Deciding to share our lives with a four-legged companion is not a simple choice. It means taking responsibility for a life, making a commitment to take care of this animal whatever happens. One Voice has a clear position regards our companions: to make them happy we must respect them and understand them.
Understanding your four-legged companions
In concrete terms, understanding our companions doesn’t mean just satisfying their physiological needs. A full bowl and two “toilet” breaks aren’t enough for a dog. He needs to share time with his human, play, be taken care of and go out for walks… The human also needs to adapt way of communicating and functioning to suit the dog. An animal is not a doll or a toy, even less is it a substitute for a child. A dog needs marker points, consistency, rituals and a way of life in keeping with his species. For example, for a dog, his family is his pack. Like any pack, it features a hierarchy with coded dominant/dominated members. In the same way, a cat needs to sleep a lot during the day, needs access to raised places, needs to be able to eat often and in small quantities and needs to be able to go to the toilet in a clean location… However, neither need to reproduce to be happy. On the contrary, litters born “at home” flood the market and especially shelters with animals that often have not been correctly socialised…
An animal has a right to its own private space
Some people who say that they are animal lovers have no problem in piling them up one on top of the other, supposedly to rescue them. But under what conditions? How can one human satisfy the needs of several dogs and cats who are obliged to share the same small garden or even a small apartment? An animal has a right to its own private space. It has the right to share intimacy with its human, it has a right to walk when it needs to and get the exercise it needs.
Most cats need to go outside, spend time climbing trees, exercise their skills as a predator, chew grass and meet other cats. What then can we see about those cats who spend their entire lives cooped up indoors, with their only source of entertainment a window ledge where they can be seen dreaming of freedom, obese and unhappy. And at the same time what can we say about those dogs who spend all day every day chained to their kennels, only able to stretch their legs as their chain will allow them ? Or those in kennels, whether alone or piled on top of each other in the worst possible conditions ?
Helping you
One Voice is opposed to these practices. It has set itself the task of helping you welcome your new companion by providing you with the advice and information you need to get along well together. Here you will find articles to help you in your approach. You can also read about how to spend your days with an animal companion: how to understand them, how to interpret behavioural problems that can appear sometimes and, especially, how to prevent them.
To make them happy, we have to respect them and understand them.
