It came to my attention that people were hugging cows in the Netherlands for Covid 19 stress relief. Yes, Covid brings on stressors. Yes, hugging can help us manage this. But a cow? C’mon what are you people thinking?
I guess hugging humans is too dangerous. After all, they might be harbouring Covid 19 unbeknownst to even themselves. So naturally humans looked to our animal friends for comfort. After all there are all these emotional support animals that various people need.
I’ve raised my eyebrows over reports of what some of those emotional support animals are. I suspected they would all be dogs or, in extreme cases, cats. But the array of emotional support animals is more varied. Some are goats, pigs and even peacocks. These odd ones often make the news because just like me, some doubt the effectiveness of some of these animals to provide that emotional support.
If those animals can provide emotional support then why not a cow or a horse? They are awkward to take with you on a bus or in your car so they don’t quite make it to emotional support animal because they are so big and heavy. But people might like hugging these beasts more, precisely because they are big and heavy.
So emotional support pigs and birds should be no problem. Except they are. Guess where swine flu and bird flu got their names from. Why from hogs and birds. Living in hogs and birds changed the strain of whatever flu infected these beasts and made it more virulent in humans.
So why not an emotional support bat? That’s where some scientists think that Covid 19 came from. If we retreat from humans to the animal world every time something like Covid hits, guess what might be the result?
We get Covid 19 and retreat to emotional support bats for help. We then contract another new illness that makes us retreat to other exotic animals for comfort. These other animals give us a third illness that makes use seek comfort in more animals which gives us a fourth illness…
Do you really want to go down that rabbit hole? And rabbits likely can give us a fifth illness…
