I assumed Sarah would produce the definitive post on the intersection of dogs and Veterans Day, but I can’t wait around forever while she does… whatever it is she does.
Go to Mental Floss and watch these videos of dogs welcoming their soldier owners back after lengthy tours.
If those videos don’t put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye, you must be comatose. Such joy on the part of the soldier and the dogs! Each time I returned from overseas, I had cats to greet me, and you know how that goes. However, the kids were a different matter. I was never able to surprise them, and was always met by family at the airport. The emotions are the same. What a wonderful set of videos for Veteran’s Day. Thanks, Greg.
Greg, the videos are fun and moving. Thanks for posting them.
Cecil Alexander’s words say it nicely in one of my favorite Anglican hymns:
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
Indeed He did, including dogs, cats, horses and all manner of animals, fish and fowl. If I had to choose between them, I would choose a horse, a hunter. My second choice would be a bird dog, preferably a setter.
But from my simple, old-fashion, real-world, entirely-too-practical point of view, a soldier’s best friend is and always has been her/his weapon and man’s best friend is and always has been his/her spouse. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was not married when I was a soldier.)
No offense, Bowser, Greg or Sarah. : < )
Love it!
OI’ Bob . . . you mean Brand [she said in outrage!!!]
I’d just like to say . . .
Just to point out what we all already know . . .
Despite what one sees in these videos . . . it is all an illusion.
Dogs—obviously—have no feelings. We’re just anthropomorphizing them. They are mere dumb brutes, and can’t have “emotions.” What you perceive as joy or exhilaration or jubilation or adoration is nothing but a few neurons going off, causing the dog to act on his blind, inhuman, unfeeling instincts. All that twirling and screeching and hugging and demands to be held and picked up and running around and squirming desperately closer and crying and shrieking—any smiling that you may see or things of that sort—just random neurons firing off.
Think nothing of it.
Oh, this whole thing was just precious, precious, precious….
During the dog videos, I kept mentally adding “children,” and then when it was followed by dads surprising their children, I found myself with even more tears pouring down my cheeks…
Absolute joy—thanks so much for posting this on Veteran’s Day. My daddy did not come back from the war (Vietnam) and ever since I was little, a scene much like this has populated my vision of heaven…..
Here’s the story of a dog who was a soldier’s best friend in Afghanistan, and who has returned after being missing for a year on the battlefield.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/sabi-come-home-dog-of-wars-year-in-the-desert-20091112-ib6z.html
Thanks Greg,
I needed that.