The following post was written by PETA friend Dr. Peter J. Swartz, author of Too Many Tails: A Book for Wise Children and the Adults in the Room. All proceeds from the sale of this wonderful new book—currently available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, eBookIt.com, and elsewhere—will support PETA’s lifesaving work for animals.

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Maya Angelou once said, “I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” So, for example, when people consume a steak or celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner, they’re failing to display the empathy necessary to help alleviate suffering. It may take a gradual and gentle awakening for most of us to acknowledge the suffering of others and then find the courage to do something about it. In her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou develops this point with regard to the oppression of slavery and all forms of discrimination.

Buddhism teaches the noble truth that suffering is all around us. The causes have to do with selfishness and desire—essentially, greed. There’s a path toward relief, however. An essential aspect of that relief is simply found in having compassion for others—all others—and being willing to take action to alleviate that suffering.

In a typical day in the United States, more than 5,000 dogs in animal shelters are euthanized. That reality leaves most of us cringing in some kind of empathic pain. It’s obviously a huge problem with many different moving parts, but to address it, we first need to find the courage to empathize fully with our “best friends” and then devise various ways to help them.

Too Many Tails: A Book for Wise Children and the Adults in the Room is an attempt to call attention to this issue in a way that is kind and compassionate enough to allow us all to find sufficient courage to display our empathy and then take action. It’s but one small step in the direction of finding relief for dogs and discovering our connections to all others.

Even young children have an instinctive connection with animals. Think of the way they express their joy when they get to play with a puppy. They may not have words to express themselves, but they clearly know both pain and pleasure. And certainly, the “adults in the room” can do better in addressing the problem of animal suffering.

“Pet” overpopulation is exacerbated by puppy mills, commercial pet stores that display puppies in their store windows, and the notion spread by national and local breeding associations that some dogs are inherently worthier than others. Each “pure breed” dog who goes to a new home potentially takes a home away from a dog languishing in a shelter. Light needs to be shed on these issues over and over again, and the inherent greed behind them needs to be exposed. Veterinarians need to have greater incentives to perform vastly more spay/neuter surgeries. And governments on many levels need to take protective actions for animals.

I’ve been a licensed psychologist for just shy of 30 years. My experience tells me that when my patients experience an empathic connection with me, they benefit from that, more than from anything else I could offer, by far. I have also loved dogs all my life and have been so privileged to learn about compassion and making connections from each and every one of those I have shared my life with.