This is Honey. She is now about four-and-a-half months old. We adopted her from a local animal rescue organization about two months ago. All we know for sure about her is that she was rescued from a high kill shelter in NM. The rest, we can only speculate.

Last week, I took Honey to visit the family who fostered her when she was 9 weeks old, right before we adopted her. I’d never been to their house before, but when I pulled up in front of the house and put my car in park, Honey’s tail started wagging like crazy. She started whining and climbing all over me (she weighs close to 40 lbs. now); she could hardly wait to get out of the car. She never behaves this way when I take her for rides in the car.

She remembered! The house, the people. How could a four-and-a-half-month old puppy remember something that happened when she was 9 weeks old? Nine weeks?! I get goosebumps just writing this.

Some people think that animals are stupid, that non-human lives don’t really matter because, well, they’re just animals. (Same with our natural resources—our water, our air, our forests and deserts—we often take these things for granted as well.) But just because animals can’t use human words to communicate, they certainly can, and do, demonstrate their feelings and intelligence through body language, perception and instinct. I’ve always known this to be true, but I guess it never hit me so strongly as it did when my puppy obviously recognized the family who was kind to her and who so unselfishly became her stepping-stone to a better life.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—love is all that matters. Not just love for our families and friends and those who are easy and convenient to love, but also for those who suffer from abuse and neglect, for those in poverty, for those in other countries, for those who think, pray, look, and live differently than us, for the weak, the dying, the depressed, the mentally ill, and for those who cannot speak for themselves but who are forced to live at the mercy of the rest of us—animals, children, the elderly, the severely disabled.

Hug your dog or cat or horse today. Your children. Your spouse. Your parents. Your grandparents. Your friends. And perhaps do something kind for someone you don’t even know, because obviously, even animals never forget kindness.

Love truly is. All. That. Matters.