posted April 26, 2026 02:32 PM            

While looking for a post in another forum, I found something I completely forgot about. It is something I should not have forgotten. It was an experience that took place in April 2018. Here it goes (I tightened up the grammar and punctuation):

Last week, I stopped by a Chinese restaurant to pick up some steamed broccoli. While I stayed near the counter, across from me was a woman and her dog. When her order was ready, she approached the counter with her dog. It was then when her dog started barking. As she got closer, the dog started to growl. Now, I have not had a dog bark at me in a couple of decades; so, this was more than a little strange. The woman told me that he usually does not get like this. The way she said it sounded so cliche. I noticed that when the dog growled, he was turning his head in the direction of his owner. The dog did not lunge at me at all. Instead, he sniffed at me. Given the aforementioned behavior, this was even more strange. Since then, this moment kept coming back to me as if I was missing something. And early this morning, it hit me hard: the dog’s owner was NOT human. And the dog was warning me about that.

If we collectively accept the presence of other non-human beings, where do we go from there?