What Animal Means to Me?

I never had pets or think about having pets before the COVID-19 pandemic. I thought pets are not for me because I'm busy and I don't have my own place. I thought I don't need pets since I have enough friends and busy enough to take care of my own business. However, after actually having pets, my whole mind changed. Pets could bring activeness into your life. No matter how challenging your current situation is, looking at your pets interact with you or play by themselves could bring you joy. This might sound cliche, but it is the truth. I couldn't express that joy in any form of words, but it is there, and it is true.

You cannot get that happiness from other's pets or tent pets for others for a while. You have to get your own pets yourself to feel that joy. Among all the themes for Writing 39C classes, I choose our course because I want to know more about animals and how animals could influence people. I know that there must be something about animals that could change people because I have experienced that. According to Kluger's article "Animals talk, even if we can't understand them," he explains the same as pet owners. He uses an interesting word choice, "Talk to the animals, not with the animals." (Kluger 71) Kluger uses "talk to" and "talk with" to compare the right way to communicate with animals, which implies that animals and humans could communicate. The other thing I find out is that animals are highly intelligent. My cat learned their names one week after arrived at my place. According to the documentary NOVA: Bird Brain, the researchers found out that Rio the carrot could "repeat it [the exercise] without trial and error." (04:17) This is precisely what I find out about my cats.

According to the book "Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel," Written by Carl Safina, he also implied the same thing as articles we read. Safina mentioned that "the barrier between humans and animals is artificial," (Safina 1) meaning that people make up the difference between themselves and animals. Safina further analyzed that animals could feel and think. They are no less than what humans are. The purpose of his book is to see what animals want to tell us.