Since I was a little kid, I’ve always had a dog. I love dogs – in fact, I love all animals – but especially dogs. We can learn a lot from them.

To start off with, a dog loves you without conditions; he simply wants to love you.

He’s loyal. Once he loves you, he loves you and only you. People have difficulty with being loyal. A new person arrives in school, and your friend deserts you for her. A promotion at work makes you have to spend more time at work, and less time with your family. It takes discipline to be loyal to something, and few people have this.

The dog is always happy. At the sound at your voice he’ll jump up and instantly be ready for fun and affection. Just bounce a ball in another room and see how rapidly your dog gets into the fun. With us, fun is usually to electronic, competitive, or at someone else’s expense. If not that, then it’s costly, or is had to impress others.

The dog is not class-conscious. He doesn’t care where your live, how you dress, or what your job is.

A dog living in a dump is happy; as long as he has somebody to love him. He can live in an apartment with cockroaches, torn wallpaper and dirty carpets and still, he doesn’t care.

A dog doesn’t envy; to him everybody is his equal. He doesn’t care if another dog eats better food, has a nicer collar or a silver-plated bowl. Humans, on the other hand, seem preprogrammed to envy others. Why envy a person’s car, as it’s simply metal, glass and plastic; or their jewelry, as that’s just glass and metal, or their…

Do you envy your neighbors job? Why bother. If he has a job that seems important – where people look up to him – forget him, because the day he retires, the rest of the world will. Think about this: Who was the last secretary of state? or who is the current president of your bank? Being envious has no meaning.

Be satisfied with what you have. A dog eats his food with enthusiasm, no matter what it is. He eats because he is hungry. For humans, food can be a source of status, as eating expensive and imported food makes a person feel like they are something special; however, this is pure nonsense, because same sun, the same water and the same soil grew the same food. It’s all the same.

If the dog has a basket to roll up in or an old blanket, he’s happy.

The dog is in love with the natural world. He likes to be outside, sniff the breeze and follow a trail. He’ll spend hours amongst the trees – simply being content to be out. As humans, we watch an average of 3 hours a week, 84 hours a month and about 1000 hours a year. That’s same as 40 whole days a year; that is 1.3 months a year doing – nothing.

The same applies to the computer. People spend their lives playing idiotic games, and having foolish chat and other nonsense. When you are old, you won’t remember even one game that you played; however, you’ll remember the books that you read.

The dog gets a good night’s rest: he simply plunks himself down and goes to sleep; with no worries, no stress – just visions of cookies dancing in his doggy mind. (Please don’t feed him cookies as they’re bad for him.) Many humans go to sleep each night with guilt, hatred, distrust; fear, sadness, and confusion. It would be a good idea to pray to Jesus to take these things away from you in order for you to sleep peacefully. Just like a dog.

A dog doesn’t have any concern with his physical appearance. He just has one coat, and he doesn’t care about what other dogs wear. Many people are concerned about how they look, and what they wear. If we only realized how little other people care about how we look, then we wouldn’t bother with the fancy clothes.

A dog doesn’t need a fancy vacation; he simply wants a nice walk through the neighborhood; and the chance to bark at any moving object. However with humans, the urge to go somewhere, see something, and do something; costs a lot of money, is frequently a disappointment and ends up accomplishing little.

Dogs don’t usually get heart problems, hypertension, lung and liver cancer, or personal problems either. They are however, happy with what they eat, where they live, and what’s going on around them; and, they aren’t interested in politics, culture, race, money or any of the rest. After you read this; go and watch some dogs; better yet – go to the animal shelter and get a one for yourself.