Thanksgiving weekend brought a great gift to me.
It came as an unfortunate circumstance, but it was a great gift nonetheless for which I was, and still am, very grateful. A group of creatures - a species, rather - let me into their world for a brief moment in time and allowed me to see a side of them that very few people get to see and most don't even know or believe exists. Over the weekend, a horse at a neighbour's barn passed away. She was a senior horse and had succumbed to severe surgical colic.
Those who know horses are wincing right now as this is every horse owner's worst nightmare. Basically, colic is similar to bloat and gastric torsion in dogs. It is a blockage of the intestines and a horse cannot pass the contents. A surgical colic means that surgery is required to disentangle the intestines, which get twisted as a horse rolls over again and again trying to relieve the discomfort in its belly.
After much effort, the veterinarian suggested humanely euthanizing the senior horse as her prognosis for recovery, even after a successful surgery, was very slim, if at all. So with many tears shed we all said goodbye to a beautiful Polish Arabian who had lived 30 wonderful years.
This is when the gift came.
As the veterinarian prepared for the lethal injection the entire barn of horses went quiet, not a nicker, snort or stomp of foot was heard. The silence caught me off guard and as I looked around at the other five horses, they stood still with their heads lowered, their ears resting to the side and their eyes closed. The two youngest of the herd lay down with their eyes closed, resting their chins on the soil beneath them. It reminded me of how soldiers show their respect at a funeral of a fallen brethren.
The veterinarian noticed me looking around and she said, "They are such sentient creatures aren't they?" I felt a tightening in my throat as I said, "Yes, yes they are." My mind immediately flashed back to when my dog Harley passed away many years ago. He too was humanely euthanized in my home and my other dogs, Alex - whom some readers may remember but has since passed away - and a very young Zumi were at my side. When the veterinarian placed the stethoscope at Harley's heart and said,
"He's gone," both Alex and Zumi lifted their heads upward and howled. I was shocked and awed by their poetic sentient display.
Now here I was, surrounded by incredibly powerful yet graceful animals weighing more than a thousand pounds that, like dogs, are still so misunderstood. And I was watching in awe as they displayed an obvious emotional response to the passing of a herd mate.
The veterinarian checked the mare's heart and said, "She's gone." The horses remained in their stoic positions, either standing with their heads low or resting on the ground for many more minutes, in their own way paying their respect.
I'm not sure how much time had passed - 10, maybe 15 minutes - but the horses seemed to know when she was truly gone. At the same time they all lifted their heads or got up from the ground and one by one gave a full body shake and began their routine of banging at their paddock gates asking to be let out to pasture for the day.
We humans are so arrogant assuming that we are the only intelligent species on this earth and that animals are mechanical creatures with no capacity for thought or emotion. Any concept of animals being capable of forming emotional attachments is quickly dismissed or reduced to a simple association with food. Their level of intelligence is measured against ours to determine if they are worthy of our attention. If they aren't, the animals are used by us because we assume they don't know any better. What gracious creatures animals are, to look at us and continually forgive us for our ignorance and assumptions. To allow us to use their bodies in scientific experiments, torturous entertainment or even outdated training methods because we have convinced ourselves they aren't intelligent enough and lack the emotions to know what is happening.
What sentient creatures they are to look at us fools without the judgment we have of them.
Joan Klucha has been working with dogs for more than 15 years in obedience, tracking and behavioural rehabilitation. Contact her through her website k9kinship.com.
