10 Things Animals Teach Us About Being Human

1. Savor the moment.

Animals, by their very nature, live focused on the moment, while we, as humans, far too often are distracted by thoughts about the past and future—a fight with a friend last night, the performance review with our boss tomorrow, or our growing to do list for the coming week. By taking our cue from animals and noticing more of each present moment, we can find a chance to more fully appreciate what is happening right now in our lives.

2. Heed your instincts.

Alert and attentive to each of their senses, animals respond to cues about the world around them by trusting their instincts and acting on them. When we rationalize in our human minds what our instincts may tell us to take notice of—or ignore what our senses are conveying to us—we risk dismissing important signals about events, circumstances, and the people around us. As we attend to our senses and acknowledge our instincts, we open ourselves to new choices and opportunities.

3. Keep focused on what’s most important.

On those days when it seems everything has gone wrong and we come home exhausted and spent, our animal companions devotedly greet us with unfailing offers of love and affection. Even those times we may speak harshly toward them or ignore them completely as we walk in the door, they wait in the wings for the moment to come when we, at last, turn our attention to them. And in their patient devotion, they serve as reminders of how much we value connecting with others and sharing our hearts.

4. Don’t get bogged down on words.

As we communicate with family and friends, most often we think of relying on words. Yet we often neglect to consider the many other ways that we portray our inner world. The tone of our voice, our facial expressions, our posture, our movements, scents released by our skin to waft through the air communicate our thoughts, emotions, and intentions, often more reliably than the words we choose. 

5. Take time to rest.

In the hurried pace of our daily routines, it’s all too easy to fill our days with a steady stream of activities—places to be, people to meet, tasks to accomplish before it’s too late. But, taking a cue from our dogs and cats, the lions at the zoo, a hawk perched in a tree overlooking the road that we glimpse from the car, we can take quiet moments to rest for a bit and give ourselves time to relax and reflect.

6. Remember to play.

In the midst of our day, when we feel the pressures from work or at home, a well-deserved break—even just a few moments—from the task at hand can lighten our load and help ease our concerns. From Labradors to Bengals and timber wolves to leopards, the creatures around us routinely play to invent, discover, and bring joy to their day.

7. Don’t take yourself so seriously.

Whether rolling in catnip or pouncing on strings, our cats jump to play fully absorbed in their game without worries about how they may appear to us or others watching them. Likewise our dogs while chasing a ball, sniffing at lampposts, or gnawing a bone relish their pastimes without concern for how they may look to passersby. Letting go of our inner critic and the judgments of others, we can more fully embrace those times we enjoy.

8. Let go of attachment to being right or wrong.

Evolution favors those creatures that focus on what matters most—finding food, remaining healthy, resting, breeding, and caring for young. When we defer to our sense of pride and self-importance, we risk losing the outcomes and results we want most. Letting go of our attachment to being right or wrong frees us to align ourselves with what we value most.

9. Practice forgiveness.

While animals, certainly, suffer grief, misfortune, and misery, they move past them with greater poise than we humans often do. The continuity of their lives takes precedence over reliving the past.  When words and deeds come back to play in our minds, like the creatures around us, we can give as before with grace and equanimity.

10. Love unconditionally.

In the silent presence of the creatures around us—all alone on the sofa with our dog by our side or cat resting cozily curled in our lap—we sense their regard for our thoughts and feelings, and we respond in kind without reserve. If we choose, we can do so, as well, with each other

Full article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-soul-all-living-creatures/201501/10-things-animals-can-teach-us-about-being-human

Can Animals Fall In Love?

We all love our pets, but can our cats and dogs fall in love with us, too? Skeptics believe that we anthropomorphize our pets, and their supposed expressions of love are really just simple instincts that help them get a treat or something else they want. Animal lovers know better of course, but now we have some cold, hard scientific research to back us up. In fact, this new research shows that pets might love us even more than we love them!

Claremont Graduate University economist Paul Zak has been conducting a series of studies related to the “hug drug” oxytocin and reporting his findings in The Atlantic. Many know that oxytocin is released by mothers interacting with their babies, and couples making love, but any positive interaction, even between strangers, increases the neurochemical by a modest amount. The production of oxytocin helps us care about the people around us, at least temporarily.

Zak’s researched focused on humans before, but he was moved to start studying human-animal relationships after an emotional experience saying goodbye to his 15-year-old dog at the vet’s office. Surprised at how much the dog’s passing affected him, he wondered if animals can cause people to release oxytocin.

100 participants came to Zak’s lab and provided baseline blood samples before playing privately with a cat or dog. Zak compared the participant’s oxytocin levels after playing with an animal to their baseline level, and the levels after interacting with another human being.

Surprisingly, only 30 percent of participants produced more oxytocin after their pet play session (levels increased from 10 to 50 percent after interacting with humans). Past and present dog owners were more likely to have an increase after playing with a dog, but cat owners had the opposite reaction (probably because dogs are more responsive to their owners than their independent feline counterparts).

Next, Zak went to an animal refuge in Arkansas to test whether animals could feel love and friendship for other animals. He focused on two young males who would often play and simulate fighting with each other. They were two different species: a terrier mix and a goat.

Zak let the pair interact uninterrupted in an enclosed area, and, as with the humans earlier, took their baseline blood samples and drew again after the playdate.

The dog’s oxytocin levels increased by 48 percent, showing the strong friendship he feels lt for his goat buddy. But it seems the goat is actuallyin love with the terrier — he had an increase of 210 percent! Zac wrote inThe Atlantic, “The only time I have seen such a surge in oxytocin in humans is when someone sees their loved one, is romantically attracted to someone, or is shown an enormous kindness.”

This is a small sample size for now, and hopefully Zak will move forward with more of this research. But now we know that our pets’ love is as real as our own.

https://www.sootoday.com/content/green/details.asp?c=72441