Day: August 13, 2015

Every time I mention that I am getting a new dog, I am fairly inundated with messages – some in dramatic and pleading tones – to get a rescue dog. They often are the same: “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE,” get a dog from a shelter.

As a public person, I am expected to be an example, a role I did not audition for and gives me hives. Many days, I get snarky messages chastising me for getting Fate from a breeder when so many dogs need homes.

In my lifetime with dogs, I have gotten perhaps two-thirds from good breeders, one third from shelters and/or rescue groups. I have had a long run of great dogs, the only advice I give people who are thinking of getting a dog is to get the dog that is best for them, no matter where it comes from. A great dog can come from anywhere.

Sadly, breeders, even good ones, are under fire now from the one-dimensional ideologues who seem to have taken over our political system and, it seems, discussion of animals like dogs. We are mired in this self-serving prism of rescue and abuse, I am told daily there is only one way to get a dog: a way that makes us feel good about ourselves.

This is a lie, of course, and a silly and transparently dumb one. There are many ways to get a dog, including rescuing one. With millions of dogs languishing and suffering in ever-expanding no-kill shelters (humans call that health care for the elderly), rescuing a dog is a great thing to do. I do it often, and we rescue donkeys and sheep and barn cats and chickens too.

But when I see a dog like Fate or Red or Lenore or Rose, I am also reminded of the wondrous work good breeders do. Good breeders are not puppy mill merchants, all breeders are not alike. Good breeders preserve the best qualities in dogs – health, temperament, intelligence. They do not deserve to be persecuted, they ought to be celebrated.

All dogs are not born with those qualities, they often come from good breeders.  A puppy mill is out to make money, a good breeder is out to make a great dog. A dog like Fate came from an experienced and thoughtful breeder like Dr. Karen Thompson. So did Red. It is very hard to get a dog like the ones she breeds.

Karen has traveled the world seeking her breeding dogs, she has spent a lot of money acquiring breeding dogs that are smart, trustworthy, and healthy. That have astonishing intelligence and physical skills, they are affectionate and grounded and trainable, they can join the glorious history of dogs who have done wonderful work for and with humans for thousands of years.

Last night, we took Fate to a dinner party, her first, she was confronted with big and loud and pushy dogs, and a room full of people and food. She was on her own. She handled the dogs, snarled at the ones trying to mount her, played with the others, greeted the people, went to sleep under the table by our feet. Another dog that can go anywhere, and is grounded enough to handle herself.

A friend in the animal rights movement, a long-time PETA volunteer told me in all honesty, she said, that it is just as abusive for a border collie to herd sheep as it is for a draft horse to pull a carriage in Central park.  One day, she said, she hopes the practice is illegal. She said all competitive trials and professional breeders should be banned, dogs must only breed naturally and must never be used to entertain humans. She asked for my response. I said her work on behalf of animals seemed to be making her dumb and small. I haven’t heard back from her on this issue, but she isn’t high on my work these days.

I do not tell other people what to do. I never tell other people how to get a dog, I never let anyone tell me. I am grateful for my own path, it has enriched my life, my work, opened my heart, made me a better human being. Watching Fate pop out of the cornstalks today, and then to go work herding the sheep, and then greet joggers and hikers and visitors to the farm with great affection, I thought of the trust we were building together.

I’ve established this bond with Red, he is the greatest dog I have ever had, Fate is moving up the list. It’s not my place to tell anyone else how to get a dog, it is my place to share my gratitude for people like Karen Thompson for devoting their lives to saving and developing the very best traits in dogs, and to use her own great instincts to find the right people for them. That is what great breeders do.

That is what people do who care about the dogs as well as they care about themselves. If it is exploitive for dogs to entertain us, what is it when dogs are acquired to make us feel righteous and good?

My PETA friend told me recently that she wanted to come and see Red and Fate work, she loves to see border collies work sheep, she saw it in Ireland. Great, I said, of course, I love to show them off. First, I said, can you tell me where you think these border collies you love to watch come from, and how you think they have the smarts and instincts to herd sheep.

I haven’t heard back on that one either.

For the past 15 years or so, I have awakened to the sight of some donkeys at the pasture gate. It is a beautiful, even stirring thing to see first thing in the morning, it sets the tone for my day. The donkeys gather at the gate as soon as they hear us stirring in the house, a donkey can hear my feet hit the floor when I get out of bed.

Domesticated animals need people in their lives, something the animal rights movement seems to either not know or have forgotten. People thing they are helping animals by banishing them to rescue farms or preserves, but for the domesticated working animals, this is especially cruel, it is not rescue at all but more like a life prison sentence.

The first thing I learned about donkeys, dogs, ponies, even barn cats and sheep, is how much their lives revolve around people. The minute Maria and I are in the pasture, or by the gate, all of our animals appear. They want a treat, for sure, but mostly, they want some attention. They are drawn to us, we are the source of life and connection, the grounding elements in their lives.

It is no favor to have strangers pull them away from us and leave them with no one to see and nothing to do. That is not rescue, it is just another form of abuse, the road to hell….

Now, I wake up to the sight of a pony, whinnying to me as soon as I appear. In a minute or two, the donkeys are out, they hear Maria and I coming. We give each one a carrot, then talk to them, sit with them, listen to them. A remarkable and beautiful part of the day.

My writing about Joshua Rockwood and the carriage horses, and my own life with animals,  has caused me to focus on the state and nature of working animals, I have lived with working animals for years now, they are part of the joy of my life. I see how much we love and need one another, from the donkeys to the border collies.

There is some urgency in the lives of animals now, we can  see the extinction of mammals and birds, the forced removal of horses, ponies, Asian elephants, goats from our lives. Animal rights is no longer just a political issue, it has become an environmental issue as well.

Animals are part of our eco-system, they are also part of the human experience, we so easily forget how much we need them, how much they have done for us. People drunk on the idea of animal love hardly blink at the escalating removal of animals from the world.

We need to see animals in much the same way we see water and trees and grass and food. Our ecosystem requires all of them, those that are visible, those that are not – fungi, algae, worms, insects, reptiles, and an innumerable variety of microorganisms.  When the animal rights movement was founded in the 1970’s, their belief was that animals – domesticated as well as wild – should all live in nature, in the world.

Since then, the wild has vanished, gobbled up by human greed and arrogance. Scientists warn that human beings must intervene. Last week, a woman messaged me celebrating the idea that the Asian elephants – soon to be removed from their work in circuses because it has also been branded cruel and exploitive,  mostly by people who have never seen them  – will soon be returned to the wild. I messaged her back and asked her if it was possible that she did not know there was no longer any wild for them to be returned to, we take no responsibility for what we have to them, either in their natural  habitat or in the ones we  have created for them.

She said she never thought about where they might go, she just wanted them freed of their stupid tricks.

She was shocked, she said,  to consider that soon, most of these animals will be dead, and soon will vanish from the world of humans, from the world itself. She had nothing to say about it. Human beings are not intervening in the destruction of our natural world to save it, our intervention is often in the realm of business interests, consumerism and banking, it is making our earth less beautiful and sustainable, even as our technology and consumer goods explode in volume and growth.

We seem to think we can substitute irreplaceable resources with things we make, live in and sell. Day by day, we are learning we cannot. This has been especially cruel on the voiceless animals, who can have no understanding or culpability in what is happening to them.

The removal of animals in our world, much of it – like the carriage horses – completely unnecessary and ill-considered – is the great mistake that can never be changed. Once working animals leave the company of human beings, they leave the world forever. History is rich in examples.

The animal rights movement has joined forces with industry to push the animals we can see and live with out of sight and reach, a part of the vanishing natural world. Every horse, pony, elephant or  chicken that leaves the every day world is an irreplaceable treasure.In the face of irrefutable climate change, domesticated animals are safer with people than anywhere, at least they will get food, water and shelter. So many are dying in their dwindling habitats, what is left of the mythical wild.

Every farmer harassed from his farm, persecuted into ruin is a stab in the heart of Mother Earth. Biologists who argue that animals like the carriage horses are perfectly suited to life and work with humans are ignored, politicians and ideologues team  up to ignore the impact of their loss.

Animals are a precious resource we cannot afford to lose. If they were diamonds, no one would think of removing them. They are, of course, much more valuable.  It sometimes seem overwhelming to me, but I think of this way: one animal at a time, one farmer at a time, one human being at a time. That way, it can be done.

I spent some time with Joshua Rockwood yesterday, and I want to be honest and say I am worried about him.

Joshua is the kind of person who will never admit to being worried about himself, but I could see the weariness and concern in his face, his eyes, hear it in his voice. When he left me, he went to the butchers and picked up some meat. Then two of the planned buyers backed out without warning. One said the reason was the controversy surrounding his farm.

He has to make more room for frozen and now unsold meat. It never happened before his arrest on charges of animal cruelty.  He was picking up new customers every day. But it has happened since.

A government that should be helping his farm grow and prosper is trying to destroy it.

So let’s think about Joshua.

It is an awful thing for you and your family to wonder if you will have to leave your business and your children and go to jail because your farm water tanks froze in -27 degrees, and because you are young and inexperienced, because you store your food and hay a mile from your farm.

It is an awful thing when the government that is supposed to protect your property and freedom decides to try and take both away.

It is an awful then when your reputation is savaged in the public media for weeks and months before you ever have a chance to defend yourself, and knowing that most journalists and most people will never know or care that you did nothing wrong, even if you are found innocent.

It is an awful thing to be a life-long lover of animals, a farmer whose livelihood depends on healthy animals, and to be accused of being cruel and abusive to your animals, when not a single one has died or suffered any kind of serious injury.

It is an awful thing to see the police and town government, upon whom you depend for safety and protection, co-opted by wealthy ideologues and drawn into a deepening conflict that has nothing to do with justice or the well being of animals.

It is an awful thing to see that government waste hundreds of thousands of dollars and precious resources on a prosecution that should never have occurred, and occurs only in the name of being politically correct and joining a mob hysteria. It is a dangerous thing when people who are utterly ignorant of farming or animals presume to regulate both.

It is an awful thing to have your life upended by ideological extremists speaking for the love and rights of animals while serving neither.

It is an awful thing to have your horses taken from you by people who demand tens of thousands of dollars to return them, even if you are found innocent of any wrongdoing.

It is an awful thing to see your hard work and growing business stymied, bled and threatened by legal fees, judicial delays and technicalities, the distractions of a legal proceeding, shallow and cruel publicity, and an Orwellian system that places the rights and well-being of animals far above the rights and well-being of human beings.

It is an awful thing to live in fear and uncertainty. To hear your children ask why their are now living in a prison rather than a home. To tell your spouse and family every day that it will be all right, that nobody can take your children away, that no one can take your home away, that the secret informers driving by your home and farm day and night with their cellphone and video cameras cannot harm you, cannot find you making a mistaken, or coming upon a sick animal, or seeing a frozen water bucket in the middle of winter.

And then wonder if all of those assurances are true.

It is an awful thing when your mind, plans, and ambition are all sacrificed to hundreds of hours of meetings, research, strategies and possibilities. When your customers say they will no longer buy your meat because they saw you on the news that you were arrested.

I’ll tell you something. It is nearly impossible for Joshua Rockwood, a man who is suffering from all of these things,  to ask for help. He is stubborn and convinced he has already asked for enough help. I am more stubborn and am working to persuade him that he should ask for as much help as it takes for him to triumph, get his life back, and stand in the name of the growing number of victims of this kind of cruel persecution – I hear from them every day.

I am a long-time supporter of the rights of animals, I imagine if I must be labeled, it would be as a person whose politics are progressive. I can say with conviction that this case is an outrage, a brutal attack on a good citizen, his family, and his livelihood. It is also a tragic distortion of the idea of animal rights. While nine billion animals suffer and die on corporate industrial animal farms throughout the country, including Joshua’s home state of New York, the powerful apparatus of the animal rights movement, a town police department, and a county prosecutor’s office bring the full weight of their power to bear on a young man working hard day and night to raise healthy animals who produce healthy food, grown locally.

And who did not lose a single one of his hundreds of animals to one of the worst winters in the history of the Northeast.

Joshua can tell you where the meat you buy from him is coming from.

All of his animals are free-range and pasture fed. Every one of them leads a better and healthier life than any one of the animals whose meat you buy at your local supermarket, or whose awful lives exist only inside animal farm factories, or who languish in the backyards and basements of people without the resources to care for them. There are no teams of police and secret informers pursuing them.

In our hysteria over animal abuse, and our disenchantment with human beings, we have lost  perspective. Joshua Rockwood has been abused in a far crueler and more destructive way than any of his animals were.

He and I are going at it about this question of help, and I believe there are ways to help him that he can accept. One is to e-mail him at [email protected] and let him know he is not alone, he has many friends, admirers and supporters. Another is  to watch for the gofundme project he is putting together – reluctantly – this week on his website. I will also post about it here, as will many other people.

I believe that will be ready by the end of this week or early next week.

Joshua needs to win this struggle, for him, his family, for us, for our lives with animals, for our lives as free citizens. He needs to join the New York Carriage Trade in it’s successful struggle to keep the mayor of New York City from destroying their historic business and sending 200 draft  horses out into peril. This is a new social awakening, a new movement.

Joshua needs and wants to stand up for what he thinks is right, and I will stand up for what I think is right. Government has no business destroying a citizens’ life in this way.

What has happened to Joshua is not about the rights of animals, or their welfare. It is a much older story. It is about arrogance, ignorance and the abuse of power. I believe he can win and will win. If it comes down to it, I cannot imagine any jury would convict him on the lazy and politicized evidence gathered against him.

I can’t imagine it even getting that far, even though it never should have gotten this far.