A friend shared a story with me recently that genuinely moved me. Growing up in China about forty years ago, every winter someone from the neighborhood or surrounding villages would steal a pet dog for food. During those months meat and food were scarce, and because dogs were not allowed inside the home back then, they were left outside overnight with no way to protect them. You would go to sleep and wake up in the morning to find your dog gone. It happened regularly. It was just a reality of that time and place.

The story broke my heart a little. As a pet owner I cannot fully put into words how I would respond to something like that happening to my own dog. The bond between a person and their pet is real and deep, and the idea of losing an animal that way is genuinely painful to sit with.

At the same time I have to be honest with myself. That was a profoundly different era. People were starving. Survival instincts operate on a completely different level than the moral frameworks most of us apply today from a place of relative comfort and food security. I wholeheartedly disagree with the practice. But I would be dishonest if I said I did not understand the desperation behind it.

It is one of those stories that sits with you. A quiet reminder of how much circumstance shapes human behavior, and how easy it is to judge actions when you have never faced the conditions that drove them. One thing I can tell you with 100% certainty though, I’d never hurt a dog under any circumstances. Ever.