I'm Listening With a Broken Ear

by Vicky Kaseorg

  "If he isn't showing interest," she said, "You have not made it worth his while, or you are asking too much of him."

  My brain explodes with thoughts, most of them shaming me. So many times I recall not getting what I want from my kids educationally, and my tactic has often been to raise the bar, raise the expectation. I have been doing to them exactly what the owner of the Spaniel has been doing. I have made the problem worse. I listen carefully to Laura.

  "If I show up to work, and my boss gives me a nickel for every hour I am there, by the end of the day, I am not going to be willing to stay and finish the job," she says, “Or, let's say I have a problem with being late. If I show up five minutes LESS late than the day before, and I am rewarded for that, I will make a little more effort to not be late. Get this people. Reward your dogs. Reward them lavishly. You cannot motivate them too much. And don't just reward them at the end. Reward at different times, or they will only work at the end."

  Again I am only there in body. My mind is remembering our child rearing and home school. So often the reward comes at the end of a long project, or maybe even not till the end of the school year. I look at the bored and lumbering Spaniel, and the tentative excitement starting to show as he looks at his owner. What embers have I lost over the years? What fires have not roared? Honeybun sits eagerly before Asherel, wagging her tail. Asherel slips her a piece of steak. I would have dissolved into a mess of self-reproaching tears, but Honeybun chose that moment to expel gas and the moment passes.

  Class ends and we hop in the car. Honeybun instantly curls up on the seat.

  “She had fun,” says Asherel.

  “How can you tell?” I ask.

  “Well look at her, she’s smiling.”

  I put on my seat belt and turn to gaze at the tired dog. I don’t see a smile, and I don’t see ribs either. I see more strict enforcement of food restrictions, and maybe a dog chiropractor if we continue down this crazy path.

  As we drive home in the now chilled evening, I tell Asherel, "I learned so much tonight. About how to homeschool better. I don't think I have rewarded you enough for just showing up."

  "You mean in the morning when I come out for school you should be giving me a cinnamon roll every day?" she asks happily, her bright cheeks glowing from the fresh air and cool evening.

  I laugh and feel a quiet joy for unquenchable spirits, glancing at Honeybun who has snuggled peacefully into the seat. She looks at me knowingly and within a minute is snoring.

  Dear Lord Jesus,

  I understand that for someone who has the vantage point of eternity, months to get a horse to let you touch her neck or for a dog to learn to squelch aggression may be but a blink of an eye. For me, it has been a long and tormenting slow journey. It is often hard to persevere, especially through the plateaus of progress. I am recognizing something however that I bet you thought I would never get. The longer it takes to reach a goal, the more valued that prize becomes. I sometimes wish that I had met you as a child, and that I would not have made so many mistakes in life…. Well yes, ok, they are sins. There, I said it. But I guess as soon as I commit even one sin, and even now that usually occurs within fifteen minutes of waking up, Jesus would have had to die. I am still grappling with that concept, that a Holy sinless God cannot share even one molecule with a sinful creature in His presence.

  What I do understand, at least a little, is that poor lady in church, and how desperately she hurts and longs for her child to return. She doesn’t want to force her love, of course, or it wouldn’t be love. If the child returns with no sense of the hurt she has inflicted or the error of her ways, I suppose the mother might even suffer more. The only way the prodigal’s return could bring joy and reconciliation is if it is her choice, and if she understands what a right relationship with her mother really is all about.

  I am so sad to admit that I have been a prodigal daughter to you. I say I want to be near, but then struggle to find time to pray, or immerse myself in your word, or strain for righteousness. I probably grieve you more than even I grieved when Honeybun was ignoring my pleas for her to stop attacking. I followed you with Honeybun until I realized it was going to be hard… and then I wasn’t quite so anxious to stick to your plan. And when I succeeded, I took my eyes off of the author of my success, and put them on me again.

  But like all good teachers, you have rewarded me all along the way. You have brought me new friends, a new joy for my little girl, a new mission that helps others and fulfills my love for hurting creatures. And I am even beginning to dare to reach out to people. Though that is still hard.

  I guess that long verse about perseverance leading to hope in Romans 5 is true. I am not sure I really got it before, because it starts out with suffering, and I try as hard as I can to avoid suffering. But this dog has caused suffering…. and that certainly led to perseverance, mostly because I had no choice. And if the verse is true… then perseverance is at work developing my character, and when I have character…. I have hope. It’s funny. I do have hope. I don’t know when I got it, but I have a growing sense that this isn’t really about a dog… is it? The dog is just your messenger reminding me to listen up, because my character needed a little spring cleaning.

  Ok, Lord, I am listening. I am listening with broken ears, but at least now they are cocked in the right direction.

  Amen.

  CHAPTER 13 Hope and Self Reflection

  On one of the field trips, Malta goes through her story about the herd of nurse mare foals on her farm. I have listened before, but this time she makes the plight very real.

  She asks for volunteers and pulls out four girls. She tells us one little girl is a very expensive foal, and another her mother. The other two girls are playing the parts of the inexpensive foal and mother.

  The expensive mare is used solely to produce expensive foals. These expensive foals are overwhelmingly thoroughbreds, race horses. The normal gestation period of horses is about a year, and very shortly after birthing a foal, the mare is shipped back to the stud farm to get ready to produce another foal. At this point in her story, Malta takes the volunteer expensive mare and pushes her away. The volunteer expensive foal is now hungry, and without a mama or milk.

  The Jockey Club does not allow race horses to be artificially inseminated, thus the mare has to be shipped to the stud farm. The new expensive foal however, is too small and vulnerable to be transported. The foal is quite valuable so the owner uses less expensive mares solely for the purpose of bringing them to milk.

  Malta grabs the "cheap" volunteers and pushes them together.

  "So," she continues, "the cheap mare is impregnated, has her foal, and now can produce milk. The owner takes the cheap mare, and brings her to the expensive foal."

  Malta now walks the "cheap mare" volunteer over to the "expensive foal" volunteer, and tells her to drink up.

  The remaining volunteer is a small skinny girl, now left all alone. Malta returns to her.

  "Now this," she snaps, "Is the cheap foal. The owner takes her....," Malta grabs the arm of the little girl, "...and throws her in the ditch." She tosses the little girl to the side.

  "If she is lucky, the owner will bash her over the head with a 2x4. If not, more often, she will be left to die of starvation. A very few will be rescued by places like us."

  The little skinny girl stands off to the side, wringing her hands.

  "Those horses in the field there," points Malta, "Are all nurse mare foals.... well they are grown up now, but we still think of them as foals."

  "Who pays for that?" asks one mother.

  "Will," she answers, laughing, "And me. We have a business installing sound systems and most of our money goes into the farm."

  "What can a regular person do to help this situation?" I ask, horror seeping in as I watch the skinny child still standing off to the side, alone.

  "It's a catch-22," says Will, who rarely speaks, but obviously feels deeply for the horses, "Right now, some of the Nurse Mare farms will let
people like us pay the ransom, and buy the discarded foals. If we raise a stink, they won't let us get to the foals. They will still operate, but more sneakily."

  The little girl slowly edges her way closer, back to her mother.

  What a world of grief I have been oblivious to! I know suffering is out there, but prefer the ostrich approach to overwhelming horror…. I like to bury my head and come up in time for dinner. However, Honeybun is alive because once, I didn’t. Maybe sometimes once is enough.

  The other horses that live at Last Chance Rescue are mostly rescued PMU mares. A PMU mare is one whose urine is collected to provide postmenopausal women with hormone replacement therapy. The urine is used in the medicine. The mares are stacked side by side in standing stalls sometimes no more than three feet wide, and hooked up to a urine collection device for six months or more of their gestational period. They have minimal or no human interaction or relief from the boredom of the stall. Just before foaling, the mares are removed from the device, allowed to birth the foal, and then the whole process begins again. The foal, as wanted as the discarded nurse mare foal, often meets the same fate. When the PMU mare has reached the end of her useful life producing urine so human woman can avoid hot flashes, they are often sent overseas for use as food, or their hides are used for purses and other goods.

  We look out over the field of the PMU mares. Clouds gather overhead, but the rain holds off till the field trip ends. Malta speaks to the group, but keeps looking my way. I have the uncomfortable feeling that she is speaking to me directly. What more can I do? Sure I have hot flashes but I have never used hormones to deal with it, and now that I know to do so would be the equivalent of drinking horse pee, I sure won’t start.

  We drive home past the billboard announcing the upcoming Steeplechase. Asherel and I attend that every year. Beautiful thoroughbreds race and jump over various obstacles. We make a day of it. We go early, pack a picnic, bring chairs and camp out right alongside the track, at a break in the foliage. If we wanted to break our arms, we could reach out and touch the horses thundering by. Last summer, we watched two go down. One got up very slowly. I don’t think the other got up at all. I had just ignored the obvious dangers to the horses…. And had not known that for many of those beautiful animals, there was a discarded “cheap foal”.

  Asherel glances at the billboard, and asks if we will be able to go to the Steeplechase. I had hoped she wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t ask. I don’t want to break her heart. A conscience can be a terrible thing.

  “I will leave this up to you,” I quietly answer, “But I have to tell you, I have an icky feeling about it. You know that those horses are there because of nurse mares…. And many foals are thrown away so that thoroughbred can have its mother’s milk….”

  “Then we don’t go,” said Asherel with finality. This is one of her favorite events of the year, one we love, and attend with great preparation and joy. I know she does not relinquish it lightly, and I am proud of her. We drive on past the billboard. The sun is finally breaking through the clouds, briefly with strands of gold in a blanket of grey.

  I am writing grants with a vengeance in preparation for the yearly fundraiser for Last Chance Rescue. I have no experience writing grants, but lately every undertaking in my life involves things I am completely unqualified to attempt. The farm hoe-down fund raiser is thus far not gaining a single donation. Considering the expertise of the grant writer, this should be no big surprise. There is one organization, a manufacturer of horse conditioner, whose initial response is promising. When Malta first sends me the link to the horse conditioner, I laugh, figuring it is a mistake, or a joke, along the same lines as dog chiropractors. Horses need hair conditioner? But it is not a joke. Indeed there are many such companies. I wonder what starving third world companies think of our country where businesses thrive selling products that makes horse manes tangle free.

  They write back after I send them the grant plea letter. This is the first semi- positive response I have received. They ask if we are willing to spend the $30 shipping fee. I write back that as long as the donated goods exceed $30, we are willing, then send them Malta's email and tell her it looks like finally we are going to land a deal!

  A short time later, I receive an email from Malta. She rants about how the horse conditioner company turned us down. She is livid.

  We are not a horse breeding activity like a breeder's show where people are encouraged to make more horses for the world to then discard. They only have money to fund people like the American Quarter Horse Association, (AQHA) which slaughters horses.

  This is news to me. I do a little Google research, and find, as usual, Malta seems to be correct. Apparently, many have speculated about the connection between the AQHA and their promotion of horse slaughter. According to the website I find, PMU breeders work out a deal with the AQHA to register the foals that are produced as a result of the PMU industry (usually a cross between a Quarter Horse and a Draft). This seems strange to me- but it really boils down to making money.... the love of which is indeed the culprit behind much evil. The article alleges that the AQHA profits by registering more horses and the PMU industry profits by selling the foals for more money to individuals and introducing a preferred breed for the slaughter industry.

  Malta is not done with her disgust with the human race for the day. She sends me a notice that Michael Vick, the NFL player who had been sent to prison for his pit bull dog fighting business, is about to be paroled, after serving twenty-three months in jail. Upon release, the NFL commissioner is considering his reinstatement into the NFL. Countless dogs were slaughtered in his callous disregard of the law and decency. I could not find if he had sent money to rescue organizations, or attempted in any way to make amends to the victims of his crime.... yet here he is about to be restored to his multimillion dollar contracts and life, a role model for the youth of America.

  I spend the day working on grants, with several back and forth emails with Malta.

  It is an art class day, so at 2:00, I finish my work on the grant writing, and tell Asherel to put Honeybun in the back room.

  "It will be easier, if I don't have to deal with her," I say.

  It is not that I don't trust her around the kids. But the art class enters through the back yard gate, which I leave open, so Honeybun would have to be tied so she can’t escape from the yard.

  "Oh please!" begs Asherel, "Let's just leash her in here so she can see the kids."

  Agreeing, since class is due to start any minute and I am worn out from all the animal despair I have dealt with thus far this day.

  I tie Honeybun to the end table leg that is wedged in the corner of the sunroom between the two large couches. She can’t reach the kids, but will be able to be with them and see them, promoting positive socialization.

  She watches the first kid clump up the deck stairs, and begins barking like a maniac. I run to get the whip, and smack it down in front of her, yelling, "Enough!"

  She quiets momentarily, so I hurry to the next room to gather supplies. The next few seconds are a blur. Another child comes in the door. Honeybun lunges, and there is an awful cracking sound. A whirl of golden fur races towards the child, the leash towing a broken off table leg. There is nothing I can do but watch.

  The child freezes, and then Honeybun is upon her......licking her and wagging her tail.

  She has broken a table leg off in her desire to lick a child.

  The rest of the class floods in, and Honeybun greets them all, waggling like a Mexican jumping bean and licking them, towing the table leg behind her.

  This is a dog that no one wanted. This dog would certainly have been euthanized if we had called Animal Control to get her. And now, a crowd of little children gather around her, laughing and petting her. I take the table leg off her leash and try to stick it back on the table.

  Malta's response later when I tell her:

  I guess we can declare her "cured"? Of course now you should get rid of her for ruining furnitu
re!

  Honeybun has her own epiphany at the next Handling Class. We arrive to hear that the temporary field lights have finally blown a fuse, and with the sun already setting, we are urged to get moving through four various stations quickly before darkness huddles too closely around us. The "pay" today is left- over pot roast. I dribbled the gravy in the bag too so it covered the less scrumptious hot dogs. Honeybun is prancing as soon as we hit the field. She knows her "salary" has just gone up, and she is eager to work some overtime.

  The first station is set up in a circuit, with a u-shaped tunnel at both ends and two jumps in between. Honeybun does not understand the word, "tunnel" at first, but after four or five circuits, she begins to comprehend, and is racing through the course, collecting her paycheck eagerly at the end of the tunnel.

  The next course is two sets of weaves, and a pause table. Her job here is to race through the weaves, sail onto the pause table, sit for at least a count of five, and then pirouette through the next set of weaves. Weave poles are her nemesis. To do the weaves well, the dog must first understand always to enter from the right, and second, that she must weave in and out of the poles without missing one as fast as possible. However, to go fast, she has to do flying lead changes, or skips, between each pole. It is not a natural motion for a dog, and really kind of silly being as a dog generally chooses the shortest path to pot roast. I watch my girl and dog with skepticism.

  "This one will not be easy," I comment.

  Asherel wisely ignores my lack of confidence and pulls out her morsel of pot roast. She unsnaps the leash. Fortunately, the weaves are set up for beginners. They are "channel weaves" which are poles on movable platforms that can be placed in a straight line for the expert dog, but spread out for the less experienced, so that the middle channel becomes a wide path. At their extreme outer placement, the dog doesn’t have to weave at all, but can run down a middle clear path. This is where Asherel places the poles for her first run through. Even this set up is difficult for Honeybun, however. There are no impenetrable walls, and since she doesn't quite understand her mission here, she often runs off to the side.