I spend hours pampering our flat-coated retriever, a self-involved creature who spends her days lounging around on the furniture and lapping out of the toilet bowl. Why are summer goldfinches a source of joy, but the squirrels who eat the seeds I put out for those finches my sworn enemies? … The degree to which animals make us feel good about ourselves does seem like a strange metric for deciding the fate of other sentient beings, though. Some of those decisions involve life and death, not just who gets Special Songbird Mix and who gets the chili oil. Sometimes I fear that it’s all random, that in the end my friendship with Chloe the dog is just the result of vagary and caprice.

Source: New York Times May 27, 2020 20:48 UTC