Saving Simon (18 page)

Could I deepen this idea of partnership with this dog? Could I replicate the sense of exploration Jiménez had with Platero, and that I had with Simon?

The morning after Red arrived, I took him out to the pasture. As we approached the gate, he went into a herding crouch, froze, and stared at the sheep. I opened the gate and realized I didn’t know the herding commands he had been taught. I called Dr. Thompson on my cell phone and she told me to stand to the right of Red and say “Come bye.” I did, and he took off like a guided missile. He made a sweeping and spectacular outrun wide of the sheep and drove them right to me.

When he made his way back to me, he was transformed. He was looking straight into my eyes. His world had returned to its proper order. He was adoring me in that particular way border collies have of worshipping whoever takes them to sheep.

Until he came to my farm, Red had either been out working sheep or in a crate. He was not housebroken. Dr. Thompson’s hope was that Red’s life could be broadened, and it was my wish, too. Of course, I ended up being broadened as much as he was, possibly more.

From that first day, Red went everywhere with me. He walked into a farm stand nearby, found the girls behind the cash register and, while I stuffed my corn and vegetables into bags, Red was getting pats and kisses. He figured out my local bookstore quickly, greeting shoppers as they came through the door, visiting the owner in her cubicle, finding a mat by the door to lie on. He loved to ride along with me to the gas station, the hardware store, even the dentist’s office. He had never been on a leash and I never put him on one, either.

I am fortunate to live in Washington County, New York, a beautiful agricultural area where many people have animals and where dogs are as commonplace in the hardware store as they are in backyards. Red was eagerly adopted in my small town of Cambridge; there was almost no place where he was not welcomed.

When I took Red to a book reading at a local library, he went from row to row, as if he had done it a thousand times, greeting every person in attendance, and then came up to me, curled up into a ball, and went to sleep.

It occurred to me that there were so many boundaries around where Simon could go, and so few around Red. Simon’s life was lived entirely within the pasture fence except for the walks we took up and down the road and into the woods. He loved people just as much as Red did, but our culture makes no allowances for animals like donkeys to be a part of our world, even though they would adapt easily to farmers markets, downtown parks, and school playgrounds. It was never going to happen. People did not cuddle up with donkeys; they are so large and most people are a bit afraid of them. Simon would often approach people who came to see him and seemed puzzled when they backed away or treated him gingerly, as if he might explode.

But Red opened a number of new windows on mercy and compassion for me. For one thing, he needed a lot of calm understanding before he could acclimate himself to my world. It took me less than a week to housebreak him. I put mats and carpets down on the floors until he could get used to smooth surfaces, I made sure I was giving him herding commands that he understood, and I lavished him with praise and attention when he got it right, which he invariably did.

I called a nursing home in Granville, New York, where Izzy
and I had done some hospice volunteer work. I told them a little about Red, and they said they would love to have him visit the home. We went a few days later. We walked through the doors and right up to a woman in a wheelchair. She was astonished and delighted to see Red. She called him “Charlie,” and he approached her and put his head on her knee as she patted him. The smile on her face was worth the trip, and I saw that Red had the same gift as Izzy—he could enter any space and be gentle and appropriate. You might have thought he had been doing it for most of his life, even though he had never been in a nursing home or any building like it. Mostly, he just wanted to be with me.

Dr. Thompson was right. Red was meant to be my dog, just as Simon seemed destined to be my donkey. It felt from the first as if I had lived with him for years. He became instantly popular. He had girlfriends everywhere—Lyle at the hardware store, Karen at the farm stand, Connie at the bookstore, Dawn at the dentist’s office. They all kept treats for him and greeted him with great affection and enthusiasm. Soon, the dog that had never been inside of a building was inside a lot of them, every day.

And he had sheep right out the back door and got to work every day. He needed us, and we needed him, too. We had to move the sheep two or three times a day, keep them away from the donkeys’ feeders, and get them inside the barn for visits from the vet. Red did the job.

The only cloud on the horizon, ironically enough, was Simon. He did not like dogs; he had not liked Rose, and he did not like Red. Donkeys are guard animals, and they see dogs as no different than coyotes. When Red came into the pasture, Simon’s ears would go down, and he would lower his head to charge. Red, whose concentration when he was around sheep
was laserlike, did not even notice or glance at him. That made me nervous. The first few times Red entered the pasture, I would stand between them, hold up my hand in front of Simon, and just say “Stop.” Thankfully he did.

Ken Norman, our farrier, said it was almost impossible to trim Simon’s hooves unless I was there. If I was, Simon would stand calmly while Ken did his work. Simon listened to me, and he obeyed me generally, and so did Red. Because I could control the two of them, I kept them apart and kept Red safe.

Red’s Tao is different than Simon’s or Rocky’s. He is hardwired into me, responsive, and anticipatory; his life revolves around me. If I were thinking in mythological terms, Red would be the center animal. Simon and Rocky each lived in their own worlds of which we were part, but we were not the center of their universes.

Horses and donkeys are domesticated, but only somewhat. There is a part of them they keep to themselves, unlike dogs, who generally turn themselves over to us completely. Donkeys and horses have no desire to sleep on the edge of our beds or lie by our feet when we read. They live outside of our lives, not in the center. Red came into the center; he completed the circle in many ways. He filled in the blanks between what a dog does and what kinds of things other animals can do.

Simon spoke to me of the timeless ways in which animals like donkeys and human beings have always connected. Donkeys may work hard for humans, and ponies may keep them company and take them on rides, but dogs can wrap themselves right around your heart and soul. They live to serve. I came to love these animals in different ways, as they loved me in different ways.

FIFTEEN
 

Florence Walrath died at
the end of 2011 at age 103, in her own bed in the house that she had loved and lived in for seventy-seven years. I did not get to know her as well as I would have liked, apart from hearing many legendary stories about her iron will, love of work, and passion for riding and swimming. That she had taken up water-skiing at age sixty was only one example of her refusal to let age define or confine her.

They took her driver’s license away near the end because she couldn’t see, and when they did that, she rode her mower up Route 22 to the lake so she could still swim. Then they took the mower away from her, too.

At the American Legion, to which her husband had belonged, the members kept an eye on her. They stopped by Florence’s house to offer help in caring for the grounds and other chores. She always said no, she was fine, but on weekends, some of the members would just show up and mow her lawn when they saw that the grass was getting too high.

By the time I met Rocky, most of the fences around his
pasture had disintegrated or just fallen down, and he could have trotted out onto the busy road in the front of the house and gone anywhere. Like Florence, he wouldn’t think of it. The two of them, as she had predicted, were riding it out together.

With Florence gone, the family talked about Rocky’s future. They couldn’t bear to put him down. Florence loved him too much, and they knew that moving a blind old pony would be cruel, too much for him to bear.

So somebody came by every day to toss out some hay and grain. There was a swampy marsh out behind Rocky’s pasture and a stream that ran all year. Rocky was on his own for water. Sometimes in the summer, the marsh would dry up for a day or two, but it would always fill up eventually.

Rocky was now more alone than ever. I have no reason to think that he minded being alone, although I am certain he noticed Florence’s absence. How could he not have? I felt so bad for him, alone in this way, without his beloved human or any other animals to keep him company.

The interesting thing, when I thought about it, was that Rocky was a fortunate pony. In the wild, he would have been long dead by now, starved because he was unable to see to find food or torn apart by predators. He had been much loved and cared for in his life, and I knew that the most merciful thing would be for him to be left alone to live out his time in a place that was familiar to him. He was in so many ways the strongest and healthiest animal that I knew.

Rocky’s routine never seemed to vary much. In the morning, he would come around to the side of the house and eat the grass and clover there. When the sun got strong, he got himself into the shade of the standing barn. In the afternoon, he would follow his trail back to the stream, drink some water, and graze by the brush.

Then, at night, he would stand by the back of the barn and wait for morning. When it rained or snowed, the overhang of the barn provided some shelter. Sometimes, when Maria and I visited, he would be covered in snow, as he would have been in the wild. He did not seem to mind.

We asked the family if it would be okay for us to help take care of Rocky, and they said they would be pleased. With Florence’s death and other issues, they had a lot on their hands.

For a time, I thought about moving Rocky to Bedlam Farm. I liked the idea of him and Simon together, two symbols of mercy and compassion, each in his own way. I imagined the donkeys looking out for Rocky—helping to guide him around the pasture. I imagined his pleasure at having a herd again.

I had some friends who had horses, and they talked me out of that plan. It would be traumatic for a blind animal that age to move. The stress of the move, of having to adjust to new terrain, could kill him. However, they all agreed that he would probably love being with the donkeys. Horses, like donkeys and sheep, like being with their own kind.

Maria and I had been married just two years when I first met Rocky, and we had been reconsidering our new lives together. Bedlam Farm is an idyllic place, the 1861 farmhouse sitting astride a hill overlooking the town of West Hebron. It has beautiful views, ninety acres of pasture and woods, and a mile-long path into the woods for us to walk with the dogs. It is a kind of paradise. The four old barns have been restored, and we put in a small screened-in porch with a sweeping view of the valley.

Yet we both felt it was time to move. There were a number of things to consider. Publishing had changed, and my income was less predictable. And Bedlam Farm had been my place; I bought it before I knew Maria and had lived there, mostly
alone, for six years. We both wanted a place that would be ours together, and I knew that she would love a house that she could help choose and that we would make our home together.

We both wanted a farm, a place that would be good for the donkeys, dogs, sheep, and barn cats. Maria would need a studio outside of the house to work in. I would need a room in the house for my office. We’d also need a pen for the dogs, and a standing barn for hay and storage.

But we didn’t need ninety acres. There were no longer cows or goats on the farm. I had reduced the herd of sheep from thirty-six to five; Maria sold the wool. Neither of us hunted or rode horses or was looking for more animals. We wanted a quieter, more manageable life. We put Bedlam Farm on the market and began looking around. I thought the farm would sell quickly. It did not. I thought we would find another home quickly. We did not.

Every place we looked at had a problem for us. There was a bad well in one. Another was on a floodplain. A third was isolated deep in the woods. A fourth didn’t have an outbuilding where Maria could have her studio. We realized that what we thought would be a quick transition would be a long haul.

Rocky had altered the routines and rhythms of both of our lives. We had our own animals to care for, our own dogs to walk, our own work to do. But we both loved Rocky, were drawn into the life of this animal who seemed a mystic to me, so content by himself in his pasture.

Every afternoon, we found ourselves driving the thirteen miles to Florence’s farm. The house was quiet, empty now, though Florence’s collection of blue glass pieces still adorned the windowsills facing the pasture. Her spirit was very much in evidence.

When we pulled in, we would hear Rocky’s gentle neigh,
and no matter where he was, he would soon make his way to the back of the barn. We would enter from the front of the barn, open a sliding door, and walk down a concrete walkway. There was a gate, the top half open to the rear, and we would see Rocky’s head bobbing. He would be waiting for us.