Many of you reading this have lost a dog or cat or other animal and understand the experience, the sting of it is perhaps not different for you than it is for me or for Maria. In some ways it poses particular questions for us, and I want to share that with you. My dogs are public figures, much loved and followed beyond the confines of the farm. My decisions and thoughts about dogs and animals in my life are also public, I share much of the experience in my work, on the blog.
People have followed the lives of my animals for years, they know them nearly as well as I do, they laugh and cry along with me, and their love and loss are shared. We lost two animals that were powerful figures on the farm, in my work, in our lives – Simon, who I just published a book about, and Lenore, who has been the subject of adult and children’s books, and was a regular feature of my work and my blog. I was, in fact, in the midst of re-training her to walk on country roads when she fell to cancer and died.
And Maria’s beloved Frieda, a towering figure of a dog, her companion and protector (and also a book) is now 15 years old and is struggling in many ways, mentally and physically. We do not believe she will be living with us for much longer, she is working hard to survive this difficult winter. Maria’s emotions are close to the surface, her love and feelings have been tested this year, and will be tested again.
So what next for us and our lives with animals? We both believe it is time for more life at Bedlam Farm, we have had enough loss, we are not nearly at the end of our adventure with animals here on this farm. Loss is part of any life with animals, I accept and understand this, they do not live as long as we do, and many things can bring them down. I know this now, I accept it, it is one of the cornerstone realities of a life with real animals in the real world.
I have many more books to write, blogs to publish, things to learn about dogs and animals, Maria will need a dog in her life when the time comes. Frieda is not only her protector and companion in life, but her muse and soul mate in work, these two have been on the creative hero journey together. Before she died, Lenore accompanied Maria on her almost daily walk in the woods. Frieda can no longer walk with her. She needs that, she will have it again.
We are thinking about things. We have more loss to get through.
We have not reached any decisions. We are exploring the idea of a baby goat to help us clean up the outer pastures and fences and to photograph and learn about and write about. Maria is exploring her deepening connection with horses, there is thought to getting a pony, which Maria could ride on the farm and in the woods beyond it. We own 17 acres of woods and there are trails behind us.
I am getting restless. A lot of death, a lot of loss, the wheel turns and it is my wish for the farm to experience more life, learning, experience, and yes, love. The love of animals is at the core of the Bedlam Farm experience and the Spring will be a good time to get on with it. There is room at the inn, I have much to learn and am eager to get on with it.
In Red, I have the dog I have always wanted, a greater dog than I imagined, the dog for me. My friend Dr. Karen Thompson was right, God wanted me to have this dog. But I can also see another dog in the house and in our lives. This is my passion, my work, the point.
As many of you know, I have my own particular ideas and philosophy about grieving, I have done my grieving for Lenore and Simon, I am grateful for every moment I had with them, I am ready to move on and am excited at the prospect of new animals to love, learn from, train and communicate with. This is who I am. This is who we are. This is what we do. We will make these decisions together.
In many ways, grief is a process, in some ways it is a choice. Grief will have it’s way with all of us, but Insofar as it is a choice, I choose to give thanks and accept one of the miracles of animals. I choose to look forward, not back.
The thing about animals is this: you can do it again. There is another miracle in my life, Maria, and she has the passion and the energy to walk this path with me. It is something we both are very much called to.
So I am thinking, listening, keeping my ears and ears and heart open, all the more as Spring gets closer. I will, as always, share the process with you, and thanks for coming along for the ride.
The artists and photographers call it “limpid” light, it is clear and transparent, as is water, crystal, or air. It is one of the gifts of bitter cold, in the morning, when the sun comes up it pellucid, completely calm and quite clear. There is no air light, it rarely comes in warm and humid weather, but it loves cold and dry air.
It is very cold here today, we could not finish the barn chores and Red, the hardiest of animals, hops up and down the minute he gets outside, so I am keeping him in until it warms up. As a photographer, I am grateful for the limpid light, it touches the earth in a very particular way and makes shadows that are light and graceful.
I wrote yesterday about a claim by NYClass, an animal rights group in New York City fighting to shut down the carriage trade. The group claims, on it’s website and in numerous public statements, that the carriage horses experience “unthinkable suffering” at the hands of their handlers and by pulling carriages through Central Park.
I was inspired to offer the Doctrine Of Unthinkable Suffering, a statement or purpose and focus that would directly confront the idea that the horses are unhappy and cruelly abused and re-introduce the notion of facts and information to a controversy shaped by rhetoric and hyperbole. And lots of pure manure.
Unthinkable suffering, after all, means suffering so awful it cannot even be imagined. It calls out for more reason and a better and wiser understanding of animals than this.
The carriage horses are not suffering all that much, it would seem. A small army of vets, behaviorists, inspectors, police officers, trainers and horse lovers troop through the stables and also Central Park almost every day to check them out. They are, by all accounts healthy, loved and well cared for. They get five weeks of vacation a year and do not work in extreme heat or cold, there are severe – some might say unnecessary – limits on the hours they work, they would be the envy of many horses in the wild, assuming, of course, that there was still a wild for them to be in.
If you want the truth, here is some: it is the people in the carriage trade who have endured unthinkable suffering, and for some years now. Perhaps it is time for their suffering to stop.
So here, inspired by the clunky but extreme rhetoric of the animal rights movement, is my Doctrine Of Unthinkable Suffering. In our polarized and angry world, there is little reason and facts cry out to live, but when I get discouraged, I think of Thomas Paine and his “Common Sense,” he changed the thinking of a nation with words. I will never give up on words.
The Doctrine Of Unthinkable Suffering:
First, it would require that the mayor, the members of the City Council and the people who run NYClass be required to leave the hothouse boundaries of New York City and visit the many thousands of horses who are actually experiencing “unthinkable suffering.” These would be the horses who are starving to death or freezing in the bitter cold or sweltering in heat without shelter, who live on farms where there is no money for good hay or medical care, whose hooves have been unshorn or treated for years, who are lame or sore, whose feet are infected, whose bodies are covered in scars and sores and bites, who are emaciated, or beaten savagely and abused, their ribs sticking out of their sites, drinking filthy or infected water, if any, languishing on impoverished preserves with nothing to do, with no exercise, stimulation or human connection.
The doctrine would require that any group or legislator who uses the term “unthinkable suffering” would be required to see animals who are actually suffering unthinkably, as opposed to those given fresh hay, water, shelter, regulation and health care every day. You can see horses and dogs and other animals suffering horribly all over America, all you have to do is care enough to go look. The Doctrine of Unthinkable Suffering imagines a world in which animal rights groups actually helped the ones who do suffer, rather than inflict suffering on animals like the carriage horses who don’t.
Second: If the carriage horses are, in fact, banned and moved to the rescue farms the animal rights groups insist are willing to take them (nobody will say who or where), the people pushing for the ban should be required to go and choose the 300 horses who will be denied space or sent to slaughter to make room for them. Equine associations say it would cost about $24 million to feed these big draft horses for the rest of their lives. Animal lovers would, of course, wish to know where the money for their care is going to come from.
Third: Before any City Council member votes, he or she ought to accompany some of the 150,000 horses who are sent to slaughter every year because there is no room for them on rescue farms or private residences. These horses are put into freight cars or trucks, often in great heat or bitter cold, and driven long distances to Mexico or Canada, where they are herded into crowded stalls and have nails driven into their heads to kill them. The horses are said to suffer terribly on the journey, and at the end.
Are these horses suffering more than the carriage horses? Are they suffering “unthinkably?” Are the carriage horses truly suffering at all?
The mayor says it is immoral for the carriage horses to pull their light carriages in Central Park. How, I wonder, would he describe the holocaust afflicting horses all over America? How ironic, our biggest and most densely populated big city, is the safest place for them. Animal rights groups in New York who are spending millions of dollars to take the carriage horses out of their safe stables have not spent a dollar rescuing a single one of the horses who are suffering daily in the most unthinkable of ways. Perhaps it’s time for a Horseshit Tax: if the claims of any of the parties involved are proven to be false or exaggerated, the perpetrators would pay a tax that would go for the care of animals that are truly being abused.
That would save a lot of animals.
This suffering – there are suffering animals everywhere – is quite thinkable and visible every day to anyone who wishes to see it.
Fourth: Any animal rights group that uses photographs and stories of allegedly abused horses to solicit money from animal lovers online ought to be required to post a list of every animal they have actually rescued or saved from abuse, along with a detailed account of where the money they received has gone. There is much information about allegedly tortured and abused horses on the websites of groups like NYClass, but no discussion of any kind about where the money goes. In fact, there is no evidence that this group, which has spent millions of dollars on political campaigns and the carriage horse ban, has ever saved or rescued a single animal from any kind of suffering or abuse.
Instead, they inflict enormous abuse and suffering upon people and in the name of loving animals.
Fifth: People who sign petitions and post messages on social media demanding that the horses be sent to paddocks or rescue farms or verdant pastures in “the wild” should be required to visit the “wild” or several equine rescue farms. There are these notions of vast, green and verdant pastures outdoors where the horses can romp and play without boundary or restriction. These are fantasies. The people who insist the horses live in the wild ought to be required to witness the lives of real horses who have no shelter, are exposed to predators who can easily run them down, to extreme heat and cold, snow and rain, who must struggle every day to find enough food to feed a 1,500 pound animal, who are injured or killed in fights for domination, who are crippled or lame because they don’t have their hooves trimmed or maintained, who fall ill to poisonous plants, excessive sugar in some grasses, viral and other diseases, and who die from lack of medical care, starvation, exposure, accidents and seizures.
On crowded and underfunded rescue farms, they will see horses confined in large numbers to small paddocks and pastures (very few horse rescue facilities can afford large acreage or expansive pastures). The horses have no work to so, stand idly all day dropping manure and losing muscle tone, their joints stiffening, their minds and spirits dulled from boredom and isolation.
Then, after they have seen how many horses really live, they can go back online if they wish and post righteous messages about what it is true horses need, and vote to ban the carriage horses, who have food, shelter, exercise and medical care.
Six: City Council members ought to be required to discuss ways of making the lives of the horses safer and better, as well as talking about whether to ban them or not. There are plenty of interesting choices and decisions in between. The mayor has embraced the most extreme positions of the most extreme groups and people. That leaves a lot of room for actual reason and good.
– The city could mark off horse lanes during rush hour to make sure the horses have little interaction with cars and trucks and buses. The city could negotiate with West Side Developers to build new and spacious stables for the horses in exchange for development rights and permits.
– The city could mark off some land in Central Park or the parks on the West Side so that the horses could have more time to play and graze together in the beautiful park, which was built for them.
– The city could make the park safer for horses and people by curbing the hundreds of pedicabs, bicyclists and taxis that swarm through every day. In the past two months, two pedestrians were killed by bicyclists in the park, no person has ever been killed by a carriage horse in New York.
Seven: The mayor and the animal rights groups admit that few of them, if any, have owned or ridden horses or know anything about them. There are scores of veterinarians, veterinary schools, behaviorists, writers, trainers and horse owners who know a lot about horses, and have been completely excluded from the debate or discussion. There is not one I know of who believes the horses are suffering unthinkably, or even thinkably. The Doctrine of Unthinkable Suffering would require that they be heard, that they share their findings and recommendations, rather than be ignored in favor of ideologues and know-nothings.
Eight: The mayor has excluded from the carriage horse debate anyone who might disagree with him. Children, tourists, lovers, newylweds, many residents of the city love the horses and ride them, many come to New York because of the horses. So many people love and enjoy them. These people have been disenfranchised in this discussion, they have a right to be heard, they have supported the horses and contributed millions of dollars to the city’s economy for years. There is hardly a one that would harm a horse or would support banning the carriage trade from New York.
Nine: The Doctrine of Unimaginable Suffering requires that people who might be banned or put out of work, who may lose their freedom, property and way of life, must be heard. The mayor and the city government represents them too. They have a right to talk with the mayor and officials in the city government, they have right to try and negotiate with city officials and with the people seeking to destroy their traditions and sustenance.
They have been dehumanized, they deserve to be treated like human beings.
So there it is, a new doctrine meant to deal with notions of suffering.
In America, politics is the art of compromise, reason and negotiation. It is the art of the middle, the place we turn when there is broad disagreement and anger. That has always been the American way, and it is the middle that is completely missing from the ugly and endless carriage horse controversy.
The Doctrine of Unthinkable Suffering would require people who presume to speak for the horses actually know something about them. It would demand that the real abuse and suffering of animals be considered and understood. People are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts. The Doctrine of Unimaginable Suffering requires that facts be gathered and considered, not just hateful and distorted rhetoric.This is what this dialogue is like, this is what democracy is like, this is what truth and justice is like. This is what is right.
Today was perhaps the first day that the cold drove many of the residents of Bedlam Farm out of their routines and under cover. It was too cold for us to shovel the manure out of the barn this morning, too cold for Red to move down the paths and through the snow, too, too cold for the sheep to stand out on the snow and ice under the feeder, only the donkeys seemed able to stand out in it and eat as usual.
It was – 20 on the barn thermometer this morning, it just seemed a lot colder than it sometimes does, I don’t know why. Our frost-free water line is holding up well, that has been a boon, the new firewood is burning well, John Halloran is coming this morning to clean out the wood stoves and make sure they are burning cleanly. They have been on day and night for weeks and we want to make sure there’s no creosote build-up. John lost his English bulldog recently and is nearly inconsolable, it is touching to see a big and tough man talk about his lost dog. I am urging him to get another, I gave him a copy of “Going Home.”
Because the stoves are being cleaned, we let them go cold last night and the house feels it, it is chilly to the bone in here, even with the furnace going. The sun is out, perhaps things will warm up.
Liam and Red had their morning head butt today in -20 degrees, Red kept his cool and walked Liam backwards into the barn so we could move the hay down the path. Red seems in command and calm.
