There is an ancient Spanish tradition for All Saints Day consisting on lighting candles at home for “showing” our beloved ones “the way”, so their souls can visit us that night.
Do animals have a soul? There is no way to prove if animals (or people) have a soul or not. About 100 years ago the question if women or non-white people have a soul was still under discussion.
Most animal lovers like to think our dogs, cats, hamsters, parrots, etc, are something more than just alive beings, since they are able to feel, to share our good and bad moments, and they character make them absolutely unique.
We lost our Labrador some months ago. Fredy was brought to our practice in summer 2011 when he was a very young adult. Despite that, he weighed 35 kg. He had been wandering at the street for several days and had no microchip. He had diarrhoea and lots of ticks, but he also had a special gaze. We adopted him, and he was a wonderful companion from the first day. No problem at all with Pufo, our Britton Spaniel, who was quite old by then, or with our massive cat Gary. He got adapted very quickly to us and to our daily routine, and he joined us everywhere we went, including restaurants, travels and family meals. Apart from being the most handsome dog in the world he was very calm and nice with everybody.
But the fact of wandering at the street without protection in the middle of the mosquito season had a consequence: he had leishmaniasis, and the disease damaged his kidneys. He developed a kidney failure when he was five, and despite all our attentions his kidneys stopped working definitively 4 years later. It was a very sad moments for us, and we miss him. For that reason, we will light a candle for him this year for helping him to find the way home.
It’s also a very sad moment for us when a patient dies, and we can understand very well the sadness of the people who loved it. Mourning is very sad, but it’s necessary for remembering our friends with love and without pain in the future.
We don’t want this month article to be a sad one, so we would like to suggest you to watch a happy end Tim Burton’s movie: “Frankenwinnie”, about the way a child loved his dog.
About Brexit: nothing sure yet, so we decline to publish anything for the moment. We really would like to write a good, complete and didactic article which works also as a definitive guide for making pets owners understand the new incoming regulation, but we are afraid Prime Minister Johnson will make us go completely nuts before we can do it. It looks like Spanish politicians are not the only ones who are making our task more difficult than it should be.
Clinica Veterinaria, Calle Holanda 9, MASA Square, Gran Alacant
T: 966 698 569
