“Stupid animal tricks” that amuse people are out of fashion these days, derided as exploitive, undignified and even abusive. Many elephants will lose their jobs and die in the next few years because of the long war against animal tricks in circuses and elsewhere, San Francisco has recently the use of any animal in the city for the purpose of entertaining human beings.
I’m not sure how it came to this denigration of animal tricks, I don’t do a lot of them myself, but I do know that behaviorists and animal lovers are pained and puzzled to see the use of animals to uplift and entertain people – something they have been doing successfully throughout human history – become almost criminalized.
Animal tricks can be use to bond animals with people, stimulate their imagination, improve their intelligence and body co-ordination, communicate with humans, and yes, for sure, entertain people. That is not a crime to me, nor is it abusive, if done humanely and thoughtfully.
My first fascination with animals came from seeing those elephants at the circus, it does make me sad to think that in a few years no child in America will ever get to see it again. I thought the tricks i saw were wonderful, and I have seen marveled at the things animals and people can learn to do together. Our joyless and increasingly humorless culture has taken a strange turn. Nobody wants to say where the elephants will go once they are kicked out of the circus.
A friend sent Maria some tricks to do with Chloe so that the two of them would learn to talk to each other and bond. It is sure working. This one is called “up-down,” Maria holds a carrot in her hand and raises her hand in the air so the animals can go “up” and lowers it to the ground on the word “down.”
Chloe and the donkeys love this game, they got it in seconds and Maria credits the fun they are having with helping them to communicate and bring them closer together. She has learned a lot about Chloe and the pony seems to be paying more and more attention to Maria all of the time.
It is wise, I think, to be careful about jumping to conclusions about animals. Anything that brings us closer together with them and gives them joy and purpose is, to me, a good thing, done well. It is illegal to abuse an animal anywhere in America. The legal definition of abuse is the crime of neglecting or harming an animal to the point of grievous injury or death. I don’t believe tricks fit the bill.
Hungry lawyers, anxious Boomer parents and overeager bureaucrats have succeeded in banning dogs from many offices, stores and public spaces in America. But in Vermont, dogs are at least equal to people in the law, if not superior. There are many sane things about Vermont. We stopped at Brown’s Apple Stand in Castleton this afternoon to get some apples and Libby, the store dog, jumped up on the counter to say hello, give me a lick and hope for a treat.
She came to the right people. Maria bought a piece of cheese to give her as a reward for being nice. Sometimes I look at Maria and wonder how a person like that went through so much and came out so nice (unless I tick her off and leave grease on the dishes.) It was good to see Libby. We need animals in our lives.
We went to Vermont today to drop off Maria’s wool at the Vermont Knitting Mill, it will be spun and cleaned into yarn and roving. The wool seems to change as the sheep grow up and older, it is softer and has more range of color. Coming home, I decide to try another one of my thin crust pizzas, I am proud of them, they have evolved tremendously since I started making them a few years ago.
Inspired by my friend Scott Carrino, who handed me a delicious sample of a pizza with a thin pear slice cooked on it the other day at the Round House Cafe, I decided to go for a (white) pear and goat cheese pizza. We stopped at a roadside stand in Vermont to get a fresh pear. At no point in my life would I have imagined sharing recipes with friends, readers and strangers on the Internet, but like the wise man said, you have to go with what you are, not what you wish to be.
So here goes.
It was a success, I believe. Maria and I both loved it. I rank it up there with my best pizzas, though my chopped clam/tomato pizza is still pretty high on the list. Some changes:
A couple of months ago, I got a pizza stone to bake the pizza on. And I bought some garlic paste.
I put the stone in the oven at 490 and left it in for 45 minutes to an hour.
I took out the room temperature wheat flour from the market (I don’t make my own dough like Scott does.)
I trimmed the flour so the crust will be thin and fit on the stone.
I flipped and pulled the dough until it was round and thin. (There is an art to this, it takes patience.)
I rubbed garlic paste (from a tube) onto the crust.
I spread cornbread on the stone so the crust wouldn’t stick to it.
I took the stone out of the oven and put the crust on it.
I left the crust on the stone in the oven for five to seven minutes so it would harden and be crisp ( don’t like heavy or soggy crust on my pizza).
I brushed virgin olive oil around the rim of the crust.
I sprinkled ground romano cheese lightly across the pizza crust. (I want the pizza to be and feel light.)
I sprinkled goat cheese crumbles over the romano cheese. I thought it would blend well with the pear flavor.
I placed six or seven slices of mozzarella cheese around the outer rim of the crust, one in the center.
I placed a thin slice of pear on each slice of the mozzarella cheese.
More olive oil brushed around the crust.
I put the stone back into the oven with the pizza on it.
I baked it for 9 to 10 minutes, still at 490 degrees. You can go a few minutes longer, depending on how dark you wish the crust to be.
It was very happy with it. The cheese flavors mixed perfectly with the pear, which was warm and fresh and sweet. The crust was thin and crisp, as I like it. The effect of this pizza was of a light, refreshing gourmet (and organic) meal, it was not heavy or thick with too much cheese. We each had two slices for dinner and saved the rest for lunch tomorrow.
So here it is, recipe-sharing another new dimension to the never ending miracle that is my life. For those who try it, enjoy it. I might make some next Saturday when Pamela Rickenbach comes for her blogging workshop.
I believe animals are our teachers and friends. They have changed my life, taught me how to love people, taught me different ways to be and think. They challenge us to understand and respect and love them, and thus teach us to do the same for human beings, if we can listen.
Yesterday, Emily Browning, a Midwestern blogger – she writes a great blog called “One Woman’s Attempt At Living A More Sustainable Life On 1/10 Of An Acre In The City – and is a member of the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, posted a piece on her blog about the now epidemic use of the terms “rescue” and “abuse” when it comes to dogs. Browning said she doesn’t call her foster or adopted dogs “rescues.”
The term “rescue,” she wrote, “in my mind, deems a dog “less than.” Do adoptive parents walk around introducing their children as: “This is my biological son, Michael, and my adopted son, “Joseph?” No!”
To think of a dog as a “rescue” dog, wrote Emily, “automatically labels it and puts you in the frame of mind to feel sorrow, or to excuse it’s behavior, and that label holds the dog back from moving forward in life. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard an owner say: “Oh, he bites because he was a rescue dog.” Or “We don’t make her do that because she was abused in her last home.” I have some advise for you: Get over it! The dog has. And if the dog hasn’t it’s because of the emotional baggage you have now place on it buy trying to save it from it’s past life.”
The post outraged at least one person on the Creative Group, who said she was sick of people who “demonize rescue,” which she said she does every day of her life, and she resigned from the group in a cloud of outraged, nasty comments.
This often happens when the emotionalizing of animals is talked about in public. Discussions are usually shut down by angry or defensive people who are quick to decry human cruelty but slower to look at their own emotional baggage. I happen to agree with Emily, it is no better to emotionalize or patronize dogs than it is to emotionalize children. Dogs do not care what they are called,they do not label themselves. The only reason to identify an animal as “rescued” or “abused,” in my mind, is to make the human owner feel good about him or herself.
Words matter. What you think about a dog is what the dog senses and sees and smells. Your view of her will become hers. A rescued dog is, as Emily suggests, no better or worse than any other. And neither are we better or worse for rescuing them. Rescuing animals is not, as is often suggested, a pathway to heaven or a reliable indicator or nobility.
When you “rescue” something, that is quite different than adopting it, purchasing it, or finding it on the street. It implies superiority, obligation and condescension. When you “rescue” an animal that is “abused,” you are casting the relationship in a particularly narrow context.
The use of these terms is very new in the animal world, it co-incides with the recent – about a generation ago – fragmentation of human society: the rise in divorces, the mobility of American life and the family structure, the decline of leadership and political discourse, the fading of religion as a source of inspiration, the explosion in disconnecting technologies, the ruination of meaningful and secure work by greedy corporations run amok. We have been using animals for a long time to make us feel loved and connected in a world where we increasingly feel neither.
This is not as good for animals as you might think. About 400,000 dogs are now on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication, millions languish in shockingly cruel “no-kill” shelters where they spend years, even their whole lives, in the most unnatural and confined – and cruel – conditions so people can feel virtuous about themselves. I would rather see Red put down than live a life like that. The best-selling dog story on earth is “The Rainbow Bridge,” a celebration of the idea that the best possible fate for dogs is to spend all eternity waiting for their humans and playing with them in heaven.
I hope my dogs do much better than that.
It is not healthy to see our animals through this intensifying prism of “abuse” and “rescue.” Like Emily, I never use those terms on my dogs or other animals, many of whom have been saved from dire circumstances, adopted or fostered to save their lives.
When you see an animal mostly in terms of pity and lament, you are diminishing them, hobbling them and your expectations for them. There is nothing worse in training an animal than to see it as pathetic or abused. They do sense what we are thinking. If we expect little of them, that is what we will receive.
Pitying an animals is the worst thing you can do for them once they enter normal life.These terms are often excuses for people who cannot see their dogs and cats in any other way than through this narrowing lens of pity. We are not doing dogs a favor if we rescue them for us, only if we truly do it for them. And if that the latter is the case, they can be called and introduced by their names and treated like any other dog.
It is sometimes difficult to learn from something you pity.
Like Emily, I too often see this labeling used an excuse for bad behavior or inept training. She was thoughtful to write about, I imagine she knows she will draw some fire. Blessed are the strong and brave bloggers of the world.
Dogs and other animals – cats, horses, ponies, sheep, goats – are our partners on the earth, nor our piteous dependents. We are not their saviors or masters, we are their partners in the joys and travails of life. We have the right to demand respect from them, sometimes obedience, but in exchange, we must return the favor.
No psychologist would ever urge a parent to introduce a rescued or abused child in those terms, it is simple to see how unhealthy would be. Dogs are different from children, but the principle is the same. Whatever their history, their is a time to move on. They do. We need a wiser and more mystical understanding of animals than this. Nice job, Emily.
In many ways, artists and writers are never off the clock, Maria and I understand one another. Our blogs are living, organic things. I see my blog as my living memoir, a new kind of daily book, a new kind of journal. Maria’s blog is different, more focused on her life and art. But the creative spark is never far from her consciousness and when we go out to do the morning chores, each one of us pulls out a camera or an Iphone and starts capturing the images of the day.
If we were different people, or if we didn’t both do it, it might drive one or the other of us mad, but as it happens, we both understand and respect the impulse. Yesterday, when the light was so beautiful, Deb came over to Maria and she pulled out her Iphone and had a quiet and intimate photo shoot with one of the sheep. I was off to the right taking pictures of Red and Fate herding the sheep.
But I have learned to be quick with my camera out there, and I captured an image I like.
Good blogs are hungry creatures, they need to be fed regularly. Don’t get one if you don’t want to take care of it. We live in just the right place to do it. There is always – always an image worth sharing out there in the morning. I have never left the pasture without one.
