We walked the sheep across the bridge to Lulu’s Crossing and the back pasture, Fate was tired this morning, and so was I, the lesson was sloppy and un-focused. Maria pointed out that I had said I wasn’t up for a lesson – the first time in months – but I didn’t listen to myself, I just plowed ahead, so it was a kind of mess.
Fate wasn’t listening to me, she obsessed on Red, the sheep chased her all over the place. I called it quits after ten minutes.
Still, it was a beautiful sight when I gave up on herding and Maria led her pony back to the main pasture, Red sat with me and we let Fate accompany the sheep back to the pole barn. I think Red felt quite paternal, he seemed to enjoy watching Fate run around in circles, but she got the job done.
I sometimes imagine Red offering some gentle critiques, Fate seems to have boundless confidence in herself. The sheep were also grumpy this morning, Deb, Liam, Deb and Suzy all took turns charging at Fate and backing her up. I think they are teaching her to stay out a bit.
I forgot to do something I always do in my dog training, which is to get my head straight about it before I do the training. If I am not in a good mood, am not focused and clear, the dog will pick it up instantly, the training will go to pieces. One of the things I love about training a dog like Fate is that she is a brutal and ruthless mirror of me. When something goes wrong, I have learned to ask myself, “what is wrong with me?”
“What am I doing wrong?” It is almost always the human’s problem, the dog is a reflection of us. When I train, I make sure I am in a positive and focused mood, make sure that I have a clear goal or two, make sure I am projecting calm, enthusiasm, and patience.
“Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of the earth, so precious in our eyes, that we may protect the world and not prey on it.” – A Prayer For Our Earth, Pope Francis.
In a just and merciful world, Joshua Rockwood would not need help. He is young, hard-working, intelligent and much loved and respected in his community. He has a dream, and is passionate about it, he wants to raise healthy animals, sell healthy food to the people in his community. He has studied and worked hard to build his business as a farmer selling meat. He recently survived a savage winter, so did every one of his cattle, pigs, sheep, dogs, chickens and ponies. He is fighting for his very existence. His animals range freely, are fed on pasture.
Like almost any farmer anywhere, he was overwhelmed by the savagery of this winter in February and March. At times, his water bowls and streams froze. At times, his animals shivered in the cold. They all came through it, animals and farmer. But the cold was just the beginning of his troubles, not the end, as it was for most of us.
Joshua and I have entered into friendship and a fruitful dialogue about asking for help. It was inspired, in part, by his pigs. I want to share some of this dialogue with you, because I hope we can soon – those who are able – all provide Joshua some of the help he needs and deserves. Joshua has become important to me, not only because he has become a friend, but because he is an important symbol of our cruelty and insensitivity to one another.
These pigs are famous. The squadron of animal police who raided his farm said they thought two of the pigs had frostbitten ears. He was charged with 13 counts neglect and cruelty. I saw some gray matter on the tips of two ears. No one in the raiding party – police, humane society officers, two horse rescue farm trailers – seemed to know that pigs and sheep and cows on a farm in the winter can easily have frostbitten ears when the temperature reaches -27 degrees, whether they are indoors or not, no matter what kind of shelter they are in.
This kind of frostite is quite common, rarely serious, dangerous or fatal. There is a wealthy, organized and vocal movement in America demanding that all animals be returned to their natural lives in the wild. If an animal on the farm interacts with nature, even in the most common and glancing way, someone usually calls the police. If a Wall Street banker makes a mistake and causes millions of people to lost their homes, he or she gets a bonus at the end of the year.
If a farmer makes a mistake – it is not possible to be a on a farmer and not make mistakes or be victimized by the weather – he faces danger, humiliation and ruin. They could have easily helped Joshua Rockwood, his mistakes were very small. Instead, they tried to put him in jail. I think of Joshua’s ordeal, and I always ask myself the same question: what kind of people are we becoming? What kind of abuse of human beings can we justify in the name of saving animals from abuse? What kind of community turns it back on neighbors in trouble and punishes them for it instead?
So we have a chance to do better. We have a chance do do what the town of Glenville had the chance to do and did not do. We can help Joshua.
___
If you have ever seen what pigs who live in the wild look like in winter, you will see very clearly that Joshua’s are among the most fortunate. By every account, they are fat and happy.
I was at his farm soon after his arrest in March. The pigs looked great. You can see for yourselves.
I’ve had sheep get some gray matter on their ears in mid winter inside of sealed barns – it is sometimes colder inside of barns than outside.The two pigs were healthy, fat and active, vets rarely even treat small patches of gray in winter, it is easily treatable with ointment. On my sheep, it has either gone away or remained as a small patch.
I’ve gotten frost-bite several times tending to my animals in the night. When it gets cold, those fingers and toes throb and change color. My doctor says he sees it all the time, on almost everyone who works on a farm or owns one. It happens quickly and frequently.
When you live on a farm, as a human or an animal, you live in the elements, are often of doors. Life does happen, and when the temperatures plunge to – 27 degrees, life happens quite frequently. Animals do not live in a perfect world, and neither do we. In the human realm, people get sick, dehydrated, fall on ice, crash cars, get headaches. It is called life in the winter, life on a farm. Most of America – 90 per cent – lives far from farms. Things like frostbite sound horrific, things to punish, not to understand.
In our rush to give animals lives without suffering or pain, we are setting impossible standards for farmers, animal lovers, circuses, pony ride operators, carriage drivers, pet owners, to meet. People are refused dogs because they work, are old and poor, cannot afford tall fencing, won’t promise to keep their cats indoors. People who give pony rides to children are accused of torture and abuse, farmers routinely hide their livestock out of the side of the road, where secret informers patrol. Horses who nap and cows with snow on their back are considered victims of gross abuse. One of these informers informed on Joshua, but the police won’t say who.
Farmers are quite often not accorded the rights of accused murderers and child molesters. Ask any farmer about these stories, they all know of them.
Joshua was arrested in part because his water bowls were frozen, even though they were not frozen two hours before the police came. He was arrested even though two different veterinarians came to the farm before the police did and said his animals were healthy and hydrated. If the animals had not been given water, they would not have been hydrated. Three of his horses had hooves that needed trimming. The horses were seized by the police, the rescue farm where they were taken is asking tens of thousands of dollars to return them.
Even though the police claimed his animals were neglected and subject to cruel treatment, they have never bothered to return to see if they are being cared for. They never seized his pigs or cows or took them away. It seems they were not all that worried about their care.
I have encouraged a reluctant Joshua to post a gofundme page to get additional resources, he needs additional help tending to his business amidst all of the crisis and controversy surrounding him and family. The legal process has already gone on for more than six months, it has not even really begun.
Joshua has been balky about seeking money, he is coming around. He loves his farm and wants it to endure and succeed. We have been meeting, talking on the phone, exchanging e-mails. I like him, more each time I meet with him and talk to him. He is honest, thoughtful, idealistic. He does not deserve the ordeal that the unthinking authorities in his town have subjected him to.
“I have put a lot of thought into an additional fund,” he wrote me, “I am not a victim and do not want to accept handouts to help me survive this.” As the farm has grown, he wrote, along with his growing awareness of the cruelty of people, he is continuing to educate himself on raising healthy animals, selling healthy food. He is continuously reading through books, seminars, videos and spending countless hours online doing research as well as talking to other farmers and following their work.
He has, unfortunately, spent many hours reviewing his case, talking with his lawyer, preparing his defense. This has affected his business.
Reading Joshua’s messages, I hope there is a rational Chamber of Commerce in Glenville, N.Y. that might hold a luncheon in his honor and give him an award for having the courage and drive to start a new business, maintain a humane farm selling healthy local foods to the town’s citizens. Difficult work, in more ways than one, but perhaps the future of agriculture.
Joshua said he would like to return to the goals he set for the farm and for his family this year. He is willing to accept help in achieving those goals. Good news I think. He will prepare a crowdsourcing project – on gofundme – and post it early next week. I will write it about it on this blog, you can follow it on his blog as well. (He is giving away some free meat this week).
Joshua’s pigs do not appear to have suffered or been weakened by the winter. He has more than 150 piglets to sell.
Next week, you can help Joshua financially if you are able. If you wish to communicate with him or offer any other kind of support, you can reach him at [email protected]. Stay tuned.
Every time I mention that I am getting a new dog, I am fairly inundated with messages – some in dramatic and pleading tones – to get a rescue dog. They often are the same: “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE,” get a dog from a shelter.
As a public person, I am expected to be an example, a role I did not audition for and gives me hives. Many days, I get snarky messages chastising me for getting Fate from a breeder when so many dogs need homes.
In my lifetime with dogs, I have gotten perhaps two-thirds from good breeders, one third from shelters and/or rescue groups. I have had a long run of great dogs, the only advice I give people who are thinking of getting a dog is to get the dog that is best for them, no matter where it comes from. A great dog can come from anywhere.
Sadly, breeders, even good ones, are under fire now from the one-dimensional ideologues who seem to have taken over our political system and, it seems, discussion of animals like dogs. We are mired in this self-serving prism of rescue and abuse, I am told daily there is only one way to get a dog: a way that makes us feel good about ourselves.
This is a lie, of course, and a silly and transparently dumb one. There are many ways to get a dog, including rescuing one. With millions of dogs languishing and suffering in ever-expanding no-kill shelters (humans call that health care for the elderly), rescuing a dog is a great thing to do. I do it often, and we rescue donkeys and sheep and barn cats and chickens too.
But when I see a dog like Fate or Red or Lenore or Rose, I am also reminded of the wondrous work good breeders do. Good breeders are not puppy mill merchants, all breeders are not alike. Good breeders preserve the best qualities in dogs – health, temperament, intelligence. They do not deserve to be persecuted, they ought to be celebrated.
All dogs are not born with those qualities, they often come from good breeders. A puppy mill is out to make money, a good breeder is out to make a great dog. A dog like Fate came from an experienced and thoughtful breeder like Dr. Karen Thompson. So did Red. It is very hard to get a dog like the ones she breeds.
Karen has traveled the world seeking her breeding dogs, she has spent a lot of money acquiring breeding dogs that are smart, trustworthy, and healthy. That have astonishing intelligence and physical skills, they are affectionate and grounded and trainable, they can join the glorious history of dogs who have done wonderful work for and with humans for thousands of years.
Last night, we took Fate to a dinner party, her first, she was confronted with big and loud and pushy dogs, and a room full of people and food. She was on her own. She handled the dogs, snarled at the ones trying to mount her, played with the others, greeted the people, went to sleep under the table by our feet. Another dog that can go anywhere, and is grounded enough to handle herself.
A friend in the animal rights movement, a long-time PETA volunteer told me in all honesty, she said, that it is just as abusive for a border collie to herd sheep as it is for a draft horse to pull a carriage in Central park. One day, she said, she hopes the practice is illegal. She said all competitive trials and professional breeders should be banned, dogs must only breed naturally and must never be used to entertain humans. She asked for my response. I said her work on behalf of animals seemed to be making her dumb and small. I haven’t heard back from her on this issue, but she isn’t high on my work these days.
I do not tell other people what to do. I never tell other people how to get a dog, I never let anyone tell me. I am grateful for my own path, it has enriched my life, my work, opened my heart, made me a better human being. Watching Fate pop out of the cornstalks today, and then to go work herding the sheep, and then greet joggers and hikers and visitors to the farm with great affection, I thought of the trust we were building together.
I’ve established this bond with Red, he is the greatest dog I have ever had, Fate is moving up the list. It’s not my place to tell anyone else how to get a dog, it is my place to share my gratitude for people like Karen Thompson for devoting their lives to saving and developing the very best traits in dogs, and to use her own great instincts to find the right people for them. That is what great breeders do.
That is what people do who care about the dogs as well as they care about themselves. If it is exploitive for dogs to entertain us, what is it when dogs are acquired to make us feel righteous and good?
My PETA friend told me recently that she wanted to come and see Red and Fate work, she loves to see border collies work sheep, she saw it in Ireland. Great, I said, of course, I love to show them off. First, I said, can you tell me where you think these border collies you love to watch come from, and how you think they have the smarts and instincts to herd sheep.
For the past 15 years or so, I have awakened to the sight of some donkeys at the pasture gate. It is a beautiful, even stirring thing to see first thing in the morning, it sets the tone for my day. The donkeys gather at the gate as soon as they hear us stirring in the house, a donkey can hear my feet hit the floor when I get out of bed.
Domesticated animals need people in their lives, something the animal rights movement seems to either not know or have forgotten. People thing they are helping animals by banishing them to rescue farms or preserves, but for the domesticated working animals, this is especially cruel, it is not rescue at all but more like a life prison sentence.
The first thing I learned about donkeys, dogs, ponies, even barn cats and sheep, is how much their lives revolve around people. The minute Maria and I are in the pasture, or by the gate, all of our animals appear. They want a treat, for sure, but mostly, they want some attention. They are drawn to us, we are the source of life and connection, the grounding elements in their lives.
It is no favor to have strangers pull them away from us and leave them with no one to see and nothing to do. That is not rescue, it is just another form of abuse, the road to hell….
Now, I wake up to the sight of a pony, whinnying to me as soon as I appear. In a minute or two, the donkeys are out, they hear Maria and I coming. We give each one a carrot, then talk to them, sit with them, listen to them. A remarkable and beautiful part of the day.
My writing about Joshua Rockwood and the carriage horses, and my own life with animals, has caused me to focus on the state and nature of working animals, I have lived with working animals for years now, they are part of the joy of my life. I see how much we love and need one another, from the donkeys to the border collies.
There is some urgency in the lives of animals now, we can see the extinction of mammals and birds, the forced removal of horses, ponies, Asian elephants, goats from our lives. Animal rights is no longer just a political issue, it has become an environmental issue as well.
Animals are part of our eco-system, they are also part of the human experience, we so easily forget how much we need them, how much they have done for us. People drunk on the idea of animal love hardly blink at the escalating removal of animals from the world.
We need to see animals in much the same way we see water and trees and grass and food. Our ecosystem requires all of them, those that are visible, those that are not – fungi, algae, worms, insects, reptiles, and an innumerable variety of microorganisms. When the animal rights movement was founded in the 1970’s, their belief was that animals – domesticated as well as wild – should all live in nature, in the world.
Since then, the wild has vanished, gobbled up by human greed and arrogance. Scientists warn that human beings must intervene. Last week, a woman messaged me celebrating the idea that the Asian elephants – soon to be removed from their work in circuses because it has also been branded cruel and exploitive, mostly by people who have never seen them – will soon be returned to the wild. I messaged her back and asked her if it was possible that she did not know there was no longer any wild for them to be returned to, we take no responsibility for what we have to them, either in their natural habitat or in the ones we have created for them.
She said she never thought about where they might go, she just wanted them freed of their stupid tricks.
She was shocked, she said, to consider that soon, most of these animals will be dead, and soon will vanish from the world of humans, from the world itself. She had nothing to say about it. Human beings are not intervening in the destruction of our natural world to save it, our intervention is often in the realm of business interests, consumerism and banking, it is making our earth less beautiful and sustainable, even as our technology and consumer goods explode in volume and growth.
We seem to think we can substitute irreplaceable resources with things we make, live in and sell. Day by day, we are learning we cannot. This has been especially cruel on the voiceless animals, who can have no understanding or culpability in what is happening to them.
The removal of animals in our world, much of it – like the carriage horses – completely unnecessary and ill-considered – is the great mistake that can never be changed. Once working animals leave the company of human beings, they leave the world forever. History is rich in examples.
The animal rights movement has joined forces with industry to push the animals we can see and live with out of sight and reach, a part of the vanishing natural world. Every horse, pony, elephant or chicken that leaves the every day world is an irreplaceable treasure.In the face of irrefutable climate change, domesticated animals are safer with people than anywhere, at least they will get food, water and shelter. So many are dying in their dwindling habitats, what is left of the mythical wild.
Every farmer harassed from his farm, persecuted into ruin is a stab in the heart of Mother Earth. Biologists who argue that animals like the carriage horses are perfectly suited to life and work with humans are ignored, politicians and ideologues team up to ignore the impact of their loss.
Animals are a precious resource we cannot afford to lose. If they were diamonds, no one would think of removing them. They are, of course, much more valuable. It sometimes seem overwhelming to me, but I think of this way: one animal at a time, one farmer at a time, one human being at a time. That way, it can be done.
I spent some time with Joshua Rockwood yesterday, and I want to be honest and say I am worried about him.
Joshua is the kind of person who will never admit to being worried about himself, but I could see the weariness and concern in his face, his eyes, hear it in his voice. When he left me, he went to the butchers and picked up some meat. Then two of the planned buyers backed out without warning. One said the reason was the controversy surrounding his farm.
He has to make more room for frozen and now unsold meat. It never happened before his arrest on charges of animal cruelty. He was picking up new customers every day. But it has happened since.
A government that should be helping his farm grow and prosper is trying to destroy it.
So let’s think about Joshua.
It is an awful thing for you and your family to wonder if you will have to leave your business and your children and go to jail because your farm water tanks froze in -27 degrees, and because you are young and inexperienced, because you store your food and hay a mile from your farm.
It is an awful thing when the government that is supposed to protect your property and freedom decides to try and take both away.
It is an awful then when your reputation is savaged in the public media for weeks and months before you ever have a chance to defend yourself, and knowing that most journalists and most people will never know or care that you did nothing wrong, even if you are found innocent.
It is an awful thing to be a life-long lover of animals, a farmer whose livelihood depends on healthy animals, and to be accused of being cruel and abusive to your animals, when not a single one has died or suffered any kind of serious injury.
It is an awful thing to see the police and town government, upon whom you depend for safety and protection, co-opted by wealthy ideologues and drawn into a deepening conflict that has nothing to do with justice or the well being of animals.
It is an awful thing to see that government waste hundreds of thousands of dollars and precious resources on a prosecution that should never have occurred, and occurs only in the name of being politically correct and joining a mob hysteria. It is a dangerous thing when people who are utterly ignorant of farming or animals presume to regulate both.
It is an awful thing to have your life upended by ideological extremists speaking for the love and rights of animals while serving neither.
It is an awful thing to have your horses taken from you by people who demand tens of thousands of dollars to return them, even if you are found innocent of any wrongdoing.
It is an awful thing to see your hard work and growing business stymied, bled and threatened by legal fees, judicial delays and technicalities, the distractions of a legal proceeding, shallow and cruel publicity, and an Orwellian system that places the rights and well-being of animals far above the rights and well-being of human beings.
It is an awful thing to live in fear and uncertainty. To hear your children ask why their are now living in a prison rather than a home. To tell your spouse and family every day that it will be all right, that nobody can take your children away, that no one can take your home away, that the secret informers driving by your home and farm day and night with their cellphone and video cameras cannot harm you, cannot find you making a mistaken, or coming upon a sick animal, or seeing a frozen water bucket in the middle of winter.
And then wonder if all of those assurances are true.
It is an awful thing when your mind, plans, and ambition are all sacrificed to hundreds of hours of meetings, research, strategies and possibilities. When your customers say they will no longer buy your meat because they saw you on the news that you were arrested.
I’ll tell you something. It is nearly impossible for Joshua Rockwood, a man who is suffering from all of these things, to ask for help. He is stubborn and convinced he has already asked for enough help. I am more stubborn and am working to persuade him that he should ask for as much help as it takes for him to triumph, get his life back, and stand in the name of the growing number of victims of this kind of cruel persecution – I hear from them every day.
I am a long-time supporter of the rights of animals, I imagine if I must be labeled, it would be as a person whose politics are progressive. I can say with conviction that this case is an outrage, a brutal attack on a good citizen, his family, and his livelihood. It is also a tragic distortion of the idea of animal rights. While nine billion animals suffer and die on corporate industrial animal farms throughout the country, including Joshua’s home state of New York, the powerful apparatus of the animal rights movement, a town police department, and a county prosecutor’s office bring the full weight of their power to bear on a young man working hard day and night to raise healthy animals who produce healthy food, grown locally.
And who did not lose a single one of his hundreds of animals to one of the worst winters in the history of the Northeast.
Joshua can tell you where the meat you buy from him is coming from.
All of his animals are free-range and pasture fed. Every one of them leads a better and healthier life than any one of the animals whose meat you buy at your local supermarket, or whose awful lives exist only inside animal farm factories, or who languish in the backyards and basements of people without the resources to care for them. There are no teams of police and secret informers pursuing them.
In our hysteria over animal abuse, and our disenchantment with human beings, we have lost perspective. Joshua Rockwood has been abused in a far crueler and more destructive way than any of his animals were.
He and I are going at it about this question of help, and I believe there are ways to help him that he can accept. One is to e-mail him at [email protected] and let him know he is not alone, he has many friends, admirers and supporters. Another is to watch for the gofundme project he is putting together – reluctantly – this week on his website. I will also post about it here, as will many other people.
I believe that will be ready by the end of this week or early next week.
Joshua needs to win this struggle, for him, his family, for us, for our lives with animals, for our lives as free citizens. He needs to join the New York Carriage Trade in it’s successful struggle to keep the mayor of New York City from destroying their historic business and sending 200 draft horses out into peril. This is a new social awakening, a new movement.
Joshua needs and wants to stand up for what he thinks is right, and I will stand up for what I think is right. Government has no business destroying a citizens’ life in this way.
What has happened to Joshua is not about the rights of animals, or their welfare. It is a much older story. It is about arrogance, ignorance and the abuse of power. I believe he can win and will win. If it comes down to it, I cannot imagine any jury would convict him on the lazy and politicized evidence gathered against him.
I can’t imagine it even getting that far, even though it never should have gotten this far.
