Pavlos Xanthoulis
In comparison to humans, a dog, your dog, can sniff more than 100,000 times. His hearing is exceptionally acute, and he can hear your heartbeat without using a stethoscope, allowing him to perceive your emotions. What is remarkable is not only the recording of your own heartbeat but also the fact that your dog's heart is synchronizing with yours. His pulse coincides with yours. As unbelievable as it may sound, research in many countries, including Japan and the United States, has shown that any dog in your home will identify and synchronize with your own heartbeat and experience joy, pain, and sadness to the same extent that you do. He's your dog, after all. And also because you are the center of his universe. So treat your dog with respect. Because, in addition to synchronizing his heartbeat with yours, your dog is attempting to improve your mood every minute through this connection he has with you. And because, according to the journal Science, every time his gaze crosses yours, an incredible burst of oxytocin, the well-known "love hormone," is recorded.
The fact that hospitals in Italy and elsewhere use a patient's love of dogs to help those who are battling cancer—a disease that your dog can detect through smell, in addition to blood sugar, of course—seems to be no coincidence. All of this is acknowledged in nations that have reached a certain level of civilization that Mahatma Gandhi connected to how we treat animals.
This is the degree of civilization in the Cypriot-coordinated state, which regrettably wants to imprison animals in 2022 even though killing them with a gun is not considered a crime!
In Cyprus in 2022, the state, political leadership, and legislature all have very different views on animals. Through the designated "dog beaches," racism is not the only thing that can be seen. Which, in any case, are Cyprus's worst beaches, and it appears that Costas Kadis, the minister of agriculture, does not take his family there on weekends.
It is primarily because our frail state and political leadership are debating a law, an amendment that will deprive a dog of the ultimate reward, the combination of freedom and love it feels next to its human. It would also allow dog owners to confine their pets in cages for the rest of their lives. In other words, these little animals will spend their entire lives confined in cages, with the approval of the cohesive state, Mr. Kadis and parliamentary parties, the majority of which, with the exception of the Ecologists who had initially voiced their disagreement, agreed with the proposed legislation. And right now, everyone is debating the height and width of the cages that will keep dogs in captivity for a lifetime. The same dogs that release oxytocin and synchronize their heartbeats to calm down any negative emotions when they see their owner.
This is the degree of civilization in the Cypriot-coordinated state, which regrettably wants to imprison animals in 2022 even though killing them with a gun is not considered a crime! Therefore, this state violates our conscience every day by repeatedly disrespecting the soul of animal welfare organizations and those who care about animals. Additionally, if the political parties and presidential candidates fail to "pick up" the cage law and the equally obnoxious dog law that the Anastasiades government sent to Parliament, everyone will be complicit, candidates and parties alike, except for one.
Note: DISY, AKEL, AKEL, DIKO, EDEK, EPP and the Ecologists should read the Bristol University research that describes the extreme stress and declining mental health of dogs in cages. So they know how complicit they will be if they make such a decision. We'll be here to remind them.
[This article was translated from its Greek original]
