Children and Animals
'One of the best ways to foster empathy during early childhood is to cultivate children's relationships with animals. Young children feel a natural kinship with, and are implicitly drawn to animals and especially baby animals' (Rosen 2004, Sobel 1996).

Animals are an endless source of wonder for children, fostering a caring attitude and sense of responsibility towards living things. Children interact instinctively and naturally with animals, talk to them, and invest in them emotionally' (Sobel 1996).

A little-known fact about children and animals is that studies of the dreams of children younger than age 6 reveal that as many as 80% of their dreams are about animals (Acuff 1997, Patterson 2000).

Additional significance of animals' symbolic importance to children is that animals constitute more than 90% of the characters employed in language acquisition and counting in children's preschool books' (Kellert 1983).