If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals...

Zoo today, with my niece. Evidently, it was her second trip to the zoo. I did not know this yesterday, when I was excited to be able to experience with her her first glimpse into the life of the wild. Nope, she went last year with her mommy and daddy. So little old Mary had to settle for second. Kids these days, you know? They got some nerve.

But it was fun. It was hot, and it was sunny, and it was really awesome when we went to the underground [and air conditioned] viewing for the seals and the hippos and the polar bear...the last of which wasn't even on exhibit today, but we just hung out in the observation room for a while anyway.

I did feel really bad for those animals though. I had an interesting conversation with my father this morning about the differences between animal torture and human torture. Really, I was wondering whether shock-bark collars are really ethical, and he was arguing that the animal can still exhibit free will and choose not to bark. We're not forcing it to bark and then shocking it for doing so. But I don't know. There has to be some way to allow dogs and humans to coexist. Because, yeah, domesticating animals in the first place was probably not a smart move, but now that the breeds exist, it's not like we're going to give them a habitat of their own. They were bred for captivity, and who knows if they could even survive healthily on their own. So there's got to be some good way of allowing us to live together...either by them not barking as much or by us just getting over it. Personally, I'm all for a little compromise. My dog barks too much, and my old dog didn't bark at all, but I've known plenty of dogs who knew when it was a good idea to bark and when it wasn't. That is the ideal situation, I think.

As for the poor tiger pacing around in his pen today...I still don't know. As a conservation effort, yeah, captivity is better than extinction. And education is good and all...but those animals don't belong in those cages, really. Of course, those specific animals probably wouldn't do so well on the outside, either.

And the rest of my day was pretty relaxed. Mostly I rested my poor, swollen feet. I wrote a letter, updated my resumé, and my room is still clean. Then went to Cari's, watched some of "The Office," (season four, if you were wondering) and avoided the dive-bombing moths outside her front door. All in all a very good day.

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<3 spadeALLcross