Most of us project our most powerful emotions and thoughts onto the animals we know and love, and when I go and see Rocky, I sometimes have conversations with him after he gets his apple, which he relishes.  I do not hear him calling for help or asking for mercy.

I think Rocky wishes to be treated with respect, and not patronized.

He wishes to stay on his farm as long as is possible, because this is what he knows and this is where he needs to be.

If he is lonely, he does not show it any way. Rather, what I sense is a great state of awareness. He knows she is gone, is not in the farmhouse from which she emerged several times a day for all of Rocky’s life. I am not a replacement in any way for him, but something else, something different. Something that brings apples and talks.

Rocky is aware of me. And of Maria. He has incorporated us into his routine, now and when he hears my car, my voice, Maria’s step, he comes over to the gate, and he finds her with his working senses, and he listens and looks.  Maria communicates powerfully with animals, and as with the donkeys, you can see it, the camera goes to it.

Then, when he is done, he moves away, goes to the back of his barn, out of sight. He is a proud thing, I think. He teaches me something new every day.