Athena Adds Insult to Injury

As if there hasn’t been enough devastation and heartache in the east, a winter storm is moving in to areas already hit by Sandy. That old saying “You’re given only as much as you can handle” is bunk.

I know there are probably more people in need right now than there is help for them. Even so, I’m going to make a plug for the voiceless at risk: the animals.

A number of animal welfare organizations have been on the ground rescuing pets and wild animals from the debris. As residents continue getting evacuated, many face the wrenching inevitability of parting with their animal companions—dogs, cats, rabbits, lizards, horses. Some of the rescue organizations are taking in these cherished pets—offering housing, food, and care—for however long it takes for the families to return to a normal living environment (see video below).

Let’s do what we can to help these fine organizations help the animals and their people. Here are a few of the groups that have mobile teams in the area. The links provided take you to a secure donation page.

ASPCA
Make a donation.
Also, read about Hazel and her new friends.

Best Friends Animal Society
Make a donation.
Read how Best Friends is helping local shelters.

The Humane Society of the United States
Make a donation.
As is typical in these rescue efforts, natural disasters reveal animals who have been living for some time in neglectful or abusive situations, and those left to brave severe weather in the backyard. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) followed up on a tip about a house from which an elderly couple had been removed and taken to a hospital and where it was believed their animals remained. HSUS found a scared, malnourished elderly dog short-tied to a fence outside. And inside? Cats living in filth and disorder—the same filth and disorder the elderly couple had presumably contended with prior to Sandy’s arrival. Without the weather emergency, I wonder how long it would have taken for these folks and their animals to get help.

DIY Rescue and Foster
If you’re in the area, check out the Hurricane Sandy Lost & Found Pets page on Facebook set up to reunite pets with their people. Look for the pets posted. They’re probably scared and hiding, or scared and difficult to approach. Some local shelters are asking for folks to foster animals in need until the owners’ living situations have stabilized.

[AP photo by Craig Ruttle.]

Old MacDonald Had A Farm …

E I E I O …

I passed a good deal of my childhood on my grandfather’s Midwestern hobby farms. He had the usual assortment of critters: horses, cows, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, and sheep. Snakes, turtles, deer, quail, and pheasants populated the woodlands and fields surrounding the farm. There was always something to see and do, and I had a million questions. My grandfather eagerly schooled me in the ways of nature and I hung on every word.

After a typical idyllic afternoon on the farm, my grandfather and I drove his Scout back home where he would prepare our main course for dinner: steak. While he grilled outside, the very young me sat down to write nearby.

“What are you working on?” he asked.

“I’m writing to Congress and the President.”

He chuckled. “What for?”

I explained that I’d read something in my Ranger Rick magazine about people killing cows for food. I was furious at grown-ups for their callousness and I intended to stop them through legislation. My grandfather stepped away from his grill.

Poor man. Some adults dread having the sex talk with children; others the drugs talk. In my family, it would be any kind of discussion with me that involved the demise of animals.

That’s when I learned that the juicy steaks I’d looked forward to eating had once roamed the farm with the bovine herd I loved. I had no idea.

I put down my pen. I could no longer complain about slaughterhouses since I was as much a murderer. I stepped down from my soapbox.

This moment in my history surfaced because it’s National Farm Animals Awareness Week. Unlike National Chicken Month, this celebration originated with the Humane Society of the United States and promotes the animals themselves rather than the consumption of them.

I’m honoring the occasion by reading The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them by Wayne Pacelle. He’s the HSUS President and explains some of the legislation his organization has been working on to change agribusiness. I’ll no doubt reference this book in future posts. For now, I’d prefer to share a short anecdote about the emotions of cows:

“[Rosamund Young] has absolutely no doubt that cows feel all the major emotions that humans do. … “How about surprise?” I asked, remembering that some philosophers claim that animals cannot feel surprise because they cannot anticipate the future. “Well,” she said, “how about this? My Welsh black cow had six black calves, and then one day she produced a pure white calf (she had been mated with a Charolais bull). She came round to our door and stared at us with a look that was easy to read: ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’”
—From The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals, by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

[Pics of calves from the Farm Sanctuary.]