Over vacation, I was finally able to quickly cruise through Kathy Stevens' book, Where the Blind Horse Sings, which has been sitting in my reading basket for months now (eight books to go!). It seems to have been written to be accessible enough for an elementary school student, so that's one reason I was able to dispatch it so swiftly. But this simplicity, while occasionally a bit stultifying, mostly helped remove any linguistic distance that might have gotten in the way of fully relating to Stevens' stories about Catskill Animal Sanctuary. They are instead very direct and emotional. She aims for your heart, not your head, and she mostly succeeds.I very much enjoyed Stevens' focus throughout the book, which quickly moves to and stays with the animals themselves, their personalities and stories. In other words, WtBHS is predominantly about who the animals are, not how their species are treated, though Stevens does ultimately spend some time discussing animal welfare issues and even describes riding a horse at one point, which I will get to in a moment.
First, the welfare-oriented stuff. I get why she went this way. Many people who come through sanctuaries literally have no idea about the conditions of animals in intensive confinement operations, and this could be their first exposure to the cruelties inherent in animal exploitation, so these are things they do need to know, to dispell the myths they hold in their heads about animals.
But Stevens is obviously clear about animal use as exploitation, too. She mentions the word at least once, if not more often (I didn't take notes), and refers readers to Gary L. Francione's Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? So, between that and the great pains she takes to help readers see animals as individual, sentient beings, she is clearly on board with animal rights at its fundamental level. It's just awkward to see her quoting Peter Singer and Matthew Scully. While influential writers, neither makes a rights-based case for avoiding the exploitation of animals. This sets her readers up for some potential confusion when they read conflicting messages about whether animals are ours to use--but kindly!--or not ours to use at all.
Which leads me to my second concern. At first I was quite put off by Stevens' story about riding a horse, Buddy, who had come to the sanctuary a month prior afraid to move at all and had grown trusting and confident enough to run for a good quarter mile. Buddy is blind, you see. That throws an interesting wrinkle into the story (in addition to giving WtBHS its name, of course). I put the book down and thought about this chapter for a little bit as the countryside passed by the window of my bus between Boston and New York.
Much horseback riding is justified by saying that the animals love it. Well, obviously animals love to be let of out confinement so that they can walk, canter and, of course, run. They don't need humans for that. Most of them, anyway. The key here is that the human in question is typically doing it out of his or her love of the activity, and is very much in charge as the dominant animal in this relationship, despite what are often very genuine feelings for their horses. But how often do the riders think about what horses want and when? How often does a rider treat a horse's interests as equal to theirs? And I'm not just talking about respecting the animal, but really having the guts to let the horse be in charge.
With Stevens, it's pretty clear that the animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary rule the roost. Further, we're talking about a blind horse here. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but it makes sense to me that a horse who has come to trust a "seeing eye human" would not only feel comfortable being ridden, but would insist on it, in order to feel confident that should any obstacles arise, the sighted human will let him know to stop. One has to wonder how long before that moment it had been since Buddy had last been able to run freely for pleasure. Of course, it's easy for a narrator to coax her vision of a story into making her look quite good indeed, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt after reading the entire book.
I was reminded how easy it is to become dogmatic about a philosophy. So easy to say, "It is never okay to ride a horse. It is always exploitation." But such narrow thinking simply breaks down here. Sure, Stevens benefited from riding Buddy, but (and maybe this is revisionist authorship at work here), the pleasure seems to stem more from the pleasure at seeing Buddy start to fully inhabit himself as a horse again than from the actual act of riding on him. It was honestly quite touching.
I found most of the animals' stories heartwarming, even when they were sad, from Petri the duck to Paulie the rooster, from Rambo the sheep to Samson the steer, and even Murphy the dog. I found my eyes tearing up at least three times, mostly with joy, though once I did let my mind wander to how we treat these wonderful beings and I did weep for them, but I'm not ashamed to admit that.
These interspecies relationships--not just between the animals and the caretakers at CAS, but also between the nonhuman animals themselves--deepened even my appreciation for the needs animals have, and their capacity for trust and love. It's an awesome experience if you can let that appreciation wash over you. As such, WtBHS is a refreshing change of pace from the usual "animal books".
I'm glad that Stevens' writing was able to move me in that way, and I hope that it has as strong an impact on others who might not yet have considered an animal-free diet. For those who already have, and who might be considering sanctuary work, Where the Blind Horse Sings is a must-read.
