There are so many ways to think and feel about animals, and people with pets and people with animals often feel very differently about what they think, what they need. Minnie’s leg was amputated last Monday, she is healing well, we expect her stitches to be removed later in the week, perhaps by Friday. When that happens, we have decided to return Minnie to her life as a barn cat and that has, predictably, triggered some messages – some public and some private – of concern for her.
The messages are all coming from a loving place, none of them are cruel or angry, I appreciate people’s concern for Minnie, she is a loving and inspiring animal. Some of the messages are a bit smug in that many people are quite certain that what Minnie wants to is to stay inside and retire from her life as a barn cat. They presume this is what she wants, and they presume that this is what would best for her. This is quite understandable in many ways, if I was living with a pet dog or cat in New Jersey and he or she lost a leg, I could literally not imagine letting them live outside. The culture of pets, and the rampant emotionalizing of animals all goes in the other direction – we must care for them, protect them, guarantee them lives of safety, comfort and, if possible, eternal life.
This is not what I believe (Maria either, although she can speak for herself). The life of the barn cat can be hard and short, or it can be full and healthy with it’s share of risks. Most farmers have too many barn cats to spay or neuter them or care for them all, they make their own way – or not.
Our barn cats have a different life. They are fed once, often twice, a day, taken inside when the weather turns bitterly cold or harsh, given shots and de-wormed, offered table scraps ranging from salmon to pasta. In between all of this, they roam and hunt freely, hide in bushes, sit on the porch, have their favorite hay bales to nap on, visit the donkeys, climb trees and rocks and stone walls. They often bring us mice and moles and the occasional rat. I love the idea of their lives, it is, to me, the full potential of the cat. As everything else is in the animal world, some find this controversial. Barn ats kill birds, can pick up diseases, get eaten, can show up with a mangled leg.
Since Minnie came inside to heal, she has been fixated on getting out. She runs to the door, jumps as high as she can on window sills, stares all day at her barn, where she has the best hiding and resting places, way up in the rafters and old piles of hay. We have taken her outside a few times a day so she can move around a bit out of the crate, and every time we do, she makes a beeline for the barn, or a tunnel behind Maria’s studio, or the woodshed where she and Flo hang out. She tries so eagerly to escape that we can’t really let her go outside anymore, although Maria brings her into her studio where she stares longingly out at the barn. If an animal can convey it’s wishes, Minnie is focused entirely on getting out of the house and back to her life. Her three legs will curb her mobility, but only slightly. She is already moving about rapidly and comfortably, trying to climb fenceposts and through window sills.
My philosophy of animals is sort of a mix between the pet and the animal people. I do not want my animals to lead my life, or the life that makes me feel good, I want them to live their lives, and there is nothing more satisfying to me than seeing a dog like Red or a cat like Minnie or Flo or a donkey like Simon leading the life they were meant to lead, that they might lead in nature, where they reasoning and instincts can be honed and sharpened by life. This is not a no-kill world or a risk-free world. Minnie lost her leg, Mother vanished, Rose’s life was shortened by all the knocks she took in her hard work and there is many.
There are many dangers and traps out there for animals- parasites, predators, barbed wire, poison plants, rats, raccoons, fishers, gun-happy hunters (one pulled alongside our fence and shot through the pasture over the heads of the donkeys trying to hit some deer out in the woods, they could so easily have hit the donkeys or mistaken them for deer). It is tempting for me, for us, to say poor Minnie, you’ve had enough, come on in and be warm. But I believe that would be my choice, not hers.
I don’t know what animals think, I don’t know what Minnie thinks, but I see a lot more of her than the people messaging me about her, and I see an animal that desperately and instinctively wants to return to her free life of hiding, hunting, resting, exploring. And she will, hopefully this Friday, this is what I want for her and, to the best of my knowledge and experience, it is what she wants too.
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This morning, I’m going to get a bigger P.O. Box, my little one is stuffed every day. Also, letting you know I will be kicking off Second Chance Dog: A Love Story at Battenkill Books, (www.battenkillbooks.com), 7 p.m., Thursday, November 12. Frieda and Maria will be joining me there.