Fate is not like the other children, she is a little bit crazy, maybe some ADD, a creative strain of autism, a brew of gentle wolf, part fox, part hound. She has a sense of humor, a joy of living. She has no interest in pushing sheep around, but a passion for running circles around them, which she does with gusto and enthusiasm.
We accept her for who she is and love her for who she is. Like the both of us, she is an outlier, she lives apart from the normal lives of dogs and border collies. Once in a while, when she is running madly around, she turns, tongue hanging to the ground, and gives me her pirate stare. I’m read! What next! Let’s Go!
I love having a crazy dog, perhaps because I am crazy also. We connect with the craziness in each other.
If we want there to be farriers in the world, and fierce individualists like Ken Norman, we have to work to make sure that they stay with us. Lots of farriers give up this work when they grow older – it is grueling, all of their knees and backs are shot. Many quit for steadier incomes, humane working hours, less dangerous work, or suffer debilitating injuries and limp.
Ken Norman is hanging on, and his recovering well, but he needs help.
He has launched a gofundme project asking for $8,000, and he has raised more than $5,200 in two days. He needs to fix his shoeing truck transmission and also buy hay for the winter. Ken does not say no to people, he fights for farmers and horses every day of his life. He intends to do his work for a good long while. But he needs some help to get over some bumps.
He will put every penny and more he gets to good use.
A lot of life has happened to Ken and his wife Eli in the past year and a half – two knee replacements, surgeries on Eli’s broken wrist, expired trucks, broken transmissions. Eli has not been able to work for nearly a year. But there are more horses and donkeys than ever that need care and rescue.
Meanwhile there is a business to operate, a farm to run, a child to feed and 33 horses and donkeys, most of them rescues, to care for.
People like me – and maybe you – could not have the lives we have with animals if not for people like Ken. He is a big man with a big heart, and there are far too many people and animals he has helped to count. I do not wish to live in a world without farriers and people who have callings rather than jobs.
I can tell you from personal experience that Ken, the King of Grunt and Grumbling, does not like to ask for help. When he needs it, it is the real deal. Take a look at this worthy man’s very real need for help, and if you wish to and can, thanks. You can see it here.
Ken is close to having what he needs to get through this time. Thanks for considering it, and thanks for helping, if you can.
The thing I most love about working with working animals – dogs, donkeys, horses – is that they love to work. Many people fail to grasp this or have lost an understanding of this, they think work for all animals is coercive, explotive, cruel or abusive, perhaps because that’s the way they feel about work themselves.
I have a good friend who is an animal trainer, and she and her elephant adore one another, play with each other, she naps in his trunk sometimes. She washes and brushes him, sings to him, cares for him. He has been taken away from her and is pining for her, and she is devastated by the loss of him. She is certain he will pay for this mercy with his life, no one can afford to care for him.
he prevailing cultural winds are blowing all around the elephants, and the horses and the ponies, the people who do not live or work with animals have suddenly decided that all work for all elephants is abuse.
Instead of grasping what connected these two to one another, we sometimes think only of what makes us feel better about ourselves. We claim to be selfless while being selfish. We pretend to love animals while really just using them to love ourselves. We can no longer make individual judgements on animals and people, only sweeping and righteous stereotypes.
These different ways of looking at the animal world increasingly separates people who know animals as pets from people who know animals.It causes enormous and painful conflict and difficulties for animals and the people who love them and wish to live their way of life – living and working with animals.
What connects us to animals like dogs? In my case, it my own passion for work, I am as enthusiastic and determined about what I do as Red is about what he does. I connect with him on this level, he respects my work an I respect and honor his. We share this view of the world. We approach our work in the same way. You don’t want to be standing in my way when I go to write in the morning.
There are many people now in the world who believe I am being cruel to Red because he works every day, in the cold, in the heat, sometimes sore and limping. I disagree, of course, but more than that, I am sorry they will never experience the kind of connection an animal can have with a human being, and have had for thousands of years. The kind of connection I have with Red. The kind of connection so many carriage drivers have with their horses.
The kind of connection my friend had with her elephant, before he was taken from her.
If you think about a dog or other animal you love in a special way, you might also think about the reason for the connection. Some dogs have a sense of humor, some are simply joyous, some love us in unrestrained and demonstrative ways. Some like to work, some like to hunt, some like to cuddle, some like to compete.
My wife Maria has a pony named Chloe, she gave her saddle away, she has no interest in riding her, and the pony has little interest in being ridden. That is not the kind of work she is looking for. Their connection is the way in which these two strong-willed and independent minded women see the world – they make their own decisions, they love in their own way, they love one another without ever submitting to each other.
Our border collie Fate is much the same way. A pattern, I think.
Animals like these know how to touch the deepest parts of us, often more than our siblings, children or partners, and we need them and love them for it.
The special dogs in our lives tap into what it that we are about, what we need from them.I know what Red needs and make sure he has it, he knows what I need and gives me the space and companionship that has me do it. We are both passionate and resolute about our work. He just runs faster than I do.
When I am sitting at my keyboard, I believe I have the same focused look, and if it isn’t on my face, it is on my mind.
This is why dogs have thrived while so many other animals – raccoons come to mind – have not. They mirror and reflect us, the good ones become what we need them to become, and they fool us into thinking it is because we are special. That’s why we spend billions of dollars on them and not on squirrels.
We need a wiser and more mystical understanding of animals, before it is too late, while they are still among us. I feel it stirring, there is a new awakening.
