Celebrating Valentines Day with your Pet

What does Valentine's day mean to you?

To me, it is a day to celebrate love and find gratitude for those in our lives that we love and who love us. When I think of love, I think of my animals. Of course, I also think of my family and the people in my life that I love. However, animals are special in their unique way.

Animals are a perfect example to how to unconditionally love another. They are pure love.

On Valentine's day, typically we give gifts and spend time together to show appreciation to those that we love. As you may know, there are different ways to show love, called love languages. A marriage counselor in the 1980s, named Gary Chapman, discovered that every person has their way to show and communicate love. These ways were through physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, and receiving gifts.

A company called Truity compiled the results from a survey of over 500,000 participants and developed some additional ways to show love. These ways included doing favorite activities and hobbies together, expressing appreciation and praise, feeling emotionally safe and protected, being generous with resources, intellectual and thoughtful discussion, physical affection, and practical help with everyday duties and responsibilities.

How do our animals show us love?

How do we show our animals love?

These are questions that I am going to be asking myself this Valentine's day.

Take time this year to share a moment of love and connection with your animals. Reflect on what experiences you’ve had with your animal recently where you felt connected and loved.