Wednesday on my site is now going to be Worldly Wednesday. The topics will vary each week. So maybe stories of my travels one week and some international news the next. It will just be worldly.

So as I thought about my first blog for the category, Cole thought of one of his favorite international stories I have told. It deals with pets, but we will get to the specifics in a minute.

The topic of pets seemed pretty fitting for my first one after working on so many humane society newsletters in the last few days. I have edited and placed many cute cats and dogs. I am making newsletters to help support and fund those cute animals, which I have come to realize is big business here in the United States. Just how big you ask, $45 billion was spent in 2010 on food, grooming, vet care, medicine and more. We sure love our animals.

So how do we look compared to the rest of the world. England spends $5.7 billion and Germany and France combined spent $5.1 billion in 2009. Latin American countries are on the rise, but Argentina is only spending $0.5 billion.

I believe these numbers. In my time in Europe, and specifically Italy, I didn't see a lot of people with animals. And if so, it was most likely a cat, such as Palo, pictured above, at my host mom, Dolores's apartment. He was one of my great friends I met on my travels though. He sat there every morning while I wrote in my journal and read my Bible.

Now for one of Cole's favorite stories. When I went to Ghana in 2009, I took a photo album of pictures from home so they could see where I live. Well, as a lot of you know, I live in the country, and we have all kinds of pets. The second I showed them to some of the guys, they laughed. They did not believe that we had pets just to have them for company. I remember one of them commenting that my dog would be tasty. I told them they could not eat my dog, and I never would do such a thing! I tried to explain how we view pets, but our view is so different. We have a lot of luxury in life. As Americans, not too many of us are lacking in our needs. We would never think of eating our pet. But in Ghana, and many other parts of the developing world, having a pet isn't realistic.