If you know someone, child , adult or senior, who is lonely or withdrawn, consider asking if they'd like a pet. I frequently suggest this to retired people, especially men, who have difficulties adjusting to their new status. They often find that they are surprisingly lonely and that having an animal sidekick is very satisfying even if they initially scoffed at the idea. All children can benefit from pets, but particularly those children with a chronic illness or a recent death in the family, or those simply having a difficult time with life. Pets can give unconditional love, something most of us, but especially children, can use.
Some experts feel that pets provide children with their first experiences in caring for others.
This experience can teach them many lessons that are best learned early in life. For all of us, pets offer an accelerated experience of life from birth to death, giving us opportunities to learn to better cope with the beginnings and endings of life. In many spiritual traditions animals are thought of in powerful terms. The American Indians, who were our predecessors in this land, revered the natural world and were able to live in harmony with it. Since we have been cut off from nature and unconscious of her bounty, we have moved rapidly in a negative downward spiral away from an understanding of our environment.