Animals speak with pure affection. It's important to me to get something going in NY so we can get to be a no-kill city, and give the animals homes and more attention and love.
Every day, the humane societies execute thousands of dogs who tried all their lives to do their very best by their owners. These dogs are killed not because they are bad but because they are inconvenient. So as we need God more than he needs us, dogs need us more than we need them, and they know it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the tragic fate of many dogs who are euthanized not due to their behavior, but rather because they are seen as inconvenient.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas highlights the deep bond between dogs and humans, illustrating the stark reality that many dogs are put down despite their loyalty and efforts to please their owners. This serves as a poignant reminder of the responsibility humans have towards their pets, and how often these innocent creatures suffer due to human decisions. The comparison of need between God and humanity, and between dogs and humans, underscores the one-sided nature of many relationships where the more vulnerable party is often the one that suffers.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about pet adoption, this quote can highlight the importance of rescuing animals in need.
Similar quotes
Dogs possess a quality that's rare among humans -- the ability to make you feel valued just by being you -- and it was something of a miracle to me to be on the receiving end of all that acceptance. The dog didn't care what I looked like, or what I did for a living, or what a train wreck of a life I'd led before I got her, or what we did from day to day. She just wanted to be with me, and that awareness gave me a singular sensation of delight.
People have been warning us that language was going to the dogs ever since Latin started turning into French. Yet the dogs in question never seem to emerge yelping on the horizon.
George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.
While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.