“Then I studied with this beggar,

he was filthy; he was scarred

By the claws of many women, he had failed to disregard

No fable, here no lesson

No singing meadowlark

Just a filthy  beggar guessing 

What happens to the heart?”

• Leonard Cohen, Happens To The Heart.

I’ve never done an official count, but I sense that about 60 percent of my readers are women and 30 percent men.

I dislike many things about digital messaging, but one of the things I like very much is that over time, I get a better sense of gender and the vast differences between men and women.

Responding to our efforts to keep Pumpkin alive – he has a gastrointestinal disease that has him unable to eat and to foam at the mouth -several women have written, more in sorrow than anger, that Pumpkin is lucky to have Maria around since they believe I would be much more inclined to shoot him than fight to keep him alive.

These messages were more observations than criticisms, and they got me to wonder if men care less about animals than women in general. I can’t answer the question. I can only reduce it to something personal: do I care about our animals less than Maria and am more likely to put them down than keep them alive if they are seriously ill?

I am, after all, the one who shoots them when we both feel they can’t be helped and are suffering. It is also true that Maria is a gentler soul than I am and more instinctively empathetic and nurturing. She is also made of iron when she needs to be.

When we first got together, she and I were far apart in our attitude towards ending the suffering of animals. I saw this as a matter of true mercy, not unthinking love, and she felt we should rarely give up on the animals we live with and love. It was a beautiful position, but I did and do see it differently.

We fought about putting Rose down, my wonderful border collie and partner at the first Bedlam Farm. She saved my life more than once and made it possible. Maria was horrified and thought I was being callous. This could have been a severe rift between us at a vulnerable time.

It wasn’t, it brought us together, where we

have been ever since.

One night, after Rose had begun to struggle and was visibly declining, she went missing, and I had to search the farmhouse.

I found her lying by the door downstairs in the middle of the night in a pool of vomit. She had been trying to get outside to the pasture. Rose and I were as close as dogs and humans can be, and she looked at me, and I heard in as loud and clear a voice as possible say, “please, please, let me go, don’t let me die like this.“

I know she couldn’t have said that, but I had no doubt her spirit was sending me a message. She was ready to go. It was my job now.

Maria was shocked when I said Rose had to be put down, but when she saw me burst into tears, she also saw how much I loved her and she agreed she was ready to leave the world. We took her to our vet to be euthanized a few days later. Sitting on the floor with her, my heart was broken into a thousand pieces.

But I have never doubted the decision.

But the trust between Maria and I grew, and there is rarely any conflict between us when it comes to ending the life of one of our animals.

“Pumpkin is very lucky Maria is around,” wrote one woman (actually several in different words) yesterday, “otherwise Pumpkin would be dead.” That is perhaps true, but somewhat sexist to me, and not entirely accurate. Our world is not as black and white as some people might think.

Over time, Maria and I both have moved towards the positions of each other. We met in the middle. There is no argument about Pumpkin.

Maria has never been wholly opposed to putting animals down, but she approaches it differently than I did or do. I am quicker to end an animal’s life than she is. But I have never done it without her blessing or complete agreement.

Maria has come to agree with me that it is not always merciful to keep animals alive on a farm just because we love them. I would argue that because we love them and are their stewards, we must help them and end their lives in great pain.

No animal can tell us clearly and simply when they are ready to go, despite the projections of many dog lovers. It’s our job to decide, based on what we know of them.

Before Maria,  I always called a vet to put our very sick animals down. Soon after I came upstate, a lamb was born deformed and twisted during an awful blizzard. He was in dreadful pain, and his mother was frantic. I called the vet, but he couldn’t possibly get through in the storm. “Do you have a gun,” he asked me. “If so, you need to use it. That’s the merciful thing.”

I knew I was living in a different realm and needed to change. I shot the lamb and took some gun safety lessons.

I also realized that it was much crueler for the animals to die coldly and mechanically at the hands of veterinarians – two shots, an IV, a stranger holding them down until they were sedated.

Vets are not cruel by any means, but they don’t know the animals who fear them and their equipment. I don’t give them a chance to be afraid.

I believe I owe it to our very ill animals to leave the world quickly and with dignity, to end suffering from someone they know and trust. That is what stewardship means to me: what is best for them, not for me.

My rifle is the best and most humane way I know to do that; I have taken lessons and practiced and kill our sick sheep (or nasty roosters) in seconds, with two or three shots fired at close range. I was happy to shoot a vicious rooster who tore up Maria’s leg, and various rabid raccoons and foxes.

I want to be honest.

Yesterday, I was thinking about having to shoot Pumpkin; he was disoriented, away from the flock, unable to eat, frothing at the mouth, unresponsive, and dazed. I imagined him wandering through the pasture in this savage cold and dying an awful death alone.

It has happened before on our farm. Maria agreed with me, Pumpkin seemed lost. But when I suggested we call our vet. He had some ideas for us to try.

Maria went out and fought for Pumpkin.  Of course, I agreed.

As it happens, she also thought he was too sick to save, and the irony was that it was me who suggested calling a vet. She thought we’d have to shoot him also.

Maria got on the phone with Jack Kittel, and he told her what he thought we could do. Although we aren’t out of the woods, there’s a perfect chance she has saved him.

Maria and I have an understanding about putting animals down. Each one has the veto. No animals can be put to death or euthanized without the complete and specific agreement of the other. I have no more power than she does and doesn’t want any more.

I don’t write this to defend myself or to look humane.

I don’t need that approval. I write it because animals deserve real consideration about how to die. Many people (any vet will tell you this) keep their animals alive beyond all reason or mercy because they don’t want to let them go. Our animals will not ever suffer that fate.

I don’t know if this is a gender issue, but I have strong feelings about preserving the independence and strength of our farm. If we called a vet every time an animal was sick, we would have lost the farm and the animals long ago. Animal care is costly, and we are not rich. We give them very good lives.

I only think about killing an animal if they visibly suffer, if medication isn’t working, and if I don’t see any improvement over time. I believe that is merciful.

The farm needs to be protected. I often think about what is best for the farm, not just one animal, and nothing is more dangerous than sick animals living beyond nature. We are not a rescue facility; the farm has to work and care for itself. Maria agrees.

There is no question Maria is more optimistic and committed to these animals in emotional ways than I am.

She knows them better, is closer to them, especially as I get older, and is out there with them much more than I am. Because I worked for years with herding dogs, I never forged the connection to the sheep that she did. She cares about them deeply, and she arranged for shearing and yarn and knew them each in a very intimate way.

No one needs to tell me about many men’s cruelty, dominance, and arrogance. Women are not the only people who suffer at the hands of men. Try being a sensitive or gay or physically weak or gentle or empathetic man.

We both care very much about our animals, if sometimes from different perspectives. Maria is no wimp. She understands the realities of the world we live in.

Maria was out much of the day in the bitter cold with a syringe wrestling Pepto Bismol into him. He still looks very ill to me, I don’t yet see the improvement she sees, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Recovering from this disease takes several days. But this is her decision.

Pumpkin is separated from the others in a stall in our barn.

I guess where I’m going with this is that most men and women see and care for animals in different ways.

Some of the greatest love I’ve ever seen for animals is grizzled old farmers for their cows. It would break your heart to see the tears that flow from farmers’ eyes when they have to euthanize an old cow or send them off to a corporate farm if their farm fails. It is heartbreaking.

We live in a world where men seem to have an almost exclusive grip on war, violence, environmental deprivation, and vicious and cruel politics.

I very much hope Pumpkin pulls through. There is no joy in killing an animal you know from birth and have helped to raise. There is no virtue in letting them suffer great pain for our selfish reasons.

I see no space between Maria and me when it comes to wanting to keep Pumpkin alive.

She has offered to do the shooting several times if it becomes too painful for me. That time is perhaps getting closer.