A “Clock of Compassion”: Now, that’s an interesting analogy and concept, used effectively by Mary Elizabeth Thurston in her book “The Lost History of the Canine Race” to help readers trace the progress of a global “humane” ethic through the lens of Canine history.  Why look at this history, a virtual chronicle of Animal abuse from earliest times, “from a Dog’s eye view”?  According to the Humane Society (HSUS), America’s adoptable Companion Animals are still being put to death at the rate of 3 to 4 million of us Cats and Dogs a year, for the “crime” of overpopulation over which we Animals have no control. Animals are still used in biomedical experiments; 26 billion cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys a year are still slaughtered, often inhumanely, for Human food; Dog breeders are still causing irreparable genetic damage by overbreeding us.  Of the thousands of war Dogs who saved countless Human lives in our war in Vietnam, most were never brought home. Who knows best about compassion, then: The Humans who talk the talk, or us, the Animals who walk the long walk?  The hands of Thurston’s Clock of Compassion may be creaking forward ever so slowly, as many caring Americans now realize the value of Companion Animals as true family members and soul mates…but the horror of puppy mills still persists, and many Humans still abandon their unwanted pets to the streets and pounds.  Although Michael Vick of dog-fighting infamy has since claimed to be reformed, there are many more out there who don’t feel a thing except the excitement of the “sport”. That is the truth as I see it, from my Dog’s eye view.

Thurston has it right: What’s lacking is compassion. How do we teach compassion on a national scale?  “What?” you ask, “Does compassion have to be taught?  Isn’t it part of being Human?”  Gentle reader, please re-read the paragraph above, or read through Thurston’s “Lost History of the Canine Race: Our 15,000-Year Love Affair With Dogs”.  When you are done weeping for the Dogs (and Cats) who have suffered unspeakable cruelty from Humans over all these thousands of years, let’s move on to the ways and means to teach compassion.  For, now that it has been scientifically proven that violence to Animals begets violence to Humans, our society, in the words of “Pogo” cartoonist Walt Kelly, has finally “met the enemy…and he is us.”

1.) Start With Children, Our Hope for a More Compassionate Future –

Teaching Children About Animals

Imagine you are a three-year-old child, watching as black and red ants fight each other in your father’s garden. You feel nothing but interest.  Then your father notices, explains that the ants are hurting and killing each other, and with his garden shovel gently lifts the two groups to safety on opposite sides of the garden.  My Significant Human learned compassion this way, saved a Kitten from an abusive neighbor child at age four, and has been a compassionate Animal lover ever since.  It takes very little for children to feel the suffering of others, especially if parents serve as role models of kindness and compassion.  Thurston says in her book that “a growing body of anecdotal evidence and scientific observations…suggests that other Animals also have the ability to express compassion”, mentioning handicapped Companion Animals who protect and care for one another.  Read ”When Elephants Weep” and “The Dog Who Rescues Cats” for examples of Animal compassion.  My own mother, a pure Saint, taught us Puppies how to love by her firm but gentle kindness to us all.  Now I’m highly attuned to the feelings of others – including our family Cats.

2.)  Teach peace and compassion through interaction with us, the Animals.

"Saving Emily" by Nicholas Read.

Albert Einstein, one of the world’s greatest thinkers, said “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures.”  In her book about Canine History, Thurston reminds us that “as history has demonstrated…, empathy for a single animal can evolve into empathy for an entire species.”  Teach children about Animal adoption by giving a Companion Animal a “forever home” as a full member of your family, as my Significant Humans have done for me.  Register as a foster family for Animals in Shelters while they await a permanent home.  Ask Shelters to bring their Cats and Dogs to visit schools, take children to visit Animal sanctuaries where Chickens, Geese, Turkeys, Goats and Donkeys serve as living lessons in humane education.  Give a Child “Saving Emily“, a Children’s book in which a Boy and Emily the Cow describe, each through their own eyes, how they see their growing friendship.

3.)  Toward a More Humane Society: Educate Yourself About Animal Rights, Ethical and Environmental Issues

"Don't Shop - Adopt!" - HUA.org

You can’t teach what you don’t know.  Compassion allows us to understand and feel the experiences, emotions, and suffering of others – as though these feelings were our own.  If you want to embody compassion, learn the issues that affect us, the Animals in today’s world.  Then learn what is being done to help, by visiting online activist groups such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the American Humane Association, Hearts United for Animals (HUA.org) and MercyForAnimals.org (request their very informative “Vegetarian Starter Kit”), as well as the social networking site Care2..org.   One of the most effective actions for teaching compassion across America is the ASPCA’s Mission: Orange.

4.)  One Community at a Time – ASPCA Mission: Orange

ASPCA Mission: Orange

The mission of the ASPCA, as stated by Henry Bergh in 1866, is “to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.”  Mission: Orange is “a focused effort to create a country of humane communities, one community at a time, where Animals receive the compassion and respect they deserve—a nation where there is no more unnecessary euthanasia of adoptable animals simply because of a lack of resources and awareness.”  The MSPCA President’s Note about Mission: Orange states that the program has expanded to Austin,TX; Charleston, NC; Gulfport-Biloxi, MI; New York City, NY; Oklahoma City, OK; Philadelphia, PA; Richmond, VA; Spokane, and WA; Tampa, FL.  If you don’t live near one of these cities, email information@mspca.org to find out how to help spread compassion across America.

5.)  With Empathy, Walk a Mile in My Paws:

WOOFA: Writers Openly Organized For Animals

One of the best ways to teach compassion is to put yourself in the shoes, or paws, of the Humans or Animals who need and deserve compassion.  To see how effective this can be, read “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein, through which Enzo, a supposedly fictional Dog, touches a paw to every reader.  (Enzo seems so real because, I suspect, his fictional character is based on a real Canine who held the heart of the author.)  See how it feels, through Enzo’s eyes, to know how to help, but not be able to speak to the Humans you love.  Try the exercise of thinking like us: Sit where your Dog sits, to see what he sees.  Try living in the present, finding joy in simple things, such as when your Significant Human comes home – see how that feels through his eyes, or how it feels when he or she goes away.  Write a journal from a Dog’s eye view, if only for one day.  There are many ‘articulate Animals” on the Web: Visit me, WebWoof, at my Dog Blog, WoofTracks..com, or read or contribute at The National Gallery of Writing, where Animal Authors are welcome.  Write for Animals yourself – post your article excerpts and links at WOOFA.org.  If you really want to see what it’s like to be in an abandoned Dog’s paws, many well-meaning sites show videos of how it feels to be a Dog at some “shelters”, but you need only your imagination to have compassion for America’s unwanted, sometimes abused Companion Animals without any need to see these documentaries of horrible abuse and cruelty.  The ASPCA slogan says, “We are their Voice”.  With compassion, your voice, too, can speak for Animals, inspiring others to do likewise.

6.)  The Clock of Compassion

Will There Be Time to Learn Compassion?

In “Lost History of the Canine Race”, Thurston eloquently concludes, “Humans [must] take steps to preserve Canines’ history …as a chronicle of their participation in the continuing evolution of humanity.  The challenge is not so much to improve the Canine race, but to improve ourselves, our relationship with dogdom, and ultimately, our relationship with the natural world at large.”  “What might the future hold for our [Human] species”, she writes optimistically, “if the culture of compassion continues to expand, blurring the class barrier between civilization and nature?”  She ponders whether “the Canine race may pave the way for the next great change in the Human psyche.”

As a privileged family Dog may repose, I lie by the grandfather clock in the hall, hearing its ticking while contemplating Thurston’s analogy, the “Clock of Compassion”.  Did I hear the clock hands move?  I can’t tell: I only know when it’s time for supper.  Will humanity have time to grow old, with or without wisdom? Lest the Clock stop short, never to go again, may Time grant our Earth a few more ticks of the Clock – a few millennia, say – to “get it right”, to learn compassion.

WebWoof, Editor of the Dog Blog WoofTracks..com