Ode to Our Best Friend

The dog. Man's best friend. No other animal has served mankind as much as dogs have. Not horses with their strength or swiftness, cats with their calming purr, birds with their chipper songs or cows giving meat and milk. God must have created dogs with only man in mind, because almost every need man has, dogs can fulfill in one way or another. Throughout history, only dogs have universally entered into our families, our lives, our hearts.
For centuries, bedouins in the desert have considered dogs as members of their families. Whatever the people had to eat they shared with their dogs. Dogs slept with them in their tents and hunted on command. They kept their owners warm in the cold night and fed them by hunting in the day.
Dogs have been a mode of transportation, carrying man over miles of snow by sled.
They have been a source of camaraderie and comfort, guarding homes and flocks of domestic animals.
They have gone into battle, giving their lives for us, fought side by side with law enforcement officers, tracked down harmful fugitives. When a disaster strikes, they push through rubble to find us, and if we have died, they bring our bodies to our anxious families.
Dogs have been everywhere we have been. They are always on our side. They are the type of best friends who agree with us even when we're wrong, defend us against our foes regardless of the cost, and who want nothing in exchange save our presence.
If I were to examine my life, and the history of man overall, and give God thanks for what I thought was His best Creation, I'd have to praise Him for the dog. There is no other creature that gives me, and so many others, so much joy and love, security and peace.
Long live the dog!