a fistful of compassion

The municipality where I live is very active in animal welfare and was one of the first in the country to achieve zero killing of dogs and cats. While I am very proud of this, I am not directly involved in it.

What can I contribute to society by owning a dog? Neighbours tell me that having a seemingly scary dog around is a great security measure. ​If I tried to combine my wish to have a dog with my desire to help society, I could have chosen to get a shelter dog?

I think our society would be a lot more comfortable if we could show a small amount of compassion like...when we seat on a long seat (which is arranged in a horizontal row along the side of the carriage) on a train, and we could shift our hips by one fist to make room, we could seat another person. (However, the long seats in big cities like Tokyo have handrails in some places to divide the seats, so this kind of sharing is not possible and at the moment we are told to sit with a lot of space because of the Corona disaster...) I'm thinking what I could do for animal welfare by a fistful of caring.