When is the right time to bring a new animal into the family?
COMPANION ANIMALS Our companion animals mean different things to different people, often they take on the role of best friend and confidant, they may be a substitute child, they are often assistance dogs that are not just friends but help us cope with the outside world and sometimes they’re working dogs. They provide us with unconditional love, they don’t judge us, they don’t expect anything in return except love and they forgive us for a raised voice for a forgotten walk or for a ‘bad hair day’. Many people still believe that when we lose a companion animal we’ll be ok in a day or so, people may tell us ‘it’s only an animal’ and ‘you can just get another one to replace it’ ‘there’s plenty of good dogs needing homes out there’. Despite the special relationships we have with our animals some people will undervalue the importance of them in our lives and under value our relationships with them. It is important to understand that the human – animal bond can be as strong as any relationshi
