I learn from animals and about them every day if I listen, watch and wait for them to evolve and adapt. Frieda, our Rottweiler-Shepherd mix, is a ferocious hunter with enormous prey drive, she has pursed cats all of her life and tried to kill them, sometimes successfully. Our barn cat Minnie, whose rear leg was amputated a few months ago after an attack from some kind of animal, has always avoided Frieda, never coming near her outside, vanishing whenever she appeared in her fenced-in space, Minnie was always acutely aware of Frieda, and if Frieda even sensed her, she would pursue her aggressively and instantly.

For the last couple of months, Minnie has been spending nights and cold days in the house, she and Frieda have been steering clear of one another, Frieda has never seemed to pursue her since the operation and Minnie’s recovery, almost as if she sensed Minnie had changed or come to understand she was no part of the household. Still, I never expected them to be napping together in the morning sunlight on a bitterly cold day, it touched my heart, made me appreciate Frieda’s own big heart and the remarkable ability of animals to adapt and evolve. I can’t tell you I know what happened,  other than these two very disparate creatures – the once abandoned hunter and a ferociously independent and wily barn cat – came to be sleeping head to head on the floor of our farmhouse as I passed by with a camera.

Minnie is sleeping right on Frieda’s bed, Frieda came by and lay down beside her. A generous thing. A loving thing? I don’t know, people will tell their own story, I don’t think I really know.

There are so many sad stories in the animal world, so many happy ones. Animals communicate with one another in ways we have never been able to understand.