Michael Rettig > Recent Status Updates

There's a Bhutanese folk expression that says in order to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times every day. Perhaps we love our pets so much not despite but because they remind us of death. They're a daily embodiment of how short life is, how important it is to be present in every moment.

When we open our hearts to animals, death is the inevitable price. Jake Maynard, in his essay "Rattled: The Recklessness of Loving a Dog, writes that loving an animal is
"mortgaging future heartbreak against a decade or so of ca-maraderie."