Animal Compassion



 Animal Compassion


It wasn't the man with the gaping mouth and bulging eyes that drew me in. No, it was the dog shouting, trying to save him. He had the courage the size of a  St. Bernard bursting out of a compact, ivory Benji.

You could see that the Benji look-alike was a sweet boy. His owner and his owner's friend bent down often to pet him and convince him that everything was o.k.

But he knew that everything was not o.k. There was a man being pulled on a leash, his body and face writhing.

The dog, too, was on a leash–albeit held by a loving hand. Maybe he would have run into the scene if he was free–barking at the aggressor, perhaps even biting him. But his owner kept him close, a calming hand on his head or back.

But Benji was no fool. He felt the pain of the man being treated like an overworked mule. That's what the amazing thing was: he was trying to stop someone else's pain. Anyone who says animals are not sentient beings has never truly observed them. Animals are all raw, direct emotion–something that many humans have shied away from.

Anyone who claims that animals don't have feelings is wrong.

The performance that we were watching was incredibly intense and at times hard to watch. It demonstrated a man/mule relationship, or any type of toxic human connection. Regardless of which relationship the choreographer originally had in mind, it was one of suffering and injustice that Benji recognized instinctively. That's how effective the dance was: the dog felt the cruelty as real, and the need to stand up against it.



Photo: <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/artellliii72-15900295/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=7238607">Artur Pawlak</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=7238607">Pixabay</a>


Text: Kristen Mastromarchi 



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