building, a hospital—unmistakably the Grove. It was on fire, burning to the ground. Two figures were discernible on the fire escape. A man and a woman escaping the fire. The woman was unmistakably Alicia, her red hair the same color as the flames. I recognized the man as myself. I was carrying Alicia in my arms, holding her aloft while the fire licked at my ankles. I couldn’t tell if I was depicted as rescuing Alicia—or about to throw her in the flames. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE “THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’ve been coming here for years and nobody ever told me to call ahead before. I can’t stand around waiting all day. I’m an extremely busy person.

J. Morris Hicks, who wrote Healthy Eating, Healthy World, has this to say about our obsession with protein: Because of the mistaken, yet almost ubiquitous, belief that we humans actually “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy, incredibly powerful solutions to our sustainability crisis don’t even make it to the table for consideration. For this reason, I consider that “protein myth” to be the most serious obstacle in the history of humanity. For if we cannot take the “animal out of the equation” when it comes to feeding humans… the future of our civilization (and even our species) is in peril.

Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter. Support local and no-kill animal shelters. Plant a tree to honor someone you love. Be a developer — put up some birdhouses. Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them. Make sure you spend time with your animals each day. Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products. Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home. Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides. If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices. Support your local farmers market. Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

I shall report this, and in the meantime the animal can be taken away by one of the porters.’ ‘Don’t you dare,’ said Emmy fiercely. ‘I’ll not allow it. You are—’ It was unfortunate that she was interrupted before she could finish. ‘Ah,’ said Professor ter Mennolt, looming behind the supervisor. ‘My kitten. Good of you to look after it for me, Ermentrude.’ He gave the supervisor a bland smile. ‘I am breaking the rules, am I not? But this seemed the best place for it to be until I could come and collect it.’ ‘Miss Foster has just told me…’ began the woman. ‘Out of the kindness of her heart,’ said the professor outrageously. ‘She had no wish to get me into trouble. Isn’t that correct, Ermentrude?’ She nodded, and watched while he soothed the supervisor’s feelings with a bedside manner which she couldn’t have faulted. ‘I will overlook your rudeness, Miss Foster,’ she said finally, and sailed away. ‘Where on earth did you find it?’ asked the professor with interest. She told him, then went on, ‘I’ll take him home. He’ll be nice company for Snoodles and George.’ ‘An excellent idea. Here is your relief. I shall be outside when you are ready.’ ‘Why?’ asked Emmy. ‘You sometimes ask silly questions, Ermentrude. To take you both home.

When you peer into an abyss, you see a monster. If it is a small abyss, then it is a small monster. But if it is the ultimate abyss, then it is the ultimate monster. That is certainly a dragon—perhaps even the dragon of evil itself. The conceptualization of the monster in the abyss is the eternal predator lurking in the night, ready and able to devour its unsuspecting prey. That is an image that is tens of millions of years old, something coded as deeply in the recesses of our biological structure as anything conceptual can be coded. And it is not just the monsters of nature, but the tyrants of culture and the malevolence of individuals. It is all of that, with the latter dominant, terrible as that is to consider. And it is in the nature of mankind not to cower and freeze as helpless prey animals, nor to become a turncoat and serve evil itself, but to confront the lions in their lairs. That is the nature of our ancestors: immensely courageous hunters, defenders, shepherds, voyagers, inventors, warriors, and founders of cities and states. That is the father you could rescue; the ancestor you could become. And he is to be discovered in the deepest possible place, as that is where you must go if you wish to take full responsibility and become who you could be.

This is a story about a tiger named Mohini that was in captivity in a zoo, who was rescued from an animal sanctuary. Mohini had been confined to a 10-by-10-foot cage with a concrete floor for 5 or 10 years. They finally released her into this big pasture: With excitement and anticipation, they released Mohini into her new and expensive environment, but it was too late. The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life. She paced and paced in that corner until an area 10-by-10 feet was worn bare of grass. . . . Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.

Often at shelters, we hear, 'I told my child she could get a pet, but she will have to take care of him.' That is an unrealistic expectation and often results in the pet being returned days, weeks, or months later. It is hard for pets to go in and out of a home. They bond with their humans and when they find themselves at a shelter, they become stressed at being taken away from home and the people they love. When an 'easy-way-out' decision is made to give up a pet, we are teaching our children that animals can be given away, turned away, and gotten rid of at the drop of a hat. If you are considering getting a cat or kitten, go into it fully aware that the adults in the home will have to help with the care of the pet.

Why trust this account when humanity has never been so rich, so healthy, so long-lived? When fewer die in wars and childbirth than ever before—and more knowledge, more truth by way of science, was never so available to us all? When tender sympathies—for children, animals, alien religions, unknown, distant foreigners—swell daily? When hundreds of millions have been raised from wretched subsistence? When, in the West, even the middling poor recline in armchairs, charmed by music as they steer themselves down smooth highways at four times the speed of a galloping horse? When smallpox, polio, cholera, measles, high infant mortality, illiteracy, public executions and routine state torture have been banished from so many countries? Not so long ago, all these curses were everywhere. When solar panels and wind farms and nuclear energy and inventions not yet known will deliver us from the sewage of carbon dioxide, and GM crops will save us from the ravages of chemical farming and the poorest from starvation? When the worldwide migration to the cities will return vast tracts of land to wilderness, will lower birth rates, and rescue women from ignorant village patriarchs? What of the commonplace miracles that would make a manual labourer the envy of Caesar Augustus: pain-free dentistry, electric light, instant contact with people we love, with the best music the world has known, with the cuisine of a dozen cultures? We’re bloated with privileges and delights, as well as complaints, and the rest who are not will be soon.

Then he thinks that there should be a place in every town where people could put rescued or found things. Not just objects, but snippets of forgotten languages, or misused time – an hour that can never be lived again. It would be a place where lost faiths could be collected, as well as keys, gloves and love letters never sent. Here you could find extinct animals and old wives’ tales vanished in history; a whole shelf of unfinished songs, discontinued books, deleted texts. It would be a safe for fleeting emotions – the first flush of love, or a particular scent on a sunny day that is never savoured again. Among the dog leads, phones and hats, there would be babies hoped for and lost. All this would be remembered: missed opportunities, mislaid friends, the smile of a wife. It would be a place for lost things.

So, to summarise: Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. Meaning is not accidental to the human condition because we are the meaning-seeking animal. To believe on the basis of science that the universe has no meaning is to confuse two disciplines of thought: explanation and interpretation. The search for meaning, though it begins with science, must go beyond it. Science does not yield meanings, nor does it prove the absence of meanings. The meaning of a system lies outside the system. Therefore the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe. The belief in a God who transcends the universe was the discovery of Abrahamic monotheism, which transformed the human condition, endowing it with meaning and thereby rescuing it from tragedy in the name of hope. For if God created the physical universe, then God is free, and if God made us in his image, we are free. If we are free, then history is not a matter of eternal recurrences. Because we can change ourselves, we can change the world. That is the religious basis of hope. There are cultures that do not share these beliefs. They are, ultimately, tragic cultures, for whatever shape they give the powers they name, those powers are fundamentally indifferent to human fate. They may be natural forces. They may be human institutions: the empire, the state, the political system, or the economy. They may be human collectivities: the tribe, the nation, the race. But all end in tragedy because none attaches ultimate significance to the individual as individual. All end by sacrificing the individual, which is why, in the end, such cultures die. There is only one thing capable of defeating tragedy, which is the belief in God who in love sets his image on the human person, thus endowing each of us with non-negotiable, unconditional dignity.

Two seconds went by before I got a response. Lenny: The offer stands, bish. Lenny: You’re the best person I know, fyi. I smiled down at my phone. Me: I love you too Lenny: [eye rolling emoji] Lenny: I was texting you because Grandpa G is making margaritas and he was asking where you were. Me: Tell him I love him. Lenny: I will. You find Rip? Me: I’m watching him. Lenny: Stalker Me: He’s standing in front of me, I can’t help it. Lenny: Pretty sure that’s what every stalker thinks. I chanced another glance at the man and held back a sigh. Me: Sometimes I don’t understand why him. Lenny: Because he looks like he’s been in jail and that’s about as far away from what every jackass you’ve ever dated looks like? Lenny: Grandpa G says he loves you too and to come over and bring the girl with you if she’s around. I didn’t tell him you’re at the bar, otherwise he’d want to invite himself. You know how that man gets in public. I almost laughed at the first comment and definitely laughed at the second one. Rip did look like he’d done time. That was unfair, but it was the truth. For all I knew, he probably had. Then again, I was probably judging him by a face he had no say in. For all I knew, he had a marshmallow heart and rescued and rehabilitated small animals when he wasn’t at work. Deep down, he might have a caring and loving disposition that he only shared around very few people—people who had won his trust. You never knew. The idea of that put a small smile on my face and kept it there as I typed a message back, leaving the first comment alone. Me: I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here, but if I leave soon, I’ll drop by. Tell Grandpa G that the girl is working tonight. You’re all coming for the graduation, right? Lenny: Yes. I’m legit ready to cry this Saturday. Lenny: I’ve got the blow horn ready by the way. TOOT TOOT, bish. She wasn’t the only one preparing herself to cry this weekend, and that made me happy for some reason.

Ever since she was a young girl, [Patricia Highsmith] had felt an extraordinary empathy for animals, particularly cats. The creatures, she said, 'provide something for writers that humans cannot: companionship that makes no demands or intrusions, that is as restful and ever-changing as a tranquil sea that barely moves'. Her affection for cats was 'a constant as was feline companionship wherever her domestic situation permitted,' says Kingsley. 'As for animals in general, she saw them as individual personalities often better behaved, and endowed with more dignity and honesty than humans. Cruelty to or neglect of any helpless living creature could turn her incandescent with rage.' Janice Robertson remembers how [...] Highsmith was walking through the streets of Soho when she saw a wounded pigeon lying in the gutter. 'Pat decided there and then that this pigeon should be rescued,' says Janice. 'Although I think Roland persuaded her that it was past saving, she really was distraught. She couldn't bear to see animals hurt.' Bruno Sager, Highsmith's carer at the end of her life, recalls the delicacy with which the writer would take hold of a spider which had crawled into the house, making sure to deposit it safely in her garden. 'For her human beings were strange - she thought she would never understand them - and perhaps that is why she liked cats and snails so much,' he says.

While there was still water in the middle of the pools, animals attempted to reach it through the silt but would get bogged. We spent day after day checking dams, finding about eight to ten animals hopelessly mired in the silt at each and every dam, primarily kangaroos and wallabies. We had to get to the dams early in the morning. Some of the kangaroos had been struggling all night. Steve engineered planks and straps to rescue the animals. The silt would suck us down just as fast, so we had to be careful going out to rescue the roos. Because of the lactic acid buildup in their tissues (a product of their all-night exertions to free themselves), some of the kangaroos were too far gone and couldn’t recover. But we saved quite a few. At one point, Bob came out to lend a hand. I was at the homestead, and the ovulation strip turned bright blue. I hustled over to the creek bed where Steve and his dad were working. I motioned to Steve. “The strip is blue,” I said. He looked around nervously. “I’m out here working with me dad,” he said. “What do you want me to do?” “Just come on,” I whispered impatiently. “But my dad’s right here!” I smiled and took his hand. We headed up the dry creek bed and spent some quality time with the biting ants and the prickles. It was after this trip to our conservation property in the Brigalow Belt that I discovered I was pregnant. I tried to let Steve know by sitting down at the table and tucking into a bowl of ice cream and pickles. “What are you doing?” asked a totally confused Steve. I explained, and we were both totally overjoyed, keeping our fingers crossed for a boy to go along with our darling daughter.

Then, just as we were to leave on a whirlwind honeymoon in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, a call came from Australia. Steve’s friend John Stainton had word that a big croc had been frequenting areas too close to civilization, and someone had been taking potshots at him. “It’s a big one, Stevo, maybe fourteen or fifteen feet,” John said over the phone. “I hate to catch you right at this moment, but they’re going to kill him unless he gets relocated.” John was one of Australia’s award-winning documentary filmmakers. He and Steve had met in the late 1980s, when Steve would help John shoot commercials that required a zoo animal like a lizard or a turtle. But their friendship did not really take off until 1990, when an Australian beer company hired John to film a tricky shot involving a crocodile. He called Steve. “They want a bloke to toss a coldie to another bloke, but a croc comes out of the water and snatches at it. The guy grabs the beer right in front of the croc’s jaws. You think that’s doable?” “Sure, mate, no problem at all,” Steve said with his usual confidence. “Only one thing, it has to be my hand in front of the croc.” John agreed. He journeyed up to the zoo to film the commercial. It was the first time he had seen Steve on his own turf, and he was impressed. He was even more impressed when the croc shoot went off flawlessly. Monty, the saltwater crocodile, lay partially submerged in his pool. An actor fetched a coldie from the esky and tossed it toward Steve. As Steve’s hand went above Monty’s head, the crocodile lunged upward in a food response. On film it looked like the croc was about to snatch the can--which Steve caught right in front of his jaws. John was extremely impressed. As he left the zoo after completing the commercial shoot, Steve gave him a collection of VHS tapes. Steve had shot the videotapes himself. The raw footage came from Steve simply propping his camera in a tree, or jamming it into the mud, and filming himself single-handedly catching crocs. John watched the tapes when he got home to Brisbane. He told me later that what he saw was unbelievable. “It was three hours of captivating film and I watched it straight through, twice,” John recalled to me. “It was Steve. The camera loved him.” He rang up his contacts in television and explained that he had a hot property. The programmers couldn’t use Steve’s original VHS footage, but one of them had a better idea. He gave John the green light to shoot his own documentary of Steve. That led to John Stainton’s call to Oregon on the eve of our honeymoon. “I know it’s not the best timing, mate,” John said, “but we could take a crew and film a documentary of you rescuing this crocodile.” Steve turned to me. Honeymoon or crocodile? For him, it wasn’t much of a quandary. But what about me?” “Let’s go,” I replied.