You can emotionalize animals all you want, project your thoughts and feelings onto them, anthropomorphisise to your hearts content, wait to meet them on the Rainbow Bridge, but if you live with animals for a long enough, pay attention to them, listen to them, you will learn, as I have learned, that our relationships with them are often built on food. Food is the gateway, the foundation of trust and communication. Animals do not have motives, language or narrative, food is essential to their survival and the people who bring it to them are central to their lives.

Animals like dogs and cats have learned to understand some of our emotions, play on them, mirror them, manipulate us into caring for them, it is how they adapt and survive with our cruel and destructive species. Animals like raccoons do not know how to do this, they do not get gourmet treats, expensive health care or comfortable spots in the bed.

Donkeys have been around people as long as dogs, and they understand the meaning of people who bring them food. It is a way of talking to them, building trust, opening the door to a genuine relationship. Donkeys respect the people who bring them food, pay attention to them, often seem to love them. Every morning of their l lives, our donkeys get carrots and brushing from me and Maria, it is our way of talking, of saying we care about them, they can trust us.