Sometimes, I really think that humans should take a cue from animals. Animals follow their natural instincts, don’t intentionally hurt others and the domesticated ones always show love to their owners, regardless of how their owners treat them. Somewhere along the human evolution trajectory, we’ve lost all the goodness that still exists in animals.

In Columbia, South Carolina, three little baby bobcats became orphaned when the abandoned house they called home was demolished. These days though, Zoe, a beautiful gray tabby, has become their new mother. She instinctively took to the bobcats, treating them as her own, even nursing them with her own milk. If this happened in the human world, we’d have a much different result. We’d first have to go through an intake procedure with an orphaned baby, evaluate it, then process it as a ward of the state, place it in foster care and then get around to finding it suitable parents. Once all that hoopla and unnecessary paperwork was done, more than a year would have probably passed.  

Earlier this month in Alaska, a German Shepard named Buddy saved his owner and his home from being destroyed in a fire. Buddy’s owner, Ben Heinrichs, was working inside his workshop when a fire started and spread quickly. When the fire started, Ben darted out of the house and yelled to his dog that “we need to get help.” At this point, Ben had already suffered minor flash burns and was far from any help—his home being 75 miles away from Anchorage, the nearest big town. After getting his owner’s instructions, Buddy ran off down the road looking for help. An Alaska State Trooper was already headed to the scene of the fire when the navigation system in his car failed. Just then, the trooper spotted the dog who looked at him and took off running down a side street. The trooper worked on a hunch and followed the dog. The dog led him to the fire and helped save his owner’s life. The video of all this was caught on the trooper’s dash cam.

In my own life, my overly abundant ball of love, Killer, the Russian Blue bear—I mean cat—teaches me what no human could ever—unconditional love, affection and appreciation. To Killer, the sun rises and sets with me. Despite having a tumultuous upbringing including changing homes frequently, being terrorized by a dog for quite some time, suffering a painful de-clawing and being tossed around from owner to owner, Killy treats me as if I am her one and only. Every day I get nuzzled awake by her big furry head and loud, incredibly loud, purring instructing me to “wake up, mom! I’m starving!” After she eats, she rejoins me in bed to watch a few minutes of the morning news, always snuggling up to me to get full maximum body contact. When I return from work, she’s always at the door to greet me. Whenever any of my friends come over, she is always loving to her “aunties” who are in her kitchen, usually with some interesting red wines. No matter how bad my day is or how big of a mess I have to clean up at home or whatever is bothering me, Killy is always ever-tempered and absolutely the most committed being in my life.

It’s a shame that humans aren’t more like Killy or Buddy or Zoe. You needn’t look further than Rielle Hunter and her Oprah interview…But that’s a post for another day.