If you are not a dog person, or a pet person, you may want to skip this post, because it’s going to be about pet love.
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| Peppi, 2 days after surgery |
Peppi is a tiny dog. She was “whooping” 3.2 kg (7 lbs) in her prime, and dropped to 2.3 kg (5 lbs) when the cancer took her appetite. She went through the surgery, the tumour was removed, and she recovered. The growth turned out to be sarcoma, a particularly naughty type of cancer, so she’s in for a lifetime of ultrasounds and body scans to make sure the cancer doesn’t grow back, or, if it does, to catch and eliminate it early. But, we got our Peppi back. And not only that, she’s perky, playful, and livelier than she’d been in the long while.
While the drama was unfolding, we went with Peppi through each day before the surgery like it was her last. Both my wife and I experienced love, pain, and fear we didn’t think was possible toward a being that’s not of our flesh and blood. The emotions were overwhelming and absolutely real. That got me thinking about loving your pet, and how much that type of love is different than love toward a child, a family member, or another human being.
I found a recent study about how different types of love, e.g. for romantic partner, children (parental), friends (platonic), strangers, pets, and nature light up different brain areas. The researchers could (sort of) tell the intensity of each type of love using fMRI. They found that closer bonds (especially parental, then romantic) produced stronger and more widespread activation in the brain’s reward circuitry than love for strangers, pets, or nature. In the study, parental love showed the most intense activity. Love for pets activated social-cognition regions much more in pet owners than in non-owners.
Peppi and I have a very strong bond. I know she would light up my brain like fireworks, had I been a part of the research. My love for her is real, the kind of love other people, especially those without pets, aren’t able to relate to. They can’t grasp the scope of fear and drama which played in my heart. Even the other pet-owners, including our neighbours who all know and love Peppi, and who sympathize with me, still can’t comprehend the full extent of the feelings I’m dealing with. When it comes to a pet, only its owner, or, as our vet calls us, “pet-parent”, feels the love and pain as acutely as toward a family member.
Before I became a dog-parent, I too found people smooching their pups slightly ridiculous. Although I still won’t publicly show too much affection towards Peppi, I now understand the feelings they have toward their pets. In the beginning, some 10 years ago, I tried to look cool and detached at the other end of the leash from my furry baby, so as not to embarrass myself in front of people. It didn’t last long. Soon, I stopped caring what others think and enjoyed every minute of the limited time I was given with Peppi. Because from the moment they enter your life, the countdown starts. When you love your dog/pet so deeply, you can’t NOT be aware that she’ll be gone before you, and that pain of loss is ticking closer with every breath.
Curtis Salgado, the blues musician, must know about what I described above, because he summed it up neatly in his song “The Greatest Wish (I Want My Dog To Live Longer)”
So, love and spoil your pet, that’s what they’re made for!