Best Pet Match For You

A overlooked sub-group has suffered during Covid-19 shelter-in-place order. Pet owners are annoying their pets by staying home and disrupting their daily routines and sitting in their spot on the sofa.

Americans love their pets. They even make them like one of the family. Some of the most popular pets are rats, salamanders, ferrets, pigs, parrots, parakeets, newts, mice, alpacas, iguanas, horses, rabbits, hedgehogs, hamsters, guinea pigs, goats, tarantulas, gerbils, geckos, frogs, goldfish, dogs, cats, snakes, chinchillas, turtles, and lambs.

Some people have some rather strange pets. My mother had two pet skunks in the mid-fifties. Her two sow skunks were named Suzie and Vickie. Of course, they had their scent glands removed. So the only problems they caused is when a car ran off the road watching her take the two skunks for a walk down the city sidewalk. Her dad, my grandpa Gelvin, had a pet three-legged racoon named Pete. When it was young; a friend of his rescued it from a trap. My son had a tarantula but it was his large African millipedes which were the most exotic,.  They were a foot-long and an inch and a quarter thick. When they curled up they, looked like a fresh pile of poo. They really do not have a thousand feet. It is more like 250. Whenever he would take them for a walk in the park it would take him all day to put on their little shoes and then all night taking them off. My daughter, Tia had a sugar glider. They are cute but noisy and nocturnal.

The Bible speaks of strange animals, such as, Balaam’s talking donkey and the ravens which fed Elisha. However, they were not really pets. The closet to a pet in the Bible is Nathan’s story of the poor man’s pet lamb which was like a daughter to the man. “The poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him” (2 Sam. 12:3).

The type of animal one favors as a pet may indicate something about the owner’s well-being and/or personality. Sam Gosling, a psychologist at the University of Texas, says “given the tight psychological connections between people and their pets, it’s likely that dogs and cats are suited to different human personalities.” Dr. Stanley Coren says, “The general pattern that comes out of both studies is that dog owners are more social, interactive, and accepting, and cat owners are more introverted, self-contained, and less sociable.” Those who have fish as pets tend to be happier than other pet owners. Those who have pet reptiles are often more independent. Research has yet be found in regard to the personality of those who have hissing cockroaches.

God created all animals. If there is one that He seems to favor, it would have to be the lamb. A lamb was the most sacrificed animal in the Old Testament. Under the Law of Moses, a lamb was sacrificed every morning and evening for the 1,500 years of the Mosaical dispensation (Exod 29:38-42). God the Father and Jesus Christ often are portrayed as Shepherds and mankind the sheep they care for. Throughout the Bible Jesus is often seen as the “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29; 1 Cor 5:7; Revelation 5:1-14). In the book of Revelation, Jesus is portrayed as a lamb over two dozen times. A lamb is a symbol of innocence and gentleness. God’s choice of a lamb says more about His attitude toward mankind than it does about young sheep. Jesus is the Lamb of God who died sinless and willingly was sacrificed for the sins of the world. Move over Rover it appears a lamb is man’s best friend.

Perhaps we all have a closer connection to sheep than either cats or dogs. “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

— Daniel R. Vess