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Last week, Otto, my beloved English bulldog, died. He died as he lived — peacefully. His presence in our home for 12 years was an unmitigated joy. He also, amazingly, became the best-known dog in America through sheer happenstance; he was on camera during almost all of my nearly 300 weekly Fireside Chats for PragerU and became the hero of a series of PragerU books for children. Moreover, as I have often noted, none of this fame went to his head.
The sadness I feel at Otto’s death and the outpouring of condolence messages to my wife and me have caused me to reflect on two long-held concerns about pets.
Concern No. 1: I have long feared that many people are replacing love of humans with love of animals. When I first started public speaking in my 20s, I would ask high school students, “If your dog and a stranger were both drowning, which one would you try to save first?”
From the first time I asked this question to the present day, in nearly every instance, one-third of the students voted to save the stranger, one-third voted for their dog, and one-third declined to vote. In other words, for more than 40 years, two-thirds of high school students have not voted to save a human being they didn’t know before their dog.
The primary reason they have always given is that they love their dog, not the stranger. I realized two things as a result of this answer. One was that we are living in what I long ago labelled The Age of Feelings. Feelings have replaced values as the guide to people’s behavior. The other realization was that, as a result of society increasingly abandoning Judeo-Christian — i.e., Bible-based — values, the premise that humans are special because only they are created “in the image of God” has diminished. Secular society has no basis on which to declare humans inherently more valuable than animals, especially an animal one loves.
In addition, I have been troubled by the many people who announce that they do not want children — and then refer to their dogs or cats as their “children.”
Concern No. 2: While it is well known that people who are cruel to animals are very likely to be cruel to human beings, the converse is not true: Kindness to animals does not necessarily lead to kindness to humans. The Nazis provided a horrible confirmation. No Western nation was as preoccupied with animal rights as was Nazi Germany. In fact, the Nazi regime banned medical experimentation on animals. Yet it performed hideous experiments — without anesthesia — on human beings.
And you don’t need the Nazi regime for proof. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is so preoccupied with animal rights that it opposes killing a pig even if its heart valve could save a human being. And it compares the barbecuing of chickens with the Nazis’ cremating of Jews.
I believe these concerns are still valid.
But so long as people do not deny the innately greater worth of the human being and do not equate animals with humans, I have come to regard the love of pets as something beautiful. Given the extraordinary bond between people and dogs (and often cats, but I will focus on dogs), I now entertain the belief that God created dogs for people.
My wife and I love our children with the love that all normal parents have — and nothing is like a parent’s love of a child. Even as we search for another English bulldog to help fill the vacuum left by Otto’s passing, we are well aware that no one searches for another child if one’s child dies. As much as we love our dogs — a love that is genuine and deep — we know we can get another dog, but we can never get another human being after the loss of a child or any other human being.
A dog provides genuine companionship. For that reason, every widow or widower who can take care of a dog — in fact, any person who lives alone — should consider adopting a dog. The many studies showing that people who have a dog live longer are undoubtedly correct.
My wife and I are not alone. We have each other — as well as children, grandchildren and precious friends. But only those who own a dog know how much a dog (or, ideally, two dogs, since every dog should have a companion for when no human is present) adds to a home. They are life-enhancers. And when they leave, some life gets sucked out of any home, even those filled with people.
The Hebrew word for “dog” is “kelev.” As Hebrew has no vowels, the word is actually spelled “klv.” Those three letters can also be seen as a contraction of “kol lev,” understood to mean “wholehearted.” It may be coincidental. But I no longer think so.
Our mastiff mix was just diagnosed with bone cancer and will have her leg amputated on Monday. Even so, she will almost certainly succumb to the disease within a few months.
Our fears, doubts and foreboding of the coming loss of a loved part of our family and home have been awful. I would suffer it a thousand times and more before the loss of any of our children.
A rational morality is always CONTEXTUAL.
Would I save my beloved dog over Hitler, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Bin Laden, Joe Biden, Obama, Hillary, Ilhan Omar, AOC, Bernie Sanders and millions upon millions of others no better than they are? You bet I would. Not all men or women are precious or their lives worth saving over your beloved dog’s life.
Despicable words of an atheist . Even the worst people are redeemable
You make an interesting point.
IF there existed eternal life in an eternal, supernatural utopia, with an eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent God who could magically restore all the dead to life, and repair and erase all the pain, suffering, and harm an evil person committed in this life, then yes, all people, and all evils, could be redeemed and repaired in that magical dimension.
But if we’re speaking of the REALITY of mortal life on earth then truly evil people (like Hitler and Ted Bundy) and their evil are neither redeemable nor repairable.
Ayn Rand was once asked what would Hitler do if he discovered and embraced a rational moral code based on the facts of reality? What if Hitler discovered Objectivism and wanted to reform himself to live by a rational moral standard, what would be the first thing he needed to do to practice objective morality and objective honesty and objective justice?
Ayn Rand answered — “Commit suicide!”
Take Rand’s advice. Do us a favor.
I posted a respectful and intellectual, philosophical, reply to you just a few minutes ago. It was awaiting moderation but was not accepted and it was deleted.
I have no idea why. Lately several of my comments have not been accepted and deleted, even though they have been respectful, serious, and philosophical.
I come here less and less because of that. It’s one thing to be deleted because a comment or reply is rude, obscene, a call to violence, or actual spam, it’s another to be censored because the moderator doesn’t agree with your philosophy.
Dear moderator, if you don’t agree with Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism just include that in the rules for comments, so I can stop wasting my time here at FPM.
THX1138,
None of your comments have been deleted. If your comments contain certain keywords, they are held in a moderation queue until a member of our team can manually approve them. We are not online 24/7, so there is sometimes a brief delay in getting them approved.
Many regular commenters here have requested that you be banned due to your highly frequent, borderline-spam posts containing lengthy quotes from the works of others. So, quite to the contrary of your comment, your continued ability to post here is due entirely to the patience and open-mindedness of our moderating team.
Thanks,
Site Administrator
I seldom agree with things THX writes, but I do an occasional gem and bit of insight that I had not considered before. I do not consider his comments to be spam, real or borderline.
Oh poor THX, his comment got deleted.
Note to THX: there is nothing, NOTHING, about you that is respectful, intellectual, serious or philosophical.
We as the commenters, have to put up with your almost daily diatribes against religion, kindness and common sense with endless lectures on “rational selfishness” altruism, and your amateurish silly history lessons about the Christian Dark Ages.
It’s probably not that the mod disagrees with Ayn Rand or Objectivism. It’s that you use it as cudgel against normal people all the time.
So, please take your own advice and stop wasting your time pushing a philosophy no one wants to read about.
These words, first spoken by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 to the Parliament, and again against Neville Chamberlain by Leo Amery on the eve of WWII seem apropos here:
“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”
I doubt you own a dog, too. You would have to be kind to it. That takes a degree of humanity.
None of them are “strangers” and to lump Biden et al with hitler is slightly strange.
I am with you 100% on that one! At least our beloved dogs are not hell-bent on destroying our culture, our society and our traditions!
Rudyard Kipling wrote, “I am the cat who walks by himself and all places are alike to me.” True of cats then, true of cats now. However, the Kipling cat came into the human home and loved the home and the human. True of cats then, true of cats now.
Aside from the question, which is a better pet, a cat or a dog, it is proven over and over these companions were made for mankind. And vice versa.
Right now, my cat consoles me for the loss of the love of my life. She knew he was ill, and comforted him. She still looks for him and spends half her daytime sleeping time lying against his pillow. She also consoled me through it all, and comes to lie next to me at night.
I understand your mourning for the departure of Otto from your family. But if any of the people he lived with had predeceased him, he would now be in mourning.
This reminds me of the cartoon of an old hag wife and her hen pecked husband. .The wife says to her husband that if he dies first, she will re-marry; but should she die first, he can only have a dog. And Dennis Prager would deny him of that!!! I rest my case.
This reminds me of a cartoon of an old hag wife and her henpecked husband. The wife says to the husband that if he dies first she shall re-marry; but if she dies first, he can only have a dog. And Dennis Prager would take that from him!!! Or give him porno?? Let him eat porno!!!
Sorry to hear about you buddy. It hurts, that is all.
Revelations comes to mind. Take care.
Dear Dennis:
Know that all dogs go to heaven.
Think of the Twilight Zone program where a Dog owner drowns trying to save his dog and he too drowns. As he is walking on the road, with his dog, to heaven he comes to across a man at a gate who won’t let the dog in. The dog senses something is wrong and the man figures out that any place that won’t accept dogs is most assuredly not heaven.
Of course he eventually comes to the right place and they are both let in.
A perfect ending….in the Twilight Zone. (apologies to Rod Serling.)
A beloved dog becomes a family member. It is natural to feel immense grief when a family member departs from this world.
Condolences on your loss Mr. Prager.