I have learned the hard way that writing about a favourite animal can be dangerous, even fatal. Any attempt to preserve the image of a furry friend for posterity always ends in tears. I once transferred a photo of a dear dog onto a coffee cup for my wife and we buried the dog within the year. One summer, an artist came to the farm to immortalize two animals in egg tempera, our black sheep Cinder, and Mrs. Trotter, the nanny goat who nursed all of our children. By the time those paintings were hung on the wall, both animals had entered into rest.
The rule only applies to animals I like. We inherited an ill-tempered appaloosa mare named Zooey who ate all the boards off the barn and beat up every companion horse we gave her. She was an escape artist and a fence-jumper and a tree-eater and a complete pain. For years, we maintained the public fiction that she was “a dear old thing.” But I quietly painted and photographed and wrote about that horse for a decade hoping to hasten her end. She was indestructible.
She lived to be 35 and died a completely natural death.
Many years ago, when my daughter was five years old she took her pet duck Ferdinand to the fair and won first prize. We were all thrilled for her but when she stuck Ferd’s picture up on the fridge with the red ribbon, I had an ominous feeling. She loved that duck, but the duck took risks. He thought he was best friends with Duke, the old collie dog who lived in the barn. Ferd followed Duke around all day, trying to chase cats with him and bark when visitors arrived. Duke tried to be patient but he made it clear he would rather not be seen with a duck. One night, when Ferd climbed into Duke’s bed in the barn and tucked himself in beside him, I noticed the dog’s lip start to curl. I worried that I might come out in the morning to find a mauled duck on the floor, so I took Ferd to the other barn. He promptly decided he was best friends with a sheep.
This too, was risky behaviour. A sheep is not careful about where and when it decides to flop down for the night and once down, it is deaf to all suggestions about getting up. Sure enough, one morning after the sheep had struggled to their feet and gone out into the barnyard I found poor Ferd pressed flat into the straw and very stiff.
Hannah was heartbroken. She sat for a long time on the garden wall cradling Ferdinand in her arms, tears rolling down her cheeks, begging him to wake up again. We buried him under the crab apple tree in a moving ceremony attended by all staff and planted crocus bulbs over him that continue to bloom today.
A short time after Ferdinand’s passing, Hannah and I were sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, reading one of those New Age children’s books out of Kansas City, the type that celebrate uplifting examples of sharing and goodness. This thin volume had re-worked the story of Humpty Dumpty to give it a happy ending, showing how all the king’s horses and all the king’s men using teamwork, cooperation and respect could indeed put Humpty together again.
The story failed to impress Hannah who, at the age of five, already knew that when eggs break there is nothing to be done. Stuff happens. A favorite duck dies and you must gather yourself up and go on. Very rarely do we get a chance to put the Humpty Dumpties of the world back up on their wall. It was an important lesson and although it was painful to watch it happen to a child, I knew I must not try to shield her from it.
The Stoic writer Epictetus told us that we should be careful not to hold those things we love too closely to us for the day may come when we may have to live without them. If Epictetus had owned a duck like Ferdinand he might have added that it is also important not to date outside your species.