Today was the birthday, of a very dear friend of mine. She is such an inspiration to me, having set up an animal rescue centre in the past and she has one of the biggest hearts I know. She had to let someone else take over as she was diagnosed with cancer and needed to heal herself.
Even so, she continued to rescue animals and bring them to her home, until they were rehabilitated. She is the first person that I turn to, for advise, whenever I see an animal in need. She has been living in this area a lot longer than me, so she knows how best to approach people and communicate with them.
I know quite a few people who love animals around here, but not to the extend that we do. So we often turn to one another to share our pain and frustration about how animals are being treated.
I often see people take animals into their homes and yet have no idea how to care for them. Sometimes they expect the animals to behave like humans, and scold them if they do not. Very few seem to understand the way in which animals communicate with one another and get very upset if the animal growls or hisses at another one.
Animals have their own way of communicating with one another, of establishing how where they stand in the pack or herd. If we do not respect that and try our best to understand that, then we are mistreating them.
I remember when I lived in Australia and accompanying a friend who was visiting his brother. He had this beautiful sheepdog living with him, but he complained about how much the dog used to bark. Sheepdogs have a lot of energy and need to be exercised and also given tasks to do, otherwise they get bored and then they can bark a lot.
Instead of looking into ways, that he could work with the dog, he brought it to the vet. The vet put the poor dog on anti depressants, which made my friends brother happy. He was actually quite proud telling me this story.
I was shocked, the poor animal was being drugged. I expressed my opinion and left, I just couldn't be there anymore. I mean how could he not see, how wrong that was?
Everytime I get together with my friend (whose birthday we celebrated today), we always end up discussing this. Just how we came to be living in a time, where some people have no respect for animals and feel like they can treat them as their property.
But that's it really, isn't it, ownership.
Ownership does crazy things to people. There was a time, when land was shared amongst tribes and communities, so that everyone could support themselves and one another. But somewhere a long the line, land got divided up and suddenly people began putting up fences and cutting themselves off from the wild, from the wilderness.
Cutting themselves off, from a very vital part of themselves. Suddenly you had animals that you "owned", "livestock" and with it, attitudes began to change. We became pitted against one another, instead of working together. Our focus more on individual success and growth.
This for me, was the beginning of our downfall. The great separation from nature, from animals, from one another and most importantly from ourselves. We literally were being told to cut ourselves off from our life line.
Not all of us, luckily. But enough ,so that we are living out of balance right now.
There are not many people I can have these conversations with and yet I feel like it is really important to talk about it, to try and understand so that we can work towards changing it. To go back to a place where we all understand, that what we do to the natural world, we are doing to ourselves.
I had a lovely day today, celebrating my friend down by the river. Swimming in the glorious water and taking in the beautiful views. As it was getting dark, most of the group started to leave, I stayed for a little bit longer and I am so glad I did, because I saw a big dog, chasing a lone goat.
Goats do not like to be by themselves and are really quite vulnerable if they are. The goat was terrified and the dog was trying to bite her. I ran after them, putting myself between the dog and goat and done the loudest growl I could. The dog ran off, but the goat was too scared to let me go near her.
I left only after I saw the dog being put on a leash. Some might think that it was foolish of me to come between them, but that was my instinct kicking in, I certainly don't regret it. I stood in my power and the dog felt it. My girls however, found it hilarious that I was growling so loud in public, but they were also pleased that I was able to help the goat.
Growling is what I do, when I wish to communicate with dogs in a certain way, I use their language so they can understand me and my intentions. But obviously my growling sounds somewhat different to theirs.
