“Do you consider yourself tolerant?”  The coyote looked up at his friend, a gray cat with a white muzzle sitting up in a tree close to him.  He was a very nondescript coyote, and it gave him the ability to blend in and be forgotten, to dream and let his mind run freely.  It was dark, and he watched her lithe form balance and climb beyond any of his abilities.

The cat considered him for a moment, licking her paw for a moment.  She had been adopted lately, and had watched humans and their habits.  Though usually coyotes eat cats, she had made friends with this one, and often wondered at his contemplative nature.  “Of course.  Why would you ask that?”

He thought for a moment.  “Well, the other day I sat up on the hill and watched the humans, and tried to understand them.  Both groups were fighting for what they believe in, but neither group was willing to just let the other go on their way believing the way they believed… I mean, they were so set on changing someone else’s mind rather than just tolerate that differing belief… I found it amazing and confusing at the same time.  I wondered if you had run across it?”

She pondered and turned her attentions to the end of her tail as she spoke.  “Well, I know that my humans do some things like that.  They would like everyone to believe the same way they do.  They don’t really hate anyone who has a different opinion than theirs.  But, they don’t listen to them.  The other day, they were talking with Delphi, and he defended his beliefs as well as they did.  He’s never fought with them or tried to break them up, even if he doesn’t believe they should be together.  But now, because he said exactly what he thinks and they don’t like him thinking like that… I haven’t seen him around since, and when his name comes up, my humans get angry.”

He pondered this for a moment and looks up at her.  “Do you think they should have been more tolerant?”

She looked up at the moon.  “I don’t know.  I don’t understand humans.  But to me, it seems that if someone thinks different than you, then it can’t hurt unless they physically try to hurt you I mean.  Like when we go out hunting, and I want to go low, and sneak up, and you want to run and flush and surprise… we’re both right, but I’ll keep believing that for me the best way is to sneak up.  But I learned a long time ago that trying to teach you to creep up isn’t the best way for you.”

“So you think there are many different rights?”  He looked down the road quietly.

“No.  There’s only one right.  But there are many different beliefs.  And standing up for your beliefs is fine, as long as you don’t use those beliefs to attack someone.  As long as you have tolerance for their different beliefs, and let them have their beliefs be different than yours…”

“Yes.  If humans are supposed to be the smartest of us on the earth, why don’t they understand that tolerance doesn’t mean accepting others beliefs, or trying to make others accept yours… that intolerance doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t accept your belief, but that they try to change yours?  To me, it seems that very few humans are tolerant of one another.  They can talk, better than we can.  But rather than listening to one another and considering and keeping hold of their beliefs and not expecting others to change their beliefs when they talk… they fight and bicker and snap worse than a bunch of cubs.”

The cat smiled and her blue eyes glowed.  “They might be considered the smartest of us on the earth, but they aren’t the happiest.  I don’t think you can be happy if you aren’t tolerant of others.  You just get angry at them for not changing their beliefs.”

He sighs and looks down the road again.  “Humans make very little sense.”

She nods.  “You said it.”