, March 29, 2024

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Karma, Dogs and Cats


  •   6 min reads
Karma, Dogs and Cats

PET TALES

By Desiree Carlos

It was 1970. My grandmother Nanay Belen and I were about to board a tricycle when we heard a driver anxiously telling people in the waiting shed that he just hit a dog.

“Biglang tumawid,” he said, visibly shaken. (The dog suddenly crossed the road.)

“Naku, dapat iniwasan mo!” another driver said. (You should have avoided the dog.)

“Mamalasin ka niyan!” said an older man. “ Kayang iwasan ang mga aso at pusa na tumatawid. Mano ba na maghintay ka. Kesa malasin ka.” (You will reap bad luck. You should have avoided any dog or cat crossing the street. It is better to stop and wait for the animal to pass, than experience a misfortune later.)

Dogs adore their human parents so much. Adopted pooch Ella looks at her furmom Eileen with so much love and adoration. A furparent will tell you such love from a dog warms the heart. It is the reward of loving and taking care of a dog. You care for the dog, the dog loves you unconditionally. You will never feel alone with a doggo or catto by your side.

I grew up hearing tales like this in Mandaluyong where my grandparents’ house was located. Jeepney and tricycle drivers avoided dogs and cats while on the road, housewives do not throw hot water on cats and instead give “tira-tira” or leftover food to animals that pass by their house.

I grew up learning about how karma works related to how a human treats a dog or a cat:

1. you reap what you sow;

2. you get rewarded when you do good; and

3. you get a consequence when you do bad.

Thus, the community of my childhood took care of every dog and cat. Whether an animal is owned or not did not matter to my family and our neighbors. All dogs and cats mattered to the members of our community.

I always saw housewives putting food (on a newspaper or plastic) outside their homes. Everyone was feeding owned dogs and cats and strays then.

At an early age, I witnessed acts of compassion and kindness everywhere in our neighborhood. Without telling me, I was taught to be compassionate and kind to dogs and cats through their subjective leadership. The adults in our community showed us that kindness towards a dog or cat is part of our daily routine. It is normal and natural to be kind. Being kind to animals is something we just do because it is an integral part of who we are.

But will hurting dogs and cats really bring about misfortune?

This is how karma works: when you do good, the energy of good comes back a thousand times more. Why? Because you attract the same energy: kindness, compassion, and love.

What you are, so shall you get, receive, ATTRACT.

Pansinin ninyo. (Notice this.) If you are a jolly, funny person, you have jolly and funny persons around you, right? When you always complain and see bad things in others, you attract people who also complain a lot and always pick on others. What you are, you attract.

Chien, a stray kitten rescued by Save Animals of Love and Light (Save ALL Inc.), is such a sweet, loving catto who makes any human feel good with her “lambing.”

If you think positive, good things, good persons and good experiences manifest in your life. If you think negative, negative things, negative people, and negative experiences seem to come into your life all the time.

So if you deliberately hurt a dog or a cat, you will attract the same kind of energy. Someone will deliberately hurt you or the persons you care about. You will attract the same negative energy but not in the same, exact way. Someone will hurt you but not by hitting you while crossing the street, or throwing boiling water at you while looking for a mate or food on the roof, or tying you to a post 24/7 and with a tight, heavy chain at that.

If you did not step on the brake of your vehicle, or did not avoid the dog or cat, and you did hit the animal, what negative incident happened to you after? Did someone shout at you and insult you, causing your self-esteem to “die”? Did you lose clients, causing the “death” of your business? Did you lose your job, leading to the “demise” of your career? Definitely, something in you, your life or amongst your loved ones will get “hit” or will “die.”

If you hurt a cat deliberately, did someone hurt you after the incident, as painful as a physical injury?

If you have put your dog on a heavy, tight chain for days, months, years, have you felt like you have been trapped all your life, chained to something negative that you can not fathom?

But if you have been good to your dog or cat, treating him or her like a family member, do you not feel so loved by the your dog or cat that you feel good all the time?

Just this January, I donated funds to a shelter with more than 100 dogs for a sack of rice. Yes, our animal welfare group Save ALL Inc. also needs funds for our rescues. But I can not ignore the appeal for help for food for 100 dogs. So I sent a small amount that can buy a sack of rice (50 kilos) which is good for four (4) days of food in the said shelter.

A few hours later, I received a message that my friend has found a house helper (kasambahay) who can assist us in preparing food for our rescues, to lessen our daily tasks! I was repaid by the Universe in another way! The Universe sent help to us, this time in the form of a house helper we badly needed!

One act of kindness that is needed now more than ever because of the food crisis during a pandemic is to feed stray dogs and cats. If you can buy a kilo of cat food or dog food for P100 to P150, you can give a little to a cat or dog you will see on the street. A kilo may feed about 10 dogs or cats. If you want to feed strays but can not do so, you can send dog food and cat food for the stray feeding program of Save Animals of Love and Light (Save ALL Inc.). The group sends dry food for dogs and cats to humans who regularly feed strays or to individual rescuers. Please message them. In photo is a kitten who was fed by rescuer Rowena David in Makati. (Photo by Miss David for the Save ALL stray feeding program.)

This help from the Universe is 1,000 times more helpful to us because we have been peeling, cutting, grating and boiling vegetables every day for three weeks as the woman doing this went on a one-month vacation leave. Ang sakit na ng katawan namin, puro sugat na ang mag kamay namin kaka balat at gayat ng mga gulay. (Our bodies were tired,our hands were already filled with wounds or cuts due to peeling and grating vegetables.)

A house helper who can now do the vegetable preparation and cooking for us, and more, lessened our rescue-related workload. This now allows us to work more on other stuff like fundraisers that will bring in funds for our own rescues. Galing, ano? (Great, right?) That is how karma works.

Kaya ingat po tayo sa mga sasabihin o mga gagawin natin. (Thus, we should be careful what we say and what we do.)

If your words and actions will bring bad or misfortune to others, expect that negative energy to go back to you. But if you will do good for others, specially for poor, voiceless beings like dogs and cats, expect the best you deserve to manifest in your life again and again.

Have a blessings-filled Sunday! Namaste.

About the author: Desiree Carlos was a writer of Frontline magazine, and a correspondent of the Daily Express and Veritas. She was also a reporter and later sub-editor of Ang Pahayagang Malaya, news editor of Manila Standard, and assistant managing director of DZRH. She was a lecturer at the College of Mass Communications in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and head of the journalism department of Kalayaan College. She is now an animal welfare advocate, founder and president of Save ALL-Save Animals of Love and Light, a SEC-registered non-government organization.

This article also appears in the Manila Standard



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