I realized how tired I am this morning when I looked around my study and saw the piles and piles of books, printouts, blog posts, e-mails, equine behavioral and medical manuals that had taken over my desk. I was reading one when I slumped forward and fell asleep at my desk, something that just does not happen to me while I am writing. I realized that I had been working every day on the carriage horse question for a month, and often well into the night researching the conflict, gathering statistics, checking statements, calling police, carriage trade officials, veterinarians, countless horse owners and trainers, farriers and handlers, reading books and manuals about horses, grazing, and temperament. And, of course, writing.

This story has filled my days, nights, weekends, taken over a bit space in my head and my heart.

I’ve been to New York three times in a little more than a month, visiting the stables, riding in a carriage, watching Liam Neeson urge the mayor to man up and visit the stables. I’ve made scores of phone calls, gotten thousands of text and e-mail and social media messages. This story has generated the greatest response I have ever received, drawn thousands of new comers to my work and also some  – surprisingly few really – of the nastiest messages.

The score or more of my blog posts on the subject have been shared many thousands of times, and gone all over the country, my posts have been reprinted, linked to and discussed in many places, including many mailing lists, news organizations,  and a number of veterinary schools and animal rights organizations.

And this on top of my regular work – writing books, maintaining the blog, helping run the farm, taking my photos. Yes, I reminded myself today, I do need to earn a living, I need to write a proposal for my next book.

I am flooded with messages thanking me for the pieces, telling me they had provoked a lot of thought and discussion, and changed many minds. In America, it’s not easy to change minds, people like their labels.  I have learned that the word is sometimes mightier than the sword, writing still matters, writers can sometimes express things other people can’t. It’s one of the best uses of writing, one of the most noble.

A friend called me to congratulate me on my writing about the horses, and then she said, “I’m just curious, how come you care?”

It’s a good question, really, I hadn’t really worked it out myself, I’ve been so busy writing about it. It is not my story, really, after all, I don’t have a horse, I don’t want one, I had never ridden a carriage until last week, and don’t live in New York City. I most often avoid political conflicts like the plague, I am not a joiner of groups.  This issue is not mine to decide or resolve, the people of New York will have to resolve it. But I thought I ought to try to answer the question before any more time passed. I believe in being open, as many of you know.

Here’s what I think.

I believe a real injustice has been done to the people in the carriage horse trade and that good and reasonable people of different beliefs need to come to their support. The issue is, of course, much bigger than the horses. They have broken no laws, followed the rules, worked hard, treated their animals well. Still, they been drawn into a nightmare, one that could engulf any of us reading this. They have been attacked savagely for years now and been accused of many things there is little or no evidence to support. They have been the target of relentless and very personal attacks and public insult, hounded in their work and their very livelihood and way of life is now being threatened.

They are the target of some of the wealthiest and most powerful forces in the wealthiest and most powerful city, they have bravely chosen to stand and fight for their lives. They deserve and need support of people who believe in a better way.

I have been warning for years, in my writing, my books, on the blog, in speeches all over the country, of the dangers of emotionalizing animals, seeing them as children,  as having human emotions and thoughts. I have cautioned against animals only being seen as objects of rescue. The very painful horse carriage crisis is the perfect example of what this personifying of animals can and will lead to – the idea that it is cruel to work, the claim that every horse who gets sick, has an ulcer, dies of a heart attack,  is living evidence of abuse. As if horses on farms – or dogs in apartments do not get sick and die. They do, of course, all the time, we just don’t see their images all over Facebook and on scores of websites.

The anthropomorphizing of animals has given root to the idea that working horses make lifestyle choices and yearn to spend their lives grazing on farms. I have seen the abused animal idea grow to the point that it has become the prism through which more and more Americans see animals – not as partners in our journey through life, but as piteous and dependent creatures whose primary purpose is to be saved from human cruelty. While we grow more and more disenchanted with the people who harm animals, the animals themselves become almost surreal creatures of fantasy and perfection. As a result, many animals are disappearing from our world because it has become too difficult to give them a perfect life.

Every time I post a photo of a horse, I get enraged e-mails from people claiming the horse is in pain, is being starved, is lame or uncomfortable,  anxious, old or depressed. There is no doubt about it, they say,  how can you be so blind,  anyone can see it, even though nobody does. The horses have become  mirrors of our human neuroses, our partners not in work but in victimization. And horses are not alone. More than 300,000 dogs are now on medication for depression and anxiety. How did they manage to live without antidepressants for thousands of years?

The answer is that we are now making them as crazy as we are, and seeing them as crazy in the ways that we are. In our arrogance, we need them to be just like us, so we can feel better about being us.

I am sorry to see the devolution of much of the animal rights movement into a collective of anger and judgment support groups. Animals desperately need rights and humans to help protect them, not just from abuse but more importantly,  from the human destruction of the natural world, from corporate greed and cruelty. But there is much deep and embedded rage in the organizations in New York that  claim the title of animal rights, and when they team up with a naive mayor  who seems to know nothing about animals, the horses are in trouble, the horses will pay. So will animals everywhere who still have a chance to survive with people.

This fury is quite apparent from even a cursory reading of the websites working to ban the horses and their owners and drivers.  I would encourage anyone reading this go see for themselves, there is no need to take my word for it. It would seem at times that hatred for human beings is a byproduct of the movement to exile the horses,  but more and more, it seems to me that hating and pummeling humans is really the point.

In recent days, in polls and surveys and editorials and stories, it seems that more and more people in New York are beginning to understand that this is a movement to save animals that do not need saving, while disrupting and even destroying the work and way of life of hundreds of human beings. That outcome will not help a single animal in our world.

A movement that demands compassion  for animals but practices cruelty and hatred upon fellow human beings is not a healthy movement, it will never gain the broad support and popular support that are required before animals can really have rights in our world. It can never really help better the lives of animals, as almost every animal lover can see when it comes to the carriage horses. The really shocking truth is that there is truly no place they can be sent that would be better for them than where they already are.

I feel the voiceless carriage horses are in real danger, it does haunt me sometimes, it compels me to stay with this story, to not quit on it. And so are the human beings who own and care for them and drive their carriages. Are they not more important than the horses?  There is simply no evidence – none – that the horses are unhealthy, mistreated or a danger to themselves or others on anything but a fractional way. Animals cannot live in a risk-free, no kill world, some will get sick, keel over, die on the street, bolt and run into a bus. So do many more humans, and on a vastly greater scale. This is not animal cruelty, this is life. Animals are not exempt from the laws of life any more than we are. Most of these carriage horses would be dead already if they had not found work in New York, if they are banished, many will almost certainly get the chance to die again.

These groups threatening the carriage trade do not seem to have even a minimal understanding of the true nature of animals or the actual needs and welfare of animals like horses. People who are ignorant about animals and their needs should not be determining the fate of animals. The big horses that pull carriages have never lived on grass, never lived outside of stables, never not worked with people, they socialize with other horses all day, every day. The work they do is light and well within the capabilities of their bodies, which need regular work and exercise to stay healthy.  And it is popular, so many people love to see the horses in Central Park, love to ride in their carriages. They are reminded that there are animals on the earth, they need to be seen to really be saved.

I care about animals and I hope a compassionate and rational society will find ways to keep them in our lives. I do not care to live in a world where horses can only be seen eating grass and dropping manure on rich people’s farms or rescue preserves.  But there is something else which drives me to write about the horses. What has happened to the carriage owners and drivers is not right, surely not in a country which prides itself on fairness, due process and protection from invasive and arbitrary government. The charges made against the owners and the drivers are not true, not fair and not supportable. There is no factual foundation for destroying the horse carriage trade and forcing its employees into work they don’t want to do. These people are mostly ordinary working people, they are only different from you and me in that they love horses and wish to spend their lives working with them.

It is an assault both on logic and rationality to say the angry people on the animal rights websites love these horses more than the people who own them, drive them, work with them. They have no earthly reason to mistreat them, permit them to be unhealthy or neglect their welfare, in fact, their very livelihood depends on treating their horses well.

They ought not to have to live under constant assault and in continuous fear and struggle for their work, livelihood and peace of mind. Hysterias have their own sorry history and story in America, and this drama in New York City is one of them, many people are beginning to sense it. In many respects, this is just another witch hunt, a mob without boundaries, restraint, or concern for truth. People have to make their own decisions about whether to stand up to them or not. I have made mine.

Sometimes in life, we are defined by how we rise to things – or do not. For me, this is one of those times. I just thought I ought to explain.