A video has been circulating on social media and I’ve seen it many times, but today, for whatever reason, I couldn’t stop watching the film over and over. A little girl was visiting an aquarium, and a dolphin came to the glass. The two of them exchanged greetings and a silent chat. I was deeply moved. They obviously had a connection, and it made me think of my connections with animals that were in my life over the years.
Some of us in the human species, and I really hope it is not many of us, think of animals as something to be over-powered, used for our own purposes beyond survival, are often an inconvenience, something to be dominated and sometimes rid our lives of. In accounting terms, farm animals are referenced to as “biological assets”, rather than living breathing animals. Some farmers, though not all, think of their animals as a mere commodity, a tool to earn a living, rather than a partner. I can’t help but scratch my head as to how we are still allowed to put hens in cages where they can’t move around, can’t nestle into straw to lay their eggs. Feedlots determine the minimum size allowed for cattle to exist before they appear on our dinner table. Pigs endure similar math equations as to the maximum number that can be penned together before they turn on each other. A dairy cow can live for twenty to twenty-five years but in Canada cows rarely live past age five. 1.4million Canadian dairy cows were producing milk in 2021 with a cull rate of 30-40% which translates to 500,000 cows being slaughtered be- cause they aren’t at peak milk production. We are so driven by a “make money quickly” mindset. I like to think we are changing, growing in our understanding of animals. It was Martin Luther King Jr who said, “Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake.”
I had my lovely, extraordinary horse for twenty-five years and his friendship was as precious as any I have known. We had a relationship and relied on one another. He knew when I needed comfort and pulled me into his chest with his head, holding me tight while I righted myself. He knew when a buck while we were galloping let me know he was feeling fresh and wanted a run. I trusted him with my children when they were learning to ride and he never let me down. At night when I can’t sleep, I climb aboard Nassau and we gallop while all worries slip away.
When I was a kid, my job in the late winter months was to bottle feed any calves born in the too cold weather, to supplement their mother’s milk. There might have been three or four calves born that wouldn’t have survived the cold without me, or so I told myself. When there were more than two, I often got mauled by calves eager for their share of milk. Feeding more than two at a time was risky. These calves became my friends, one of which was Muffet.
Muffet and I became inseparable. I was eight. He had a large perfectly shaped circle on his left cheek, and I had a dimple on my left cheek, so it was an obvious sign we were meant to be together. The tips of his ears had frozen, and the tissue broke off in the healing process. He didn’t go to pasture with his mother that summer because he couldn’t live without me, I convinced my dad, but more accurately, I couldn’t live without him. He went everywhere I went that summer and if he wasn’t waiting for me when I escaped the house, one holler brought him running. We liked to lie on the hill facing south and I would rest my head on his belly while I read aloud to him from The Lone Ranger and Nancy Drew series. He seldom interrupted. When school went back in, I had to leave Muffet at home alone, but he was waiting for me halfway down the lane most days when I got off the bus. He knew better than to go all the way, though my dad claimed Muffet was just lazy. I preferred to think it was because of his extraordinary intelligence.
The time came when things had to change as things always change on a beef farm. Muffet had to go on the truck while I stood weeping for what felt like forever. I choose not to remember the pain of the loss of my friend or what it must have been like for him to navigate a feedlot somewhere without me. All these years after, I remember instead the joy of his friendship. I learned a great many lessons from Muffet, kindness to animals being one of them and their sensitive intelligent natures. I think the little girl at the aquarium knew exactly how I felt.
wendistewart@live.ca
