COVER N. 586 - FRANCE 

Postmark:  Musée de la Poste - La fabrique du temps Paris 27.05.2025

Posted on  the  27th May; Received on the 13th May 2025

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Merci Roland, for another cover with a nice cancellation mark. Those guys at the musée should know better than to get the cover double cancelled, but it is not your fault!

Pets. the best friends of humans, so it is said...

I have nothing against them, of course... it's their owners who sometimes baffle me....

I love animals... that's probably why I have some difficulties with pets. I understand their value as companions, helpers, healers, work mates, all the extraordinary things animals can do which help us humans in most dire and difficult situations... but then I see dogs locked in apartments for life, ferrets wore by the owner around the neck while strolling through the shopping mall as it were a live scarf, hamsters and birds locked in tiny cages or small fishes swimming round and round inside a glass bowl large enough to hold my fruit salad... and it gets me mainly sad...

Then there's that thing: dog owner; cat owner; pig owner....  animals should have no owners... they're part of the same world we live in... 

Don't get me wrong. I am an omnivorous fellow, I do eat meat, and I am aware that animals raised for meat producing are most times raised in appalling conditions all over the world. But that's another question and another problem altogether.

Pets are not food but pets are also not human, so they should not be humanised to a degree that defies common sense. Dogs should not be carried on one's back in some sort of rucksack  as it they were babies... damn it, they have legs and feet, don't they?

Maybe it is me, but whenever in my morning walks I see people  talking to dogs as if they were actually babies, or children, or even grown ups  ( and I do see it all the time)  I find it oh so very strange... whenever I see a cat with painted nails, or a dog with a fancy hairdo...

As I said I completely understand that pets can fill an important void in one's life... just respect them for what they are, that's the sort of humanisation I think pets and humans do need!

In 2024 La Posts issued a series of four - one for each season -  Lettre Verte 20g tariffed "Collectors" sets,  dedicated to "Nos Fidèles Compagnons", (our faithful companions), dogs and cats. 

Each set comprised 2 x two different stamps, one illustrated with a cat and the other with a dog. The two stamps on the cover that Roland sent me are the Printemps (Spring) issue, dated of 02APR2024, which emphasized the benefits of animal therapy for sick or stress affected people.

The very nice pictorial cancellation of the Musée de la Poste in Paris was used to postmark the stamps.