New Year’s Resolutions pets want you to make
AS a Scotsman living in Ireland, I can’t help noticing the differences between the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
In Ireland, Christmas is the big family festival: New Year is like a PS to the main event.
Scotland, in contrast, focusses on the New Year, with big family gatherings on the first of January. The last day of the year - 31st December – is known as Hogmanay, and the celebrations as midnight approaches are taken very seriously indeed. Hogmanay is celebrated with such enthusiasm in Scotland that one day is not enough to allow everyone to recover: the nation has a second bank holiday, on 2nd January, meaning that life does not return to normal till 3rd January.
Perhaps it’s my Scottish origins that are the reason for my interest in another annual tradition at this time of year: New Year resolutions. The start of a New Year is a useful opportunity to review everything in life, and to make a clean start on areas where you know you could do better. The aim is to be your “best self”. I know from sad experience that it’s rare for such resolutions to last more than a few weeks, but that knowledge has never put me off trying again, every year.
Most resolutions are personal, but as a vet, I like to include animals in my New Years Resolution ponderings: what would our pets like us to change if they could control our lives?
Here’s my list of resolutions that I suspect most dogs and cats would like their owners to make, if they could do so.
1. Give us more attention.