I might have been raised by animals. Not in the sense that I grew up with dry maple leaves stuck to the side of my face, snarling at the blood under my fingernails. This is also not to say that I had bad parents. What I mean is that our household pets informed my moral compass.
I'm not sure why I'm starting the whole story here. I'll do my best to explain the whole thing to you.
One of our dogs was a rescuer of young kittens. He carried the squinting creatures one by one from the barn in the middle of our vast green fields, to a space heater that kept the early spring chill out of our garage. My father, paralyzed years earlier from a car accident that was no fault of his own, watched the whole thing happen while he ratcheted bolts into the Jeep CJ5 he was building as a hobby. He'd watch as the dog would shepherd the helpless creatures around the warm air blowing out of the rattling space heater, and lay on his side so that the warmth collected around them.
We kept taking the kittens back to the barn, hoping their mother would return, but the dog already knew their mother wasn't coming back. Likely, she was killed in the surrounding woods.
I'm not sure why I'm starting the whole story here. I'll do my best to explain the whole thing to you.
One of our dogs was a rescuer of young kittens. He carried the squinting creatures one by one from the barn in the middle of our vast green fields, to a space heater that kept the early spring chill out of our garage. My father, paralyzed years earlier from a car accident that was no fault of his own, watched the whole thing happen while he ratcheted bolts into the Jeep CJ5 he was building as a hobby. He'd watch as the dog would shepherd the helpless creatures around the warm air blowing out of the rattling space heater, and lay on his side so that the warmth collected around them.
We kept taking the kittens back to the barn, hoping their mother would return, but the dog already knew their mother wasn't coming back. Likely, she was killed in the surrounding woods.