I'm a doggy person. It's not that I don't like cats, I do - and most other common furry and not furry companions that people share their lives and homes with. Snakes and Spiders, not so much, but each to their own.
Some people call these pets - but I'm not sure that's a good description of these creatures, for many, including me, they are companions, friends.
I have learned, since I moved to Turtle Island, that many Indigenous traditions talk of 'all my relations' - recognizing that all of the created order - human, animal, plant, even rock, air, and water - is interrelated, we all depend on one another, we are together a whole.
Within that I find that Cosmo - our quirky, sometimes frustrating, always interesting - little poodle is indeed a companion, filled with character, full of life and somehow giving me a hint of a life beyond my own human experience.
7 ‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In God's hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.