How could the death of a canine possibly hurt as much as that of a family member? As the sadness lingers, part of my grieving process has been to try to understand the differences.

Researchers have long known that the animal-human bond is strong: A 1988 study in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling asked a group of dog owners to place symbols for their family members and pets in a circle representing each dog owner’s life. (The distance between the subject and the other symbols corresponds to the relative, real-life closeness of those relationships.) The subjects tended to put the dog closer than the average family member, and about as close as the closest family member; in 38 percent of the cases, the dog was closest of all.

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There is no way I can do justice to how I truly feel about losing our cat of eighteen years and a bunch of months and going on nineteen years. When we moved back to Summerville, South Carolina, in 1993 from Oxford, England, we got her from the SPCA.

So many things changed, but except for our faith and our family, she was the only constant, friendly, joyful, content, present, glad to be alive and part of it all. The world is a sadder place because she is gone, but we are all the better from having been given God’s gift of Sprightly–KSH.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Watch it all (Hat tip: Selimah Harmon)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Please note the content of this piece may not be appropriate for some blog readers–KSH).

The shift in the gay movement away from demanding equal rights and towards calling for recognition of the idea that gayness is “natural” occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Feeling under attack from a conservative backlash, gay-rights activists in the West started to argue, very defensively, that being gay was a simple biological trait and therefore it should not be criticised….

The aim of those who bang on endlessly about how beetles and penguins are just as likely as humans to be gay is to avoid testy moral debate about homosexuality in favour of effectively presenting gayness almost as an animalistic instinct, which therefore cannot be helped or “corrected” and which should not be criticised.

Homosexuality is not “natural”. It is not a mere biological instinct. Rather, like all human relations and interactions, it is a complex mix of desire and choice and love and lust. The campaigners who hold up the grunting antics of penguins and dogs as evidence that being gay is okay imagine that they are doing gay people a favour….

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Simply stunning–watch it all.

You just have to love it, watch it all.

Flying Starlings from www.carlpendle.com on Vimeo.

Great music, great photography, and oh those birds! Watch it all–KSH.

Vultures Chose Me from Green Renaissance on Vimeo.

Watch it all, yet another reminder as to why Vimeo is one of the best sites on the web–KSH.

My point here is that, in matters of the heart, males have the brains of a walnut. No, wait! That is not my point. My point is that perhaps you women could cut us males a little bit of slack in the move-making process, because we are under a lot of stress. I vividly remember when I was in 10th grade, and I wanted to call a girl named Patty and ask her to a dance, and before I picked up the phone, I spent maybe 28 hours rehearsing exactly what I was going to say. So when I actually made the call, I was pretty smooth.

“Hello, Dance?” I said. “This is Patty. Do you want to go to the Dave with me?”

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As a boy in San Antonio, Paul Flotron helped his family raise miniature schnauzers. He was there for the dogs’ births, and his family showed the dogs at competitions all over Texas. When he was 10, his family moved to St. Louis, where he accumulated “the Flotron Miniature Zoo,” including “dwarf crocodiles, African pancake tortoises, birds, boa constrictors, hermit crabs, fish, and always dogs.”

Today, Mr. Flotron runs Creature Comforts Great and Small, a St. Louis pet-care business, and leads Noah’s Ark, a pet ministry of Grace Church, a large nondenominational Protestant congregation. Noah’s Ark runs a pet-food drive, supports a no-kill rescue, brings pets to visit the sick and infirm, and hosts a grief group for those who have lost a pet.

“We actually have Bible study and discuss passages that are animal related,” Mr. Flotron said. “We make that our foundation.”

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Watch it all and do not miss the comments about dogs vis a vis girlfriends(!).

Frank Shane, a professional dog therapist and CEO of the K-9 Disaster Relief Foundation, had to improvise when he brought his golden retriever, Nikie, down to Ground Zero. There was no protocol for anything””from the kind of footwear Nikie should wear to how Frank should deal with the unfathomable grief of 9/11. Yet from the moment Frank and his dog stepped onto the site, they both knew they had a job to do. As it turned out, a pair of soft ears and a wagging tail offered one of the best ways to connect to the people on the ground….

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A seemingly intoxicated moose has been discovered entangled in an apple tree by a stunned Swede.

Per Johansson, 45, says he heard a roar from his vacationing neighbour’s garden in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday and went to have a look. There, he found a female moose kicking about in the tree. The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples.

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“Photographs by Charlotte Dumas of privately owned dogs who were mobilized, with their owners, to search for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They are now retired.”

Enjoy them all. Some of you know we have three dogs. I have been saving this until today since this week begins the anticipation of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Like a lot of dog lovers I teared up at these pictures–KSH.

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They say that a dog is a man’s best friend, and for Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson, 35, and his beloved and loyal dog Hawkeye, not even death could break this powerful bond.

At Tumilson’s funeral in Rockford on Aug. 19, his beloved canine lay at the foot of the casket throughout the ceremony. Tumilson’s cousin Lisa Pembleton took the heart-wrenching photo of the devoted dog, known to Tumilson’s family and friends as his “son.”

“I took this picture and that was my view throughout the entire funeral. I couldn’t NOT take a picture,” Pembleton said. “It took several attempts since every time I wasn’t crying and could focus on taking it, there was a SEAL at the microphone and I didn’t want to take a picture with them for security and respect reasons. Our family is devastated to say the least.”

Read it all and do not miss that picture.

Watch it all (Hat tip: Selimah Harmon)

Watch it all (Hat tip:Selimah Harmon).

This made BBC World News this morning where I caught it–watch it all–KSH.