I love Shanti the African Grey parrot.
Human beings fall in love with animals, and our love for individuals—our dogs and cats and parrots—can open our eyes to our responsibility to their species and to all sentient creatures.
When we dismiss our love for animals as childish or as a surrogate for human love, we denigrate our own emotional integrity, we delegitimize interspecies relationship, and we slam the cage door on animal rights.
We have been taught that love for an animal is nearly as frivolous as love for a teddy bear or a doll. But if we are honest and attentive, we will observe that -- just as with human love -- our bond with our companion animals is a response to their intelligence, awareness and generous willingness to engage us.
Once we acknowledge the authenticity of a loving relationship with a non-human, we face a serious ethical challenge: we are obliged to address the logical inconsistency and moral perversity of loving an individual animal while decimating its kind.
Our loving relationship with animals needs to become part of our spiritual discourse. Just as we hope one day to create a world of peace and social justice among humans, we should likewise express our highest ethical hopes and dreams for nonhumans.
We will not end the slaughter of human beings by warlords tomorrow, nor will we end the slaughter of pigs, foxes, deer and seals the day after. But we ought to at least aspire to a world in which we no longer kill sentient beings for food, fur, entertainment or better cosmetics. Our companion animals will show us the way.
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