I WAS HAPPY. More specifically, I was proud. I had just finished running nearly 6km in slightly over 30 minutes. No, that wasn’t the reason for my happiness or pride. I had been able to save the lives of at least half a dozen snails during my run — and that made me smile. Well, I doubt the gastropods that I saved went on to live forever. However, I’m certain that, in mollusk years, I helped them live a few more hours, or perhaps, more optimistically, days.

I’m no saint, though. As a pre-teen, despite that my parents asked me not to bother, I clearly remember swatting wasps that would somehow manage to fly inside our house and squishing roaches scurrying across the floor for cover. In both cases, I had my defenses ready. The former almost always stung me and the latter seemed disgusting. Over the years, however, I grew benevolent. So much so that in the last decade or so I’ve been trying to protect even the most vicious-looking insects including spiders, earwigs and yellow-jacket wasps. Also, I've never, not even inadvertently, killed an animal bigger than a frog.

And while I have been laughed at for letting mosquitoes bite me as I water my garden (they’ve got to live too: I retort as I hope I and people around me don’t contract any serious illness), I have been lauded for rushing ill birds to vet hospitals. And although I’ll surely act in self-defense when it’s justified, I'll continue to prize the animal lover in me - SD