Contact with God’s creatures makes us better people

It's the middle of the night, and my mother gently wakes me. "Shhh ...," she says. I'm 6 years old.

She walks her sleepy boy to the back porch, and then around to the side yard to the doghouse. My father, a gifted carpenter, made that doghouse with his own hands. He's inside the doghouse, armed with a flashlight and a pair of shears. With him is Mokie, our bitch boxer dog, panting. Her eyes alert, darting first to us and then behind her. It smells like ... well, like dog, I guess. Warm. Almost sweet. "Be very quiet," my father says.

Minutes or centuries later -- time is a weird thing when you're 6 -- it happens. Out of Mokie's backside emerges ... I don't know, but it's moving. I remember a white sack that is moving. Mokie begins to lick it vigorously. My father, a 6-foot, 4-inch shadow silhouette, moves in with the shears. A man I usually remember as stern, unpredictable and angry is, in this moment, a gentle midwife. He makes a few strategic moves with the sheers.

And I'm looking at a boxer puppy. A moment ago there was one dog. Now there are two dogs. I'm speechless with wonder. Five more puppies follow. My father cradles each one to a swollen teat, where the creatures taste life for the first time.

One of the gifts my parents gave me was a deep respect for animals and nature. It humanized me. That the word "humane" is in our lexicon says a lot. Anybody can be homo sapiens. But, for those who desire it, the great beasts and rich flora of the earth can humanize us. Which is to say invite us to become more truly human.

And so my life unfolded. We lived surrounded by pastures of alfalfa. Basque sheepherders brought the flock down from the high country to winter and drop a new generation of lambs to the earth. The sheepherders were happy to give us the leppy lambs, inexplicably abandoned by ewes with whom the newborns failed to bond.

We raised them on bottles. I was older now, and I took my turn for midnight feedings. You haven't lived until you stood in a barn at 2 a.m. in the desert winter, shivering in your robe and pajamas, feeding idiot lambs from a soda bottle fitted with a rubber nipple. I crawled back into bed smelling of hay, lanolin and sheep doo.

Once my mother neglected to clearly mark the milk carton containing the lambs' formula. In a story now grown to legend, my father proceeded to pour it on his cereal and take a robust bite. Colorful metaphors resounded, none of which flattered my mother.

I raised a calf for slaughter, aptly named "T-bone." We owned and bred Muscovy ducks. I watched them peck their way from shell to daylight. Guy toads seduced girl toads in an eerie, deafening chorus every time we irrigated the pasture. I stood mesmerized watching the farrier tend to Lady, our Indian pony, on whose back I barrel-raced in 4-H competitions. A rogue neighborhood pit bull killed our beloved collie, Rusty. I buried him by flashlight under the mulberry tree in our backyard.

I went to vacation Bible school and participated in the mandatory "lima bean in the Styrofoam cup filled with dirt." Like magic: Add water and up it sprouts. I completely missed the irony of learning respect for the environment in an exercise that included Styrofoam.

My sons have had cats, dogs, turtles, snakes and lizards. They watch me plant tomatoes. We go camping. We watch osprey fold their wings and dive bomb the lake, rising up out of the water with a hapless trout secured in fierce talons.

At the office where I work, Lucky, the Yorkshire terrier, is the office mascot. Patients pet her and make a fuss. She soothes them. Gentles them. For many patients, Lucky is where therapy begins.

I'm in the Rockies at a friend's house. His dog begins to bark outside. I walk with my teenage son to the door and step into the open garage. There, standing in the driveway, is the biggest black bear I've ever seen. We three creatures have a moment. "Hey there, big guy," I say, spontaneously, like we're old friends.

Wonder, awe and respect fill my body. I'm not afraid. More, grateful. "Oh my God," whispers Aaron. "Yep," I say. "God. That's right, boy."

The bear lumbers away down the ravine. Aaron and I are forever changed.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling Wellness Center in Las Vegas and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.