Giggling Little Girl

      Sorry there was no post last week.  We had an emergency in the family.  It has finally started to resolve itself, so today was the first day I have had a chance to hop on my blog.  I hope you enjoy the following story!

    

      The moments that make me absolutely beam with joy at the humane society are when there is a perfect match between animal and human.  It’s almost magical.  You can see it in the people’s faces.  That look that they cannot leave without this animal.  That particular animal because they have touched something deep within that person’s heart.  Instant love.  Not because the animal was necessarily the cutest or the youngest, but because on some level these two living creatures have connected.  That connection is contagious and everyone can see it.

            We had a moment like that this past week.  It was right before closing when we had an older father and his seven-year-old daughter come in.  He politely asked if he could visit with the guinea pigs.  He thought we closed an hour later.  Normally we would grumble and say, “Okay but we are closing in 5 minutes so you will have to decide quickly.”  Unlike what most people think, we do have lives and after a 9-hour day we do want to go home.  But this specific man had someone very special with him: his seven-year-old girl.  When she saw the guinea pigs, she squealed with delight.  Apparently they had already built a large cage and had been just waiting for some to go up for adoption.  The gentleman told his girl that they were going somewhere very special tonight.  It was a surprise.  Being convinced that they were going to McDonalds, the girl was shocked when they rolled up to our doors.  As our rules dictate, we had to set them up on a visit before they could adopt them.  To my absolute joy, I picked up both guineas and placed them in the room with the little girl.  She started giggling and laughing and simply, as only children can do, whom are not self-conscience of others watching, she began to have an entire conversation with the two pigs.  She told them all about how they would come home, live in a fantastically large cage, and have tea parties. She named them Chocolate and Oink.  Her dad left the room to do the paperwork, but we could still hear her chattering away to not just a couple of pets but two new best friends.

            Kids have a unique way of seeing animals.  They see them as equals. As if they are only their stuff animals that have now come to life.  Kids haven’t realized yet that they are “just animals.”  They hold them as if they are something precious.  They talk to them as if they understand every word.  In doing so, children treat animals not as something below them, but as another friend.  Imaginary dragons, make believe princesses, and mysterious lands all exist, so why can’t the animals just be another companion that one meets along the way?  To a child, animals can talk, they can go on phenomenal adventures, and they are whole beings.  Some how when we grow up and learn animals can’t really talk and they don’t quite have the same capacities as us, we convince ourselves they don’t feel the same way either.  If only more kept on believing in magical escapades maybe the animals would fare a little better.

            For this seven-year-old, she brought home two new buddies.  Never to be discarded, only to be loved.  She walked out the door still chattering to them in their little boxes.  Telling them everything would be okay.  I can only imagine what kinds of adventures they have been on since.  I can’t help but picture two guineas dressed up in Barbie clothes drinking fake tea, eating bits of apples.  I don’t think the guineas mind though, for the girl is probably in as of equally a ridiculous princess costume as well.