from our interactions with them nevertheless. Imagine that we come back from work unusually

late. It’s been a tricky day: a threatened resignation, an enraged supplier, a lost document,

two delayed trains… But none of the mayhem is of any concern to one friend waiting by

the door uncomplicatedly pleased to see us: Pippi, a two-year-old Border Terrier with

a continuous appetite for catching a deflated football in her jaws. She wants to play in

the usual way, even if it’s past nine o’clock now, with us in the chair and her sliding

around the kitchen, and, unexpectedly, so do we. We’re not offended by her lack of

overall interest in us. It’s at the root of our delight. Here, at last, is someone

wholly indifferent to almost everything about us except for our dexterity at ball-throwing,

someone who doesn’t care about the Brussels meeting, who will forgive us for not warning

the finance department in time about the tax rebates and for whom the Lisbon conference

is beyond imagining. One of the most consoling aspects of animals – it might be a dog,

a sheep, a lizard or a beetle – is that their priorities have nothing whatsoever to

do with our own perilous and tortured agendas. They are redemptively unconcerned with everything

we are and want. They implicitly mock our self-importance and absorption and so return

us to a fairer, more modest sense of our role on the planet. A sheep doesn’t know about

our feelings of jealousy, it has no interest in our humiliation and bitterness around a

colleague; it has never emailed. On a walk in the hills, it simply ambles towards the

path we’re on and looks curiously at us, then takes a lazy mouthful of grass, chewing

from the side of his mouth as though it were gum.

Ducks nibble at the weeds, waddle down to the water and

paddle about in circles without any interest in which century it happens to be from a human

point of view; they’ve never heard of the economy; they don’t know what country they

live in; they don’t have new ideas or regret what happened yesterday. They don’t care

about the career hurdles or relationship status of the person who sprinkles a few bread crumbs

near them. Time around animals invites us into a world in which most of the things that

obsess us have no significance – which corrects our characteristic over-investment in matters

which make only a limited contribution to the essential task of existence which is to be kind,

to make the most of our talents, to love and to appreciate.

we believe in making the world a more emotionally intelligent place. To that end we have also produced some extraordinary books.

As well as other merchandise that re-enforces some of the themes illustrated in our videos.

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