It’s Sunday! Time to kick back & relax. Maybe we can relax by reading a book to a little one in our life.

How animals are treated now and in the future depends on us. Not me as an animal advocate, but US. Every one of us is responsible for how animals are treated in this world.

Most of us have children in our lives whether it be our own, nieces & nephews, or friend’s children. Just teaching these children in our life kindness, compassion, and empathy towards animals can make a HUGE difference.

You may know that I am a huge fan of the RedRover Readers program. This program is a curriculum designed to teach children empathy toward animals. I read one of the books from this program to a few groups of children in a preschool classroom this past week. The book is called “Ginger Finds a Home.”

Not only did I read the book, but since RedRover Readers is an SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) curriculum, I asked each child how they felt and as I read through the book we discussed how Ginger felt and HOW WE COULD TELL HE FELT THAT WAY. We looked at his body posture and reactions. This is a very important part of the teaching. We learned that he felt scared, sad, lonely, and nervous along with being hungry, dirty, thin, and cold when he had no home. After a little girl rescued him he felt happy and was comfortable, full, and warm.

They learned that indeed ANIMALS ARE FEELING BEINGS TOO.

This past week was Animal Cruelty/Human Violence Awareness Week. There is a proven link between these two.

Signs of violent adults start when they are small children. Harming animals is a huge sign! It is crucial that we pay attention to these signs so we can hopefully prevent it from escalating into human violence later in their life.

So you see for the hope of a better tomorrow for animals (and people), we need to remember it’s up to US. So maybe today you can read a book about animals to a child or spend some time with your pet and be a role model to a child on how we treat animals.

Happy Sunday!