Day: May 20, 2014

Last week, I decided Ma ought to be euthanized. She was struggling with her pregnancy, suffering from toxemia, fluids were pouring out of her nose and uterus, she was gasping for breath and struggling to walk. I feel strongly that animals ought not be kept alive and suffering for the gratification of human beings. I see it all the time, it is awful and I didn’t want to do it.

The carriage horse controversy has awakened me to the need to reclaim the idea of animal rights and return the discussion to people who live and work with animals, and love them. Keeping animals alive at all costs is becoming an unsustainable idea. In New York, I see the groups that call themselves advocates for animal rights are much more interested in politics and ideology than the rights of animals. We need to reclaim the idea of animal rights.

In America, the primary ethos involving animals is rescuing as many as possible and keeping them alive by any means at all costs. There are more than 12 million dogs in shelters now and the rescue movement keeps arguing for more and more to be rescued,  sheltered, and adopted. Many now argue that it should be illegal to buy dogs from breeders, and that it is immoral to get a dog from any source but a shelter.

As a lover of border collies and Labs, I’m not sure Americans understand that these dogs would vanish from the world if the only acceptable way to get a dog is to rescue one. The waiting list for horses to get into rescue farms is between six months and two years now and the animal rights movement wants to add the safe and well cared for New York carriage horses to the waiting list. Countless dogs now languish in “no-kill” shelters, imprisoned in crates for years, often for the rest of their natural lives in the most unnatural – and cruel – circumstances.

The definition of humane seems to be avoiding death at all costs. No one talks much about quality of life, for animals or for people.

Humans do often talk about their wish to die well and on their own terms, about the right to die rather than suffer endless medical procedures or waste away in nursing facilities. But we have lost all respect for death when it comes to animals, we deny them the blessing and option of death, even when it would be far more merciful – and practical – than life. And death is as much a part of the animal world as life, sometimes more.

A friend told me about a dog with a bone deformation whose front legs were crippled. He was “rescued” and given two prosthetic legs and moves around in a wagon/wheel chair. He is a big hit, hailed on TV and taken to schools as a lesson about accepting individuality. The vet who saved him is showered with praise and gratitude. The reporter said the dog seemed very happy, everyone who sees him thinks he’s adorable.

It’s the same thing in reverse that the animal rights people say about the horses – they always say they are sad.

Dogs and horses aren’t  happy or sad – those are human emotions – they are excited or calm, content or uneasy, affectionate or guarded. The dog has no say in what happens to him – he doesn’t really know what happened to him – he will adapt to whatever he needs to adapt to in order to survive. I can only imagine what he went through dealing with two amputations and a wagon to get around. It is not always a bad choice for a dog like that to be saved. But it is not always a good choice either. Entertaining humans is something dogs have learned to do over thousands of years, it is why they sleep in bed and raccoons don’t.

I would not subject a dog of mine to the fate or expense of that dog. There is no moral reason that every animal in any condition must be rescued at any cost. I find “no-kill” shelters horrific places, I would never want a dog of mine to spend years in one. We don’t have the money or the space or the right to save every animal in the world, that is movement without reason.  Dogs have the right to die when they can no longer function as dogs – or to live if there are compelling reasons to do so. Many horses would be far better off if they could be euthanized on their farms rather than packed into trailers and hauled off to Canada or Mexico for slaughter.

Many dogs would be better off being euthanized than spending years confined in crates in noisy and crowded animal shelters. The “no-kill” shelter is a human idea about animal welfare, no animal in the natural world lives a “no-kill” life, there is no such thing as a “no-kill” farm. This idea does not come out of the natural world or the lives of animals, it comes out of a human projection of what feels good to us. It has carried us over the top when it comes to the rights of animals.

Death is sometimes the best option for sick or dying animals, even for animals that cannot be kept any longer in their homes.

I am glad I didn’t have Ma euthanized, I love seeing her with her lambs. But I also saw how much she suffered, how much it cost to keep her alive. I was reminded how animals, like people, have the right to die in dignity and comfort. It is not always the best option to keep them alive. If Red was crippled in his two front paws, I would not cart him around in a wagon on wheels as an example to children of the beauty of accepting differences in dogs, I would put him down in a heartbeat and I would tell the children that this is the real life of real animals, this is the truth about the lives of animals. Everyone cannot be saved, every animal cannot live in paradise.

Red has the right to die in dignity, just as I do. So does Ma.

I am far from certain it was merciful or humane to subject Minnie to the amputation of her leg. I am not certain we should have spent that money on a barn cat. Maria loves her, and I am very fond of her as well. It is easy to look at her and say how good a decision it was to keep her alive. It feels good and I am often praised for it. But I am not as sure as everyone else is about the decision, she struggles every day with her amputation, and in many ways. I know it was good for us, but was it really good for her?

I believe animals have the right to die. If human beings never have the option of euthanizing animals, many will be forced to give them up or avoid them altogether – I would never accept an animal on my farm that could never be put down, hardly any average person with a farm can afford to do that. People with pets have no idea what it costs in time, money and energy to keep animals, very few of us can afford to keep them alive to the end of their natural lives, no matter the cost. All of us on farms have learned not to speak of it except with one another, but it is the truth, it is the reality.

I am enjoying Ma and I love photographing her. Her lambs have touched my heart. I am not certain it was humane to subject her to what it took to have those babies and recover. I am not sure a sheep on any farm is worth $1,000 in medical care, which is what we will end up spending on her so that she could live. If I were a real farmer, instead of a writer with a farm, I could never do that, it would spell the end of my farm.

The animal world in America is on a collision course with reality. Animals are being emotionalized and personified beyond reason. This may cost the New York Carriage Horses their lives.

Since the recession, countless animals have been given up by people who cannot afford the rising costs of keeping them. Instead of dealing with this awful reality, we keep rescuing more and more animals, even to the point of importing them from other countries and other regions so we can have more animals to adopt and rescue. This is not animal rights, this is the exploitation of animals by needy people. It is neither thoughtful nor humane, it is putting countless animals in danger of slaughterhouses or warehousing and confinement. Our society cannot afford it, and it represents a profound loss of perspective. Can we really spend billions of dollars rescuing dogs while so many people struggle to survive?

I am showered in praise for keeping Ma alive and getting her through her troubles, and I love praise. But it is too simple, too black-and-white, such praise doesn’t come from the real life of real animals, or the hard choices anyone who lives with animals has to make.

Animals need rights. The horses are a powerful example, in New York, the people who claim to speak for their rights of animals seem only to have one idea – keep them away from us and out of sight. We need to reclaim our respect for death. Animals have the right to die, the people who own them have the right to terminate their lives when necessary. We do the best we can for as long as we can, that is the standard.

That is the lesson of Ma, for me, I am grateful she is here, I am far from certain it was the right choice for her or for me.

Greg Burch came with another cord of wood yesterday, and Lumber Dog J.D. rode alongside of him. I love watching Greg’s face when he looks at J.D., he just lights up with love and feeling. J.D. has quite a face too. Greg is a tough and experienced lumber man, he is giving us enough wood to power two wood stoves through next winter.  Men who love dogs are loving men.

Lambs are generally fearless, they are curious about Red, they always come running out to look at him and try to figure out what he is. This makes Ma nervous, she is always on the lookout for Red, she always calls the twins back to her. Red has no interest in lambs.

When truth is abused, the heart has a right to cry, the connections between us begin to die, our precious need for community and connection is broken.

In the years-long conflict over the future of the carriage horses, the truth has been lost, betrayed by thoughtless  and dishonest words. There are some words that have been used – and abused – more frequently than any other:

Abuse. Cruelty. Rights.

These words are invoked almost daily, in placards, shouts, shouted at demonstrations, petitions, press conferences, videos, fund-raising drives, political statements and campaigns, websites and e-mail blasts.

They are the weapons, hammers and battering rams used against the people who make up the carriage trade, they are repeated so often and so angrily and so vividly, with powerful images in countless ways, that they have entered the public consciousness, become the focus of the debate.

“Abuse” is a critical word to understand in this controversy, it relates to truth, argument and opinion.

Because words have meaning, when they are abused it is the truth that bleeds the most, and trust – the fabric of culture and society. If we cannot talk to one another in good faith and civility, how are we to resolve our problems peacefully? How are we to decide the future of animals together and protect them?

And who gets to speak for the horses? The people who would keep them in our world or the people who would take them away?

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– Animal Abuse is a legal term and concept, it is not an argument or an opinion. It is a crime.

Abuse occurs when animals are treated in an injurious, harmful or offensive way resulting in suffering, injury or death. An animal who is starved is abused. A dog who is beaten to death is abused. A cat whose tail is set on fire is abused. My donkey Simon, who was discovered on a farm nearly starved and frozen to death, was abused. Animal abuse is most frequently invoked when cruelty or neglect results in brutal handling beyond what is reasonable or necessary, and results in serious and injury or death.

Everyone has the right to decide for themselves whether carriage horses belong in New York City.

But one truth stands out among others: horses who are fed, watered, sheltered in heated and air-conditioned facilities, given five weeks of vacation, work an average of six hours of work a day, do not work in temperatures above 90 or below 18 degrees, have their stables cleaned every three hours, have meaningful work and exercise, are given medical care and human attention, are always in the company of other horses, spend most of their working hours in a beautiful park on paths built for them, are retired to farms when they get old, are protected by 144 pages of regulations, are not abused by any known or accepted definition of the term.

Abuse is a fact, a legal term. Abuse is illegal. It is not an opinion of someone who believes, for one reason or another, that the horses shouldn’t exist with people or only on rescue farms or in one place or another.

An opinion is a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. There are good people on both sides of the argument. But generally, they are expressing opinions. Facts are different.

And here is a fact worth considering.

No carriage owner or driver in memory or record has been charged with abusing his or her horses, or is facing that charge now. As of this writing, one carriage driver is awaiting a court appearance after being cited for working a horse with a foot infection (this at the end of a mayoral campaign in which the horses became a major political issue). The case is pending; the horse is fine.

In this century, no driver in the carriage trade has been convicted of abusing a carriage horse. The horses are inspected and observed daily and continuously by five different agencies in the city of New York, all empowered to monitor and report cases of abuse. None are pending.

The city government – the police, the mayor, the City Council, wealthy real estate developers, well-funded animal rights groups – have all mobilized to monitor the horses and banish them from New York. People who drive carriage horses are now the most controversial and closely observed workers in New York City. If a horse stumbles and falls, it is big news for days.

Even the animal rights groups cannot reasonably claim that their mayor – who repeatedly describes himself as a proud supporter of their cause – would look the other way if the horses face imminent injury or death at the hands of their handlers. Or if they are being abused.

Why, if the horses are being systematically abused, is no one accused of abuse? Why has no one been cited for cruelty when the horses are monitored by an army of investigators and inspectors and veterinarians every single day?

The animal rights organizations use the term “cruelty” almost as frequently as they invoke the word “abuse.”  Cruelty is the state of being cruel. No one in the carriage trade has been accused or convicted of cruelty to animals. I ought to say it is likely that some people in the trade are cruel, as some politicians and demonstrators are, and it is quite possible some horses have been mistreated. The workers there are human beings, just like the rest of us. If they are cruel to the horses, if they do abuse them in any way, they ought to be charged and punished. There is a vast and expensive mechanism in place for that to happen.

If the Catholic Church was subjected to this sort of irrational harassment and judgment, it would have been banished from most of our cities years ago. Some priests, it turns out, are much more dangerous than carriage horses or their drivers. But government and society recognize that abuse is not the whole story of any institution, the church does good as well as bad. It is of great meaning and comfort to many people.

We do not need to be perfect human beings to own and live with animals, animals are not guaranteed paradise, that is not the standard by which to judge the people who own and live and work with them. Animals do not live in the fantasies of needy human beings.  My standard is the same for almost all of the animal lovers I know. We do the best we can for as long as we can.

Here is another fact: In the 4,000 complaints of animal cruelty reported to the City of New York last year, and in the five proceeding years, not a single one of them has been made against a carriage owner or driver.

The claim that the horses are suffering or depressed from doing their work in New York City is an argument, it is not a fact. It is not supported by veterinarians, trainers, behaviorists or people who live with horses. Animals are not “happy” or “sad,” those are projections of human ideas. Animals live in the moment, the lives of domesticated animals center around food, water, shelter, activity and attention, the presence of other animals. The horses have all of those things.

An argument is a disagreement, the subject of verbal disagreement, a contention, opposition to an idea. Recently animal rights demonstrators aggressively violated the privacy of actor Liam Neeson – privacy is a critical matter to celebrities in America, a number of famous people and their families have been harmed in their homes by disturbed fans  – by going to his condominium and accusing him of supporting animal abuse because he disagreed with their arguments about the horses being safe in New York City.

Their stated purpose was to punish him for having a different opinion. Since these groups seem to equate disagreement with abuse, and use those terms interchangeably Neeson, by their reasoning, deserved to be punished.

The demonstration against Neeson was a crude and inappropriate effort at intimidation: an effort to force or deter a person from some action or belief by inducing fear. Why else go to his home and accuse him of supporting a crime in front of his neighbors and his children when they have so many other venues open to them to present their arguments and to disagree with him?

Amidst the democratic and a self-described progressive culture of New York, the animal rights ethos holds that Neeson has no right to disagree with the idea that the carriage horses should be banned from the city. Disagreement is, in fact, considered abuse.

In supporting the carriage trade, Neeson is not just expressing an opinion, he is conspiring in a crime. And how could these organizations possibly justify the banning of the horses to uncertain and dangerous futures and the destruction of work for more than 300 people if the horses are not being abused? No wonder the word is used so often.

The criminalizing of disagreement – to make something punishable as a crime – is not just an assault on the carriage trade, it goes to the very heart of how democratic cultures operate. In using the word “abuse” so wantonly and dishonestly, the animal rights movement is seeking to criminalize both disagreement and alternative opinion. There is no discussion, no negotiation, no compromise. The carriage drivers are less than human, they are without compassion or morality. They are guilty of abuse.

It is a shocking thing to see a mayor – who has never even owned a dog or cat –  and who calls himself a progressive endorse this movement so proudly As of today, the mayor has refused to visit the stables or meet with the stable owners. He says a meeting would be pointless, his mind is made up.

The animal rights movement believes that it is abusive for animals to work, perhaps the first time in the history of human beings and animals that the term “abuse” is applied to the ancient practice of people and animals working together. In many cultures, include Native-American tribes, working animals are considered sacred, a connection to people and the earth. The ideology of the animal rights movement is becoming clear enough – almost all domesticated animals need to be taken away from people, kept only indoors in private homes or shelters or confined on rescue preserves and farms.  Animals must be removed from most farms, circuses, carnivals and fairs, cities and suburbs, anyplace where they might be slaughtered for food or asked to do more than stand and eliminate. Work for any animal in all circumstances would be cruel and abusive.

There is no room in this ideology for the normal risks of life. Horses on farms have accidents, so do horses on rescue farms. They get sick; they fall; they stumble in holes; they eat things that make them ill.

Accidents are not in themselves evidence of abuse for animals, any more than they are for people.

An accident is an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage or loss. It bears no relation to abuse, which is premeditated cruelty, it is not accidental or unintentional. Accidents occur every day in our culture, countless times, much more often to people than animals like horses.

These accidents are almost never, in the law, considered abuse.

Dear readers, I can assure you that in the future that some of the carriage horses in New York will suffer, get sick and die. Some will panic and run into traffic. Some will stumble and fall, or die of a stroke or heart attack. There will be more of those awful images of horses lying in the street.This will happen to horses on farms, on rescue preserves, on Amish roads,  in the backyards of naive movie stars, and on city streets.

We cannot hold animals to the impossible standard of never sharing the experience and travails of life. If we do, it will simply  be impossible to know them, own them,  work with them or share our lives and the world with them. The very idea of animals on our planet will perish, that is what’s at stake.

Abuse no longer has any real meaning to most people and it trivializes understanding of real abuse, which is horrific and very different from the circumstances of the carriage horses. No one who knows anything about animals – veterinarians, city officials, the police, animal lovers by the hundreds – has seen or reported any signs of abuse among the horses.

The people who say they represent the rights of animals seem to have little or no understanding of what they are like.

Those of us who live with horses (or donkeys, as I do) understand that when horses are relaxed and at ease, they lower their heads – this believed by behaviorists to be a restful position for them) and they cock a leg. Every horse or donkey lover knows this, none of the animal rights groups seem to. For years, the animal rights groups in New York – and many residents –  have cited the lowered heads of the carriage horses as they wait in lines for riders as graphic evidence of abuse. The horses, they say, are exhausted, depressed, sad.

This, by all known evidence, is false, it reflects the epidemic anthropomorphizing of animals. New Yorkers, generally disconnected from the natural world and from animals like horses, can hardly be blamed for believing they are witnessing the mistreatment of animals by greedy people. They have no context, history or experience to know better, especially when they are being told otherwise day after day, year after year.

They are, in fact, not seeing “sad” or abused animals, they are seeing horses that are feeling safe and relaxed.  Horses are prey animals, they are alert to danger. When they feel unsafe, there is little doubt about it. They are restless, their ears go back, their eyes widen.

In the new video, “Saving The NYC Carriage Horses,” narrated by Liam Neeson, there is a scene in which we can hear the demonstrators running alongside the carriages shouting “shame on you,” to the carriage drivers and the riders in the carriages as they move towards the park, as if they were cruel and unfeeling people who should be ashamed of their lives and hard and honest work.

To me, this was the very definition of abuse, writ large and captured in piercing detail. The fact of abuse, not the argument, the intent to wound and do harm, not an accident, but an intention. It is difficult to keep animals in the world; I can speak to that. It is complex, expensive, exhaustive, often painful. It is becoming increasingly difficult and complicated, smothered in controversy and intrusive regulation.

The people who shout “shame” at innocent people are partly responsible for so many animals disappearing from society, as they mean to do to with the horses. I believe anyone who keeps animals and cares for them in our greedy and ravenous world is worthy. In a just world truly compassionate people would be running alongside the carriages with signs that read, “thank, you, thank you for saving the horses, your work is sacred to us.”

The heart is right to cry when a part of our humanity and connection to one another is also lost, also dies. In the carriage trade controversy, it is the truth, not the horses, that have suffered the greatest abuse.

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Thanks to dictionary.com and the American Legal Dictionary for help in defining terms.

 

My curating impulse this morning was simplicity. I went with a small blue bottle, the humble but beautiful black pansy, and a strong sun backlighting our window screen. I call this photo hope, I’m not sure why, it just came into my mind.