Spade The Painted Horse (Click to enlarge)
Meet Spade, a well-loved, albeit new addition to a dreamin’ woman’s family. This is another image from my visit to horse country in southern Louisiana this past weekend. Spade is a sweet and lovely gelding just learning to be a saddle horse, but making great strides toward that end.
To continue our discussion begun yesterday about dreams, I must also counter with reality. It’s about commitment. I have wonderful friends and acquaintances who do a lot of rescue work with dogs and cats. While I was out having a great time with well-cared for pets, there were others who were losing their fight for life due to the horrors of puppy mills. If you think that is something that is happening elsewhere, think again.
You would be surprised how close to your own safe abode, lives are abused and lost, in crates and cages filled with filth and vermin. We are finding that within a couple of miles from us is a probable mill, where two brave dog souls escaped, and were found by two of my heroic friends. They scooped them up – on different days, but both this past weekend. Another of our kind-hearted friends helped to sort out the filth and fleas from one’s coat before placing him in a forever home. Good news travels fast. The day that sweetie escaped was the first day of his life. The other escapee? Not so lucky. She had to be put down because her advanced case of heart worms prevented any hope for survival.
This story is not meant to bring you down from your dreams. It’s meant to inject some reality. Commitment. For those who have a problem with commitment…well, you are not hard-wired to be a pet owner…or a family member, by the way. When we set out to follow our dreams, we should plan an exit strategy. When people who breed animals don’t think it through, and don’t plan for puppies and kittens who don’t get sold, they can easily become a mom and pop mill. No one plans to fail, but it’s inevitable that most breeders end up with too many animals at one time or another. What to do? There are only two choices, both of them undesirable; one is abominable. Give them away. Put them down. Those options don’t seem to be considered when embarking on the life of a breeder.
Suppose you are of advanced age and your dreams involve the adoption of a long-lived pet, such as a large parrot or horse. Plans need to be made to provide for them, in the case of your demise. These considerations should also apply to the younger human adopter and dogs and cats as well. How about an exit strategy, in the event of illness or inability to continue the care of these beloved animals? When you add to your family, provisions must be made. It’s a marriage of sorts. In sickness and in health, you must be committed.
Photographers? Well, the lives we document are not ours to keep. Your exit strategy will be much easier. You can sell your equipment, because it is rightful property, as opposed to animals who should never be considered property. But don’t give up on any of it so easily. Plan for your exit, but use the strategy as a last resort. Commit. I have not completely given up on my dreams of anything, other than becoming an Olympic athlete (well, there is Luge). I just have to plan and commit. If it involves another life, I must think it through, plan for an unforeseen possibility of illness or death, and involve others who have no problem with commitment. No one takes this journey alone.
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