Things I learn from Animals

The morning was quiet, there was the sound of light drizzle through the tree's and the goats were doing what they do best...eating.
As I sat watching them, I noticed how one would use the other to boost himself up to reach a higher branch. They would take turns like that, both feeling that the top just had to be better,
Isn't it odd, I thought, that humans do the exact opposite, when one is trying to reach a higher goal he seldom helps the one beneath him, when a runner wants to win a race, he isn't about to stop and pick up the guy who fell..oh I probably would as would others that had no intention of finishing first anyway...there is a difference.
I heard foot falls in the woods, wondering is it the deer, perhaps the wolf...oh crap what if it's the Bear? How would I protect the goats? I do not carry a gun nor any other weapon...how would I fend off a wolf from making dinner of my goats. I had to giggle at my vivid imagination, but I realized: As human we consider ourselves so far above other critters who dwell with us on this planet...we place ourselves at the top of the food chain...there is nothing we can't kill and eat...But wait....With no man made weapon, I am as vulnerable as the goats. I am not higher on the food chain then they are and there are many animals above me...the lion, tiger and bear to name a few. Suddenly I do not feel all that superior to creatures around me. I am told that what makes us human is our ability to "reason". I think perhaps the person that decided that, didn't spend enough time with other living things...you can see reason in the eyes of animals, I have seen the ability to "figure it out" in a great many animals. I think as humans we consider ourselves far more GRAND then we really are. If some catastrophic event happen tomorrow we, as humans, would cease to exist...can't say the same for the animals. They would survive, not by their ability to reason but by their instinct of knowing what to do.
Each day I make a point of spending time with my animals, they are my greatest teachers. What I have learned from them I could never have learned in a classroom. I often feel sorry for people who haven't experienced the joy I get from each minute spent with another living creature..To observe them is to see the hand of God at work. I even learned something about weight problems through my animals...but that's for another day...I have some critters to go play with.