Every morning, we get up and look for Minnie, and when we find her, if we see her, we compare notes and impressions and have the “conversation.” Should we leave her alone? Should we put her down? Is she suffering? She seems to be dying. She has just about stopped eating and only moves from her cat house on the porch to the space beneath our front porch, where we imagine she will go to die.

Maria and I do not do drama when it comes to the life of animals. If they are old and suffering, they need to die quickly. The conversations are businesslike and without tears or histrionics.

Years of living on a farm with animal deaths have made us practical and unemotional. We check with our vet and get her approval of our plan. She likes it very much.

If the animal is old and beginning to die naturally, we let them alone and give them a chance to die in a familiar place with people they know and love. Even though it is hard, we wish the same for ourselves and our loved ones. If not, I will kill them with a rifle or take them to the vet for euthanization. Maria and I each have to agree on the resolution, whatever it is.

We go back and forth, try different positions, change ours, and then end up in the same place. She is dying. There are no signs that she is in pain; she is no longer eating at all and barely moving for almost all of the day. It’s a complicated situation, but not an emotional or painful one. No tears, no fear, no worrying about what the legions of yentas and busybodies on social media have to say.

The animal rights trolls, missing in action for a week or so,  are making some unpleasant noise. Still, after years of listening to their lies about the New  York Carriage Horses, I pay little attention to their carnival of ignorance and anger. I have no patience for it. For me, animals are about loving and working with people, not teaching how to hate people who live with animals.

Yes, friends, horses die in the country, the city, in the wild, on farms, while sleeping, while fading away on those mythical preserves nobody has ever seen. Animals, like people, do get sick and do die. They call it life, not abuse. Send your check to a better place and an  honest cause. Sadly, the upper tiers of the animal rights movement are a sorry disgrace and, increasingly, a money scam. Most leaders and their wealthy organizations are corrupted by money and extreme ideology.

The killing mills all over the country, wallowing in blood and money, go on and on. We have hammered out our sense of ethics and stewardship and believe in it.

The so-called animal fights moment doesn’t do much for the animals who need help, but they are skilled at getting good-hearted people to separate from their money. They are also deft at taking animals away from those who love and work with them. Most animals that get banned die or spend their lives eating grass and dumping manure for a working animal; that is death.

What has this got to do with Minnie? Everything. We respect the true nature of a barn cat and fight to keep from forcing into a human way of seeing illness and death. To us, that would be a travesty. Just as working horses need to work, barn cats – some of the hardest-working animals in the world – need freedom and respect. They are a nation unto themselves.

We have lived with animals for centuries; once we know them, we know what is best for them. I would never use social media as a device to tell anyone how to end the lives of their pets or farm animals. It would be an obscenity to me. It’s private; condolences are sweet and unwanted advice is a disease.

The carriage horse and pony, and elephant controversies have taught me a lot.  I want to be a person who fights for animals to stay in our world, not to give money so they can disappear and never be seen. Again. I really hate that my granddaughter will only know the animals I have loved so much on YouTube or TikTok.

Carriage horses are checked by doctors and specialists much more often than humans are. In New York City, ignoramuses and liar after liar insist that hauling light carriages in a beautiful park is cruel. Or that letting a barn cat die in his or her way is animal abuse. We have lost perspective with our friends and partners in this world, the animals. We have abandoned their rights to people who know nothing about them and care nothing bout us.

Barn cats often feed and shelter themselves and go off to die in privacy when ready. They disappear. We are giving Minnie some time to do that if she wishes; if it goes on too long, we will call the vet and have her euthanized hsl

This morning we found Minnie lying in the driveway looking for the sun,  her favorite thing. Maria picked her up and moved her to the back porch steps. She can go to her cat’s house or crawl into the garden and under the front porch.

Minnie is a fortunate cat to be watched over by Maria. She has been loved and respected every day, even when a predator led to her having a leg amputated. She has never given up her independence and freedom. We hope to give her liberty until death. We are no better than she is.