I believe that dogs were put on the earth to provide companionship and inner healing for humans. I've had dogs of my own, and they have been stellar companions. When you're down and out and no one else wants to talk to you, your dog will sit patiently and listen to you, giving your hand an occasional lick as if to say, "I'm here for ya no matter what. I'm your buddy forever." Studies have been done showing that dogs provide much-needed therapy for the elderly in nursing homes and for those who have been emotionally battered. Many accounts of children that refused to talk until a therapy dog was brought to them on a regular basis can be found in journals and magazines. I've never thought it was an accident that "dog" spelled backwards is "g-o-d"(God.
I used to work with a guy who had a lot of emotional problems. He'd been married once, but his wife divorced him. He was alienated from his children. In chatting with him on breaks, I found that he'd had a really terrible childhood full of hurt, rejection, and abandonment. He had become a loner who never had any close friends at work, and the friends he supposedly had on his off hours mostly turned out to be figments of his imagination. The longer I knew him, the more convinced I became that he was desperate, lonely, and beginning to turn into a grumpy old man. At work, some of the other workers mocked him, and he was often fodder for gossip around the coffee station in the break room. He put on a brave front and pretended he needed no one, but I felt for him; I knew he felt like an outsider in life. He was a nice guy, but he had a lot of emotional issues, and no one wanted to bother being his friend.
One day he was walking to the bus stop to go home from work when someone came barreling past in a car and hit a dog. The dog yelped and rolled to the curb, and although it turned out he was not hurt, my coworker tenderly wrapped him up in his own jac...