I love my companion animals. While I have no expectations of them, I do WANT them to be happy and healthy and to get along with each other. I know I would be unhappy without them.

However, MY happiness comes secondary to theirs where their own lives are concerned.

In priniciple and theory, I want my animals to have control over their own lives; to do what they want when they want and how they want. I would hope that at least some would want to continue to call their current residence, home. However, if one of them strolled up to me one day and said "Thanks for the grub, you've been good to me, but I want out to explore the world", without hesitation and with absolute heartache, out she/he would go.

The problems and challenges with this "theory" is we humans cannot currently assess nor understand with absolute certainty WHAT our animal friends want because we communicate so differently and we see the world so differently. We make assumptions on what we THINK they are "saying"; what we THINK they like; what we THINK they want; how happy we THINK they are; how much we THINK they enjoy the activity we do with them. They give us signs and perhaps we interpret them correctly or perhaps we interpret them wrong or perhaps we interpret them the way we want to. For all we know, our dogs may truly adore agility... our cats may truly adore lounging in front the TV, our horses may truly adore taking us for a run whilst on their back so they can share their sheer joy (assuming of course that they do indeed feel sheer joy) of running for running's sake and are happy to oblige us because they are kind and giving creatures who want to see US happy... because THEY love US back.

We dont really know.

If the day comes when we can communicate with our animal friends with absolute detailed clarity and they can share with us how they would like to live or what they want, who knows if what they want wont be what they already have? If I live to see the day where that ever happens, I hope with all my heart that my animal friends want to stay right where they are.

Until then, I will care for them with respect and compassion. I will continue to volunteer my time to help prevent the suffering of other animals. I will continue to stumble along with my human short-comings to do the best I know how with what I know now while keeping my mind open to what I may know tommorrow. And I will hope that they forgive us for what we don't, won't or can't understand.