TARIQ AND THE DOG

Tariq had gone to play at the house of his classmate, Kashif. When Kashif's mother called him downstairs for something, Tariq was left alone in the bedroom. At that moment Kashif's dog came into the room. It was such a lovable dog, and it was as though it was asking, "Don't you want to play with me?"
"Hey, come on then, let's have a game," said Tariq, jumping to his feet.
"Great, I'm very pleased!" said the dog, wagging its tail enthusiastically.
Tariq froze in astonishment. The dog was talking! This was an opportunity not to be missed. He began asking about the things he had always wondered about dogs.
"I've always wanted to know," he began, "How do you chew those hard bones we give you to eat?"
The dog smiled, revealing a row of sharp, white teeth. "Allah, Who has given all living things their own individual characteristics, has given us dogs different physical abilities from other animals. For example, we have more teeth than you do, 42 of them in fact, so we can chew our food, especially bones, very easily."
Tariq nodded: "You like running, jumping and playing as much as I do, don't you? How come you don't sweat?" he wondered.
Kashif's dog nodded in agreement: "We don't sweat like humans do to control our body heat because we have no pores in our skin. We have a respiratory system that controls our temperature instead. Our fur prevents heat from outside from reaching our skin. Of course, when the temperature rises our body heat rises too, and when we become too hot we get rid of the extra heat by hanging our tongues out and panting, so even on hot days we don't sweat, in spite of our thick fur."
"Allah has given us such a wonderful system that while humans break out in a sweat after half an hour's exercise, we can run non-stop for hours without sweating at all. From now on you'll understand that when you see dogs with their tongues hanging out in hot weather there's no need to feel sorry for them. Of course we dogs did not make this system for ourselves. This is one of the proofs of the supreme creative power of Allah, Who created everything in a totally original form."
"I believe your sense of smell is also very well developed," said Tariq as he stroked the dog's nose.
"You're right," the dog agreed. "We have a very strong sense of smell. The smell centers in our brains are 40 times more developed than human beings'."
"So when police dogs smell something just once they can go and find the owner!" exclaimed Tariq.
"Right again. You can see that the dogs you are used to seeing every day are proofs of Allah's creation, just like all other living things. Keep that in mind, and don't forget to remember Allah with thanks."
"Thanks a lot," said Tariq. "I won't forget. And I'll tell all my friends what you have told me about what Allah has given you, and ask them to thank Him too."
Just then Kashif came back into the room, and they all began to romp and play together.

OUR VERY DEAR FRIENDS

It is He Who created everything on the earth for you... (Surat al-Baqara: 29)

DOGS, THE EXPERT SNIFFERS

Dogs have an extraordinary sensitivity to smells. When roaming in the street they find the smells left by other dogs, and those which are peculiar to people, and they learn things about them. They can detect the slightest scent in the air without any difficulty at all. Bloodhounds, a breed of dog which has a particularly strong sense of smell, can track people from places where they have left no visible trace, follow a trail that is four days old and find the scent of people more than 80 kilometers away.