Encouraging parents to teach kids to love pets is always on our mind. Even if children can’t have a pet of their own, we can teach them to love and respect animals. Like the young soldier said in the musical South Pacific, “You have to be taught before it’s too late…before you are six or seven or eight…”

If left alone, most kids will develop some connection with pets on their own. They’re exposed to stores about them early in life on pre-toddler television and videos, in the books we read them as toddlers, in most of the Disney movies, and on the internet (who hasn’t shown the kids the piano-playing cat videos and the dancing dog ones?) There are dozens of APPs games and quizzes about pets. Our kids were attached to stuffed animals (cat, dog, duck and bunny) they slept with and carried everywhere until they were threadbare. One never saw a stuffed animal that she didn’t “have to have!” But it’s up to parents to introduce kids to the real thing and teach them that pets are living things that breathe like we do and have a heartbeat. Be kind to animals – an important lesson for our kids.