Behind the Scenes

When I wrote The Compassion of Animals, few people believed that animals were capable of expressing positive emotions or caring about anything but themselves.  On Google, I found thousands of citations for animals’ anger, fear, and selfishness, but almost nothing about their courage, loyalty, or kindness.  Yet from my own experience, I knew how brave and loving my dogs and cats could be.  There seemed to be a disconnect between what experts said and what I saw with my own eyes.  So I collected thousands of stories of animals rescuing, comforting, and being kind to people and other animals; and I put some of the stories in The Compassion of Animals.  Now similar books are published every year, and animals’ courage and kindness appears often in the news.  Attitudes have changed.  Thank goodness.