Thanks, Sam and Alain and Branka!
You're right about connecting with nature, our pets and all the living things out there, it's all part of who we are. I remember feeling a great sadness as a child when my father cut down the big maple tree in our yard, that was the place where we would play in the shade all day. He cut it down because there was something wrong with it, and then eventually the grass grew where there was none before, because that tree provided too much shade for grass to grow under it, and for years we kids had a big circle of dirt to play with our toy cars and dolls and stay cool in the summer.
Now I have a walnut tree in the center of my yard, with lots of squirrels living in it, and they cluck at me when I sit under it too long in summer, telling me I'm in their way of climbing down. Squirrels do make noises, loud knocking sounds, we understand they want us to get away from their tree. I wonder if they understand US when they see us picking up all the walnut shells they drop down?
There are a lot of dogs in my neighborhood, I've mentioned that several times before. There's an old man who slowly walks his dog every day, and he stops at each yard where there's a dog outside so his dog can visit all his canine friends and have their "conversations".
The dogs bark less each time they see the same person walking past, they become familiar with us, they sense a person approaching before we know about them, eventually it becomes a game for the dogs, "Here comes someone, I'll be quiet until they get real close, and then scare him/her just for fun, and then wag my tail and laugh...and do it all again tomorrow, the person is NEVER ready for me, they always FORGET! HA!"
I think we have strong obligations to listen to nature, to really hear what it's saying to us, even if it doesn't understand us. Are the non-people parts of nature obligated to understand us? Are we in their way? Do we know if we are? We always are, somehow, even if we think we aren't disturbing nature just by being outside with it, I think it all feels our presence.