Editorial: December

Dear Readers,

     Many of us are animal lovers. While many of us would love to have animals or pets, it may not be possible for a number of us to have pets at home. Due to space constraints in cities or busy schedules in our daily life, many of us are unable to keep pets.  Because having a pet means looking after them which may be a time consuming affair. Nevertheless, nothing compares to the feeling one gets when one comes home to pets.

     Pets make a person responsible.  Children can be taught responsibility by tasking them with caring for pets. Feeding pets timely, keeping them clean, taking care of them when they are sick will ensure that children form a bond with their pets and this will help them become better citizens in future.  Having a pet means extra work for the owners.  But to the owners, the joy of having a pet overshadows the ‘extra work’ and pet owners do not feel that they are doing ‘work’.

     Pets tend to drive away loneliness.  This has specially been realised during the covid pandemic when social distancing became the norm.  People were unable to go to work or socialise.  Staying at home became a necessity.  For people who were living alone, pets drove away their loneliness and families with pets could share more of their time with pets.

      Pets teach us the importance of selfless love.  The faith that pet animals have in their masters is remarkable.  Pets provide us with companionship, we can play with them, pamper them and cuddle them.  Owners think of pets as their family members.  Pets are good for our health- both physical and mental.  Having pets like a dog ensures that we take them for walks and provides us with exercise.  Then again having an aquarium with fish soothes our mind. Having pets like horses means a lot of physical work as it involves grooming, riding them.  Pets like parrots drive away loneliness.  Some people also have exotic pets like tigers and snakes.

     Connecting with our pets lowers our stress level and bonding from time to time brings us joy and happiness.  Pets comfort us and are important for our emotional well being.  Pets are of great help to people with sickness like depression, alzheimer’s disease, aged persons and also blind people.

     However there are also some negative aspects about having pets.  If we do not keep our pets clean and healthy, we risk contracting infections from our pets.  Children also need to be supervised when they interact with pets as pets may. Bite or scratch them if they hurt the animals unknowingly.

     So we see that there are both positive and negative sides to having pets.  But the positive points far outweighs the negative ones. Hence we can safely conclude by saying that pets bring positivity to our lives.  Pets give us pleasure and a sense of fulfilment in life.