We are all contributors

Meet Duffy.

We adopted him from North Shore Animal League maybe 3 years ago. They told us that when they rescued him they found him somewhere in the south, alone. How he wound up there...nobody knows. But he was brought to Long Island and spent the next several months in a cage with occasional play time whenever a family thought he might be the right dog for them.

Then we came along, and the rest is history.

I have a suspicion that in the months before Duffy was rescued, he was abused. He hates being pet in a certain spot on his leg, and he can be quite jumpy. Otherwise, he is a remarkably grateful, loving dog.

He is a picture of love. In a world where he was abandoned, possibly abused, and then caged while being rejected by family after family...he still found room in his heart to love us. He did not allow the pain he experienced to turn him against the world. He could have very easily turned out to be a scared dog, traumatized by the pain of the first year of his life.

This abuse must not happen.

We are equal to the creatures of this planet. After all, we are one of them. This planet belongs to them as much as it belongs to us, and yet, we treat it and them with such little respect. This brings us back to separation as the root problem of humanity. We must realize that we are no better than the dog, the horse, the snake or the mosquito.

We are all contributors to this great planet.