Please bear with me, this post truly is animal-related:

I wrote the following piece after 54 years of battling the 'side effects' of childhood abuse, which included self esteem so low that I thought the world would be better off without me. I was everyone's victim and took every abuse anyone was ready to dump upon me, including 34 devastating years in an abusive marriage.
At the end of 12 years of therapy, I was finally able to live and love and write about my struggles in my book. This piece is the summing up of life after abuse:

1995 LIFE PRESENT

I look at the centre of Life
and tempt fate. Reckless.
Daring. Fearless?

Never fearless. I inch forward,
Together with Fears. Teamed up
with fears. No longer my enemy,
Fears tamed are my allies. Life
isn't safe from me now, I march

into its middle head-on, deliberate,
Determined to have You

Life. I choose Life

I pursue Life

I've missed You, Life.

Before I knew we could be friends,
I missed you. Fifty-four years
aching to touch

to stroke

to love You. Life.

Shall I weep and wail and strike out
at a world so cruel to us? Shall I
mourn for our years apart? Spend
our time together in sorrow?

Sorrow?
I feel none.
I search my heart over, and find not
one regret to whittle away our today.

Back to 2009 - as I was writing my little greeting on the WatchDog to send encouragement to all you folks who work so hard at helping animals, the thought struck me that this one piece in my book just might lend itself to animals and their marvelous attitude to life after abuse. To see it from their point of view:

many of them do look at the centre of Life and tempt fate: they decide to trust a human after all their hurt;
they inch forward with fear;
they are deliberate and determined to have life after missing it so achingly;
they may question whether or not to weep and wail over their horrid past and stay stuck in it's grip;
Perhaps because of a patient and giving therapist/guardian, they then let their hearts lead the way and never let regrets poison their todays.
...and we who understand them reap the rewards of their love.