Making friends

The assistant asked the director:

• Sir, the contract looked favourable. Why didn't you agree on the spot instead of saying we'd meet again another time? They invited us to their home, which means they want a lasting, friendly relationship. The terms of the contract were very reasonable too, and they made many concessions to us.
  The director shook his head and said:
• This man is not someone we can be friends with. He gives way at the start so that he can strike a deadly blow later on.
• But if the contract is watertight, what can they do to us?
• It is precisely because the contract is watertight that he can cheat us. This man has some trick we haven't spotted yet, and if we follow him, we'll be ruined.
• Sir, aren't you being too suspicious? You admit you can't see any loophole, yet you still believe he will cheat us. Why?
• Because I wasn't looking at the contract the way you were. I was looking at his dogs.
  The assistant was more puzzled than ever:
• What do his dogs have to do with the contract?
• A great deal. Did you see how he stroked and cuddled those dogs? There were five of them. Seeing that he loved dogs, I was pleased, and asked him why he kept so many. He said he was raising them to slaughter at the end of the year. I almost fell off the sofa. His affection is only temporary and false. He can kill with ease the very ones he shows affection for. How could we do business with a man like that?
  The assistant thought it over and said nothing.
  The director went on:
• In this life money is precious, of course, but it is loyalty and affection that give a person worth. When someone has done us a kindness or shared a bond with us, even if we quarrel we must remember the old affection and not insult one another. All the more so when he is killing dogs he has hugged and stroked and loved. There is something wrong with this man's moral sense. Anyone who has loved us, or whom we have loved, deserves a certain respect. When I heard him say he'd slaughter the dogs at year's end, I went cold. He said it as calmly as anything, with the dogs in his arms. A man like that, however sweet, will turn on you. This contract won't end well. It looks profitable, but he has already prepared his plan to cheat us. 🐕

Why have humans chosen the dog as their closest friend? Because dogs are loyal. Loyalty is an instinct built into a dog's genes. Even if it was not loyal in a previous life, once born into this one it has no choice but to be loyal. Humans are clever to choose a loyal species as a friend, yet they so often betray that friend. They demand loyalty from others while readily betraying it themselves. I don't know whether that is clever or foolish. All I know is that the result is that people are afraid to sign contracts with us (!!!!)

Some wealthy people have chosen other species as pets: pythons, lions, monitor lizards, bears, eagles... Lions can also prove loyal if they are raised affectionately from cubs. Other animals often turn suddenly, following their wild instincts. A bear may swat its owner in irritation and kill them outright. A tiger may bite its owner's throat if displeased. A python may swallow the younger child in the house... The proportion of dogs that turn on their owners is extremely low. Keeping a dog is safer.

Watching how a person treats animals in order to infer how they tend to treat people is a rather subtle method. What we need is to understand how they treat people, so as to know whether a lasting friendship is possible. Everyone in life needs lasting bonds of loyalty, but to have them we must choose carefully whom to befriend. With some people we can only be moderately friendly, give and take, letting them know little about us and needing to know little about them. With others we can only do fair business and dare not become close. With very few people can we form a close bond of true understanding, because that is someone for whom we are willing to suffer loss in order to help, and who is willing to sacrifice to help us. Such people value loyalty and affection above money and material things, and they are rare in this world. If the moral foundation of people rises, society will have more of these people who value affection and loyalty.

Someone may ask: if I only eat dog meat at a restaurant and don't kill my own dog to eat, is that a problem? Do you know whether that dog was sold to the butcher by its owner, or secretly stolen by dog thieves and sold on?
Do you know how much that dog loved its owner, and how it pined for its owner when it was taken away?
Do you know that dog was once cherished and loved by its owner, and that it stayed awake all night guarding the house so the family could sleep soundly?
Do you know that when that dog disappeared, the whole family wept and searched for it for a long time?
The dog you see as a brief meal was an entire precious life, and the love of an entire family somewhere.
Do you know where that dog came from into this life, and where it goes after it dies?
And do you know where you will go after you die?