Been thinking about animals.
When we got Nea almost three years ago my main hesitation had to do with her dying one day, and how hard that would be. Selfish isn't it?

When I go to work, she wants to go too. When I take pictures of flowers, she's always trying to get in the damn photo.
One time we were doing a shoot here and she insisted on having her paw in the shot. Finally the photographer had to politely ask me to take Nea home.

One day Nea will likely get sick and die. She doesn't think about it, and that's nice for her. She just sort of enjoys the day. Panting silently most of the time, her eyes sliding shut until the UPS man walks up.
Then all hell breaks loose.
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I can't stop thinking about Gus and this bit of animal behavior science:

"A 2005 study of elephant grief, reported in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, confirmed what experts have long sworn, that elephants pay homage to their fallen, visiting the remains of even long-dead relatives, and gently turning over the bleached bones with trunk or foot. Biologists tell of gorillas banging their chests with yowls of anguish during a wake for a fallen friend, of sea lions wailing when their babies have been mutilated by killer whales, of grief-stricken monkey mothers carrying dead infants around for days, of geese singing both halves of a duet when their partners have died..."