My family is comprised of different species. I am bound to humans, canines, felines, and reptiles. We connect in different ways at different levels, but they are all seen as deserving of care, consideration, and respect. They hold their own place in the world, especially in my world. With my humans, I share a rocky past. The turtles live in a physical world that limits close contact. Up to now, the cats have chosen to maintain a distance, both in feeling and behavior. It’s with the dogs that I have the purest, deepest, most profound connection.

My quiet time is spent in their company. It is the safest, calmest, and most sublime places in my physical world. I have no expectations when I enter our shared space. They are who they are and they know what I see in them. I am not sure what they see in me. I don’t think they see me as their mom. Caretaker, perhaps, but not mom. But I know what they feel is affection. They rise to greet me unlike they do to anyone else. Each one of them, at different times, will catch my gaze and hold it with their own. And they seek my approval. And I seek theirs. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

There is powerful reciprocation. My trust in them runs bone deep. It is their paws I reach for when I am needing to be known, to be seen. They accept me without measure or judgement. I am who I am. My connection to them is soul felt. Their expecation is for me to be me. And I am the most me when I am with them.

They are not in my life as replacements for humans, or the relations that are attached to them. Dogs are born onto who they are and it’s a place they keep forever. Members in my family are not interchangeable. One cannot take the place of another. They each carry with them the gifts that make them who they are.

The turtles are a constant reminder of lives lived in a different world, on a different plane. The cats are more or less transients who have decided that settling down is in their best interest, at least for the time being. My human family provides the camaraderie and an equal exchange of ideas. The dogs, those are who teach me the most about life and living.

Their ability to be in the moment, to stay in the moment is my fondest aspiration. Even through physical pain, they move into the next moment with gentle ease. For those who have experienced great and grave trauma, finding a safe place to land is all they need to heal. Where they are is where they need to be until they aren’t there anymore. It is the pureness of their nature that makes them inherently positive. They don’t look back, they don’t look forward, they spend their entire lives in the right now.

They find what’s good and worthwhile in the space they are in. They meet each challenge with joyful determination to do their best. Success isn’t a part of the equation. Doing is everything. They know it’s not the end result that matters. It’s the journey that counts. And accepting the road one is on is nature of positivity. If you always trust you are where you are supposed to be, the negativity of longing to be somewhere else is negated. The want to be someone else is erased. Dogs know who they are. And if we let them, they can tell us who we are.