Departed Friend Newsletter No. 34 Mar ’09

CASSIE

Last Summer, I had to visit Histon in Cambridge. Only a short drive away is the village of Cottenham – and Bridge Farm Riding School, run by my namesake Debbie. She used to run the Alternative Riding School near Luton and I have many happy memories of wonderful times with all the horses and ponies and my special favourite – Spirit. (see DF no. 1 for my tribute to Spirit).  I rang Debbie and it was arranged that Peter and I would visit Bridge Farm when my business in Histon was finished.

It was good to see her again and to meet so many beautiful new horses and ponies. But it was best of all to see the ‘veterans’- Cassie, Omar and Magic. I remembered them all with great affection, especially Cassie, a fast and feisty chestnut I used to ride a lot, mostly after Spirit died.  She was much changed – now retired, a very arthritic old lady of 30, ancient in equine terms. She moved stiffly and slowly but seemed to enjoy grazing in the sunshine with her cronies. I took this photo of her. Debbie does not see her horses as economic units. Those who by reason of ill health or old age can no longer be ridden are retired – loved and looked after according to their needs. But Debbie is not afraid to end their suffering when life becomes burdensome to them. So I knew my old friends were still content.

Some time in the New Year, I had a feeling that Cassie had died and I visited the Bridge Farm website, http://bfrs.co.uk.

Sadly I was right – she had had to be put down in December, followed by Omar in January. Of the veterans, only Magic now remains – it is nearly the end of an era.          

Debby W

You folk here will never know
The Cassie I was ten years ago
I came all crippled with a hobbled walk
But I heard from others, all their talk
The ride, the kids, the dogs, the fun
And I joined in and I became one
Of the little mad ponies, faster than most
Like a jet propelled pencil, Debbie would boast
But to ride on me you had to have skill
Because I galloped off and never was still
Finally, my legs gave way and bent out the side
Sad to say now I can’t give a ride
But whenever you go to the ‘old horses end’
Remember me, I could be your friend

(Poem by Debbie; reproduced from Bridge Farm website)

Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals

~ ESMA ~

This wonderful no-kill animal shelter in Egypt was founded in 2007 by ten phenomenal individuals.  Because of the obvious lack of attention to mistreated, abandoned and abused animals, they came together from all walks of life and backgrounds and created a safe haven for the four-legged creatures who cannot speak for themselves.  All founders are business professionals as much as animal rights activists, whether full-time or part-time. They noticed the severe shortage of animal welfare groups in Egypt and thus ESMA was established.  All have the same goal in mind and created a place for animals in need; creating public awareness and educating the children of that country. 

In their words, the true motivation and bonding factors were two incidences in early 2007, as Egyptian police officers were once again ordered to go on a stray-dog killing mission.  Among the 15 dogs shot that day was one pregnant female with two bullets, hitting her in her stomach and through the mouth, keeping her alive for 15 excruciating minutes while her unborn puppies spilled out of her abdomen onto the dirty street as people and children just walked past.  This female was named ESMA.

The second incident occurred the next day in a very affluent section of Cairo, in Mohandeseen.  An American Diplomat (Andrea Adler) had been caring for two strays for more than nine months, feeding them every single evening and even using them as assistants in her dog training sessions.  She named them Black Jack and Bandit. Both were shot at 8:00 o’clock in the morning right outside her window (she never heard the shots), where they lay in the blistering sun and heat all day, in the middle of the street, with people having to step over and around them.

The shelter, which does wonderful work for cats and dogs, offers sanctuary, veterinary care and adoption facilities. Their website http://www.esmaegypt.org is well worth a visit.

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This is Angel. She was hit by a car and sustained multiple fractures.  ESMA took her in and launched a successful appeal for funding for the urgent operations that she needed.

The shelter and the website are dedicated to Esma, Black Jack and Bandit.

 * “May you rest in peace, our sweet angels”

When no words will bring comfort…..

How can we help?

I wrote in DF no. 9 about ‘When grief is made worse’, giving examples such as losing a human and an animal close together; losing a very young animal; where the death is sudden or unexpected; not being present; etc.

Lately I have been wondering how to respond if someone  perceives their situation as utterly hopeless – for instance, if they have no-one to talk to, or people don’t understand and say insensitive things, resorting to ridicule or contempt. There may be other traumatic or disastrous occurrences in their lives (e.g. losing home, job and animal in quick succession; being in bad health, etc).

Sometimes it is possible to reassure the owner that the death was quick and painless – but not always.  Some animals suffer a prolonged, agonising death – through illness, accident, poisoning…. Or it might have been avoidable, due entirely to the owner’s negligence and then they are racked with guilt. In these circumstances, it is not helpful to say: ‘Don’t feel guilty.’ It is better to listen quietly, respectfully and without judgement to what they have to say.

So, faced with a situation that seems totally hopeless, what can we do? Some of it may be very hard for us to hear, as it may cause us personal pain and distress if we feel the anguish of the bereaved person, or get an idea of what the animal went through. We need empathy and compassion and above all, the ability to listen, so we can help the sufferer get it off their chest, lift themselves out of that rut and take the first tiny steps towards coming to terms with their loss. It really does help to talk to someone.  We may need to:

Help the person to know that their feelings are perfectly natural and that they are not alone.

Listen to the story as many times as they need to tell it.

Appreciate the unique qualities of the special animal. Talk about the animal, using his/her name – reminisce, look at photographs together if this is not too painful.

Don’t give false comfort. Being honest acknowledges the depth of the sorrow and brings a kind of relief; the person knows their grief is not being trivialised.  When my son asked me, at the age of 4, why his friend had drowned, I had no easy answer. I sat him on my lap, held him and said: ‘I don’t know.’

Allow the person to go into graphic detail about the illness, accident or manner of death if they need to. Try not to recoil; don’t shrink from listening to what is unhearable. They probably feel isolated in the horror and if they want to express or externalise it, allow them to do so, as bringing it out into the open can help lighten the darkness.

Grief is a hard road to travel; there are no short cuts, but it can certainly help to have someone walk it with you.  If it is too much to handle, or there is a risk of suicide, the bereaved person must be encouraged to seek immediate professional help. Hopefully, as they make the journey, they will gradually remember the good times, as the happy memories eclipsed by the death begin to resurface and once more come to light – like the snowdrops that have reappeared around my cat Eric’s grave, one year on from his death.

Do you have any ideas or thoughts on this subject? If so, we would be very interested to hear them.  Ed.

Eddie (also known as Pea)

Taken from us suddenly on Boxing Day 2008 by the nasty road people.

So dearly missed every day.

The house is so quiet without you around, you were our noisy furry alarm clock on a morning, in & out all night. We shall miss the supply of frogs, birds & worms bought to us as gifts on a daily basis. You were such a character & this shall live on in your memory of many we have.

Sweet dreams Pea

Until we meet again.

With lots of love from

Mummy, Daddy & Big Brother Mork

xxxxxxxxxx

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Your Letters ………..……” *

Remember the greyhound who died last year after being neglected in a police station?  (See DF no. 28, Ed)  Last week was the anniversary of his death and wreaths were placed on his grave in remembrance of him.

John Cowen

This is indeed a wonderful thing to hear about ….  We have many many stories if ever you need more material for your magazine,  I look forward to reading your magazine and thanks so much for what you are doing in the memory of our beloved ones.

Susie Nassar, Special Appeals Co-ordinator, ESMA www.esmaegypt.org

I thought that you might like to see photographs of  the  Remembrance Service (for animals) in London (Nov.2008).   Miranda Richardson and Jenny Seagrove both attended. Miranda Richardson is in the back ground on one of the photographs.Linda Bodicoat

 ~ Tribute to LILY ~

1987 – 21^st January 2008

Lily came to us when she was four years old. Having been rescued as a kitten by my mother, she lived with my grandfather until he took up residence in a nursing home.  Shortly after our marriage, Lily settled in with us and became part of our family. She had a fiery temperament, very gentle at times though and she stood no nonsense from anyone.

Lily was a beautiful long haired tabby cat in her prime, admired by our male cats and looked up to by our cat Jasper when he was a kitten. It was a pleasure to see her take him round the garden for the first few weeks of his life with us, showing him the sights and our garden. He idolised her and followed her lead. They became firm friends.

When she was six years old, Lily had a head on collision with a car in front of our eyes and disappeared underneath it. Our immediate thoughts were that she must be dead. She could not have survived the hit. When we searched underneath the car she was nowhere to be found. The sound of the impact brought outside local residents to see what the noise was. There was absolutely no sign of her anywhere. We searched gardens

until we couldn’t think of where else to look. We went home stunned by what had happened but there waiting for us on the doorstep was Lily, unscathed and not a mark on her. She cashed in most of her nine lives on that day.

She took more care of herself after that and lived another ten years until her next major incident when she had to have an eye removed. She was already losing her sight, which worried us but she was a strong, independent cat and showed that she was made of sterner stuff. She adapted very well and lived a normal life, just as when she had both eyes. She seemed unaffected by the loss.

As Lily grew older, her temperament mellowed and she became much more gentle and enjoyed sitting on a lap and being cuddled.

In her final few years, she enjoyed life in our garden and never ventured far and took up occasional residence in my husband’s workshop where she enjoyed listening to the radio with him and watching him work. In her final months she preferred to live in the workshop and found her way around equally as good in the dark as in the light.

She was a truly amazing cat and lived to the grand old age of twenty one, succumbing to thyroid and old age problems. She was an inspirational cat, much loved and treasured by us for the seventeen years she was with us.

Every cat is unique as we have discovered by the number of cats who have entered our lives and passed on. It is a pleasure to look after cats and for me that pleasure far outweighs the grief at the end of the journey, even though the pain of loss is great.

Nancie Gaunt

MARY and other loved ones

~ remembered ~

Mary was being fed by an old friend on his wall, and when he told me she looked pregnant I took her in.  She had four lovely kittens – one grey tabby boy who she lifted out of her kittening bed repeatedly until he died. She obviously knew something was wrong. I didn’t.  She must have had many kittens as she was so droopy underneath her body. She had a lovely thick patterned fur.  So I had her spayed and she lived happily with us and our cats in the enclosed garden, which she could venture from by climbing the trees and away adventuring.

Her bed was on top of my ancient whirlpool washer dryer and she shook at every spin without caring. She supervised every washing up next to me at the sink but never helped.  Her friendly company was enough

Sadly on February 7^th 2008 she and Minty had to go to the vets. Then, after repeated medication and vet visits, Mary had to be released to the long sleep on March 4^th 2008. What

started as a sore mouth revealed a gum tumour which extended behind her eye and into her brain. The tumour we were initially unaware of took her life.She is remembered as a beautiful happy cat.

My neighbour Irene had taken in Jasper Carrot, a thin ginger and white stray, around September 2007, very timid and afraid and hungry. He began to stagger and she asked me to take him to the vets, and she didn’t think I would be bringing him back. On examination he was very weak and had a problem inside his abdomen and the vet advised euthanasia. So poor little Jasper had to be eased out of his suffering quickly. He had just under a year of kindness and regular food at Irene’s house. He is buried in her garden, near the rose trees with her other much loved cats.

Please also include Lucky, a black and white kitten who a friend brought in from crossing a busy main road outside his house, to the park opposite. Liking to play out, Lucky’s life was taken by a car on the same road this year, to be found by his distraught human friend who had given him such a lovely life with his other pet cats.

The main road claimed the life of a long haired all white cat outside my house, late at night. I had never seen this beauty previously and could only retrieve her or him and call the Council worker the morning after to take the body to be scanned in case he or she was microchipped for the owner’s sake, for identification.

What Nancie didn’t tell you  ~ Lily as a small kitten with her sibling (a short haired grey tabby) were being hurtled along by some boys on rubber cords tied around their necks – so fast the kittens were airborne. I took the kittens off the boys and released the cords. After a while I had to let them out into the garden. Lily came back but maybe the short haired one had a neck injury as she never returned. I wish I’d taken them to the vets.  So many tragedies – so many unloved strays.

Pauline Edington

ANNIVERSARIES

When we lose an animal we love, the date of our friend’s passing often becomes fixed in our mind, never to be forgotten, like seasonal holidays or birthdays. Some dates can be especially poignant, as for one DF reader who lost her cat on Valentine’s Day. 18-month old Eddie (Pea), whose tribute appears in this edition of the newsletter,          lost her life on Boxing Day.

A year passes – how do we feel?  Some people may prefer not to dwell on the past or mark the anniversary in any way, giving it at the most a passing thought before focusing firmly on the present or the future. 

Others may only commemorate the first anniversary, or they may do something every year – like visiting the crematorium or putting flowers on the grave.  There are no rights and wrongs: everyone is different and what helps one person might not suit another.

Eric died on 13 February 2008, and we were very conscious that this year was his first anniversary.  It was a poignant time for us and we could hardly believe that he had been gone a year.

In the evening, we arranged candles (some scented) on a table, around a large wooden effigy of an Egyptian cat.               We dimmed the lights, lit the candles and put on some relaxing music. We sat quietly, meditating and thinking of Eric. (One of the pieces of music we played was John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy – we had played this last year after Eric’s burial in the garden, and it really hit the spot.  It did so again this time. I will always associate that particular song with my beautiful boy).

Celebrating Eric’s life and commemorating his death in this way felt right, and though it was quite emotional, it was healthy – and in the morning I felt that another step had been taken in the process of ‘moving on’.  The candles are no longer alight, but the shrine is still in place – for a while.

And I like to think that somehow Eric was with us that night, taking pleasure in our ritual of remembrance and knowing that he will always be remembered with love.

We would be interested to know how other people cope with anniversaries. Is it important to you to do something to commemorate your animal, or do you prefer to do nothing, and treat anniversaries as just another day, in the spirit of ‘Life goes on’? 

FREEDOM RIDER

enabling people to do more with horses

Freedom Rider was started in 1996 in the United States by Victoria Surr, a horsewoman with over 35 years of riding and driving experience.  She was encouraged by a close friend who is disabled and shows her own horses.  Her friend was having a hard time finding things that could be adapted to her special needs, and Victoria Surr realised that there were many other people out there who would like to be able to find these kinds of things in one catalogue.

Ms Surr had the honour of addressing a North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA) conference.  She spoke about how Freedom Rider began:

“About seven years ago I was between horses. At the barn where I had kept my previous horses, there was a disabled woman who had a Morgan gelding named Freedom. This woman, Linda, was looking for someone to  help her with some of the physical aspects of caring for her horse ….. so in exchange for riding Freedom, I started going to carriage driving shows with Linda. 

Linda and I became friends. I acted as her able bodied whip while she drove in carriage dressage and pleasure driving classes.  It was through a conversation with Linda that I had the brainstorm of an idea that became Freedom Rider.

I had just started researching equipment and products when the unthinkable happened. Freedom died. It was very sudden, the vet said it was most likely an aneurism. It was very devastating to Linda and me, but especially to Linda. At Linda’s suggestion, I named my fledgling business Freedom Rider, after the horse that had meant so much to her.”

Freedom Rider became a real catalogue and Ms Surr continues to search out products that are easy to use, enabling equestrians to do more with horses, on the ground and while riding or driving. She has also developed new products specifically for equestrians with disabilities, that are available through the Freedom Rider catalogue.  Items include specially adapted saddles, bridles, reins; equipment such as mounting blocks and steps; books, videos and DVDs of instruction, on safety and therapeutic riding. Products can be ordered by email, via the website www.freedomrider.com or by telephone, toll free from within the United States on   1-888-253-8811. From outside the USA, call 1-603-645-1811. Printed catalogues are usually sent within 6-8 weeks from time of request. Freedom Rider can be reached by mail at: PO Box 4187, Manchester, NH 03108-4187 USA.

My thanks to Vicky who rides at Greenacres Equestrian, Batford, near Luton, England, for information about this inspiring resource.  Ed.

*

Eric’s snowdrops ~ one year on

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