It’s curious; certain animals make me smile no matter what happens. The donkeys are like that, and the dogs. And this year, the Imperious Hens. Every time I look at them, I smile.

I believe that if you look at any of these photographs, you will smile at one, perhaps all, of them. This is the power of animals; we are meant to be with them, live with them.

Among its many other failures and flaws, this is the thing many people in the so-called animal rights movement have lost sight of.

Loving animals is never about hating people; it should never be about removing animals from our lives and their world.

Our job is to keep them with us and speak for their survival, not extinction.

I smiled at each of these three pictures – Bud, the Little King, making himself at home dozing on a pile of my clothes, the ever faithful Zinnia who is always waiting for me, no matter where I am or what I am doing. I love the photo above; you can see the beginnings of fall in the trees and background.

And then, the incomparable and Imperious Hens, who wait imperiously every morning for me to come out and dump some mealworms on the ground.

They do not ever say thank you or show any kind of gratitude, as dogs sometimes do. This is just their due, what is expected of me.