You have to understand, this was a big deal! My family is from Pakistan and it was unheard of back then for Pakistanis to have companion animals. I was nine years old when my grandparents, living next door, adopted Sylvester as a puppy.
How and why did you come up with it and how does it relate to the deeply personal nature of your most welcomed and courageous book?Īs a child, I had a profound relationship with a dog, named Sylvester. Our Symphony with Animals is the definitive account for why our relationships with animals matter.Your subtitle caught my eye and made me think about these and other topics before I even read your book. Humanity’s compassion for animals is the next step in our species’ moral evolution and a vital component of our own health. In equal measure, the love and friendship we give to other species biologically reverberates back to us.
She demonstrates how humans are neurologically designed to empathize with animals, and how violence against them goes against our nature. Akhtar reveals what happens when we both break and forge bonds with animals. Through storytelling that is entertaining, profound, and touching, Dr. Akhtar asks, what do we gain when we recognize our kinship with animals? She travels around the country to tell the stories of a varied cast of characters-including a former mobster, an industrial chicken farmer, a Marine veteran-and comes face to face with a serial killer. Feeling abandoned by humanity, it was only when she met Sylvester, a dog who had also been abused, that she found strength for both of them.Īgainst the backdrop of her inspiring story, Dr. Akhtar’s own story of being a young girl who was bullied in school and sexually abused by her uncle.
Aysha Akhtar examines the rich human-animal connection and how interspecies empathy enriches our well-being.ĭeftly combining medicine, social history and personal experience, Our Symphony with Animals is the first book by a physician to show how deeply the well-being of humans and animals are entwined. A leader in the fields of animal ethics and neurology, Dr.
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