Above:
Buddy III and I in a calm moment.
The first Buddy, the one who sang.
The first Buddy napping.

Even though it slices so sharply into my lower back that I can hardly breathe, I am happy to have this pain. I am happy because it has replaced three weeks’ numbness in my right arm and leg. Numbness scares me. It is unfamiliar and seems ominous. Back pain and I are old friends. And since I started an animal sanctuary for abused farm animals in 2001, back pain and I see a lot of each other.

It’s not the worst back injury I’ve had. But it’s no fun. And as with most of my other injuries—all to the back—I was hurt in the course of a normal day.

This time, it happened with Buddy.

The first Buddy, a nearly-30 blind Appaloosa gelding, died three years ago, his head in my lap as I stroked his cheek and sang to him. He was a remarkable horse, the first of many blind creatures at Catskill Animal Sanctuary. What a joy it was to relive his transformation as I wrote my book, Where the Blind Horse Sings: Love and Healing at an Animal Sanctuary. Who would ever believe that another old, blind Appaloosa gelding named Buddy would appear nearly three years to the day after Buddy the First’s death? Not I. But down the driveway he came one brisk winter afternoon.

Buddy III (yes, there was another Buddy as well) is a little fart: under fifteen hands, for sure. And while his predecessor was barrel-chested and round, this Buddy is as narrow as a yearling. He has the manners of a yearling, too! He careens around and walks in a crooked line and ignores all commands, whether verbal or manual. Buddy I was such a very eager student. He so wanted to learn, and how he reveled in the student/teacher relationship we developed over the years.

This Buddy? This blind horse is the kid at the back of the room mumbling jokes whenever the teacher’s back is turned. He’s the car that sputters and spits and lurches and grinds, utterly incapable of a smooth ride. And he doesn’t HAVE attention deficit disorder: Buddy IS A.D.D.

Take today, for instance. High winds and torrential rain, so Buddy is stuck inside. No nice stroll around the sanctuary grounds. I’ll groom him and walk him up and down the aisle, I decide. At least he’ll be able to stretch his legs.

Tack box in hand, I enter his stall. “Hey, Bud....hey sweet man,” I say to the goofball, who is instantly mouthing every part of me: my chin, my hat, my coat, my thighs. Buddy is extremely tactile: what a great way for a personable blind horse to connect, after all. (Rescued animals are often unusually tactile, but none as much as the blind ones.) Buddy has an ulterior motive, as well. I hide treats for him. Rather than put them in my pocket, I put them somewhere different each time so that he really does have to search: under my hat, tucked into a sleeve or the bottom of my pants or my bra (plenty of room in there). Even when I don’t have treats—an apple, a carrot, a pear, plum (seeded), or banana—he continues to play. Have I looked there yet? Maybe not!!! There?!!!

He settles down, finally, for grooming. I take out the curry comb, a heavy rubber oval with rows of pointed rubber teeth. I start with small, firm circles just behind his ears. Nirvana. After a few strokes, Buddy’s jaw relaxes, his eyes flutter and droop. In a few moments, his neck drops a bit. Buddy reacts to grooming the way most horses react to massage. OF COURSE: why have I only now thought of it—we must schedule a massage for him!! I laugh, imagining his knees buckling as he collapses to the ground in equine ecstasy, and I make a mental note to schedule a visit from Martha, our volunteer massage therapist.

But back to my back. I’m the one who needs a massage, damn it!

Buddy and I were walking in the woods a good ¾ mile from the barn. He’d been with us for just a few days; the snow was 6” deep, and Buddy was far too nervous to be ridden. (I may never ride him. It’s important to let each animal heal in his own way and time, on his own terms.)

For now, we’re walking, he and I, together, a little farther each day. On the day of our “incident,” Class Clown, convinced after a thorough frisking that I was treat-free, was actually paying attention. His head was high, his ears forward as he listened to the birds, to tree limbs scratching against each other as a strong breeze whisked through them. I was tired. Buddy walks even faster than I do, and I was definitely winded as we moved uphill through the snow.

Without warning, Buddy bolted. Without warning, he panicked. What had he heard or smelled that I had not? I circled him in tiny, tight circles lest he careen headlong into a tree. “Okay, Bud....it’s okay, boy,” I whispered, circling him as tightly as I could with my left hand but pushing against him with all my might with my right hand—indeed my entire right upper body—because he was about to collapse into me. “Calm down, Bud, it’s okay...it’s okay....”

Neither my words nor my manner did a thing to calm the frightened horse. I couldn’t get him to stop, and I certainly wasn’t going to let go: he’d either be dead or seriously injured in a flash. For a half mile back to the barn my I fought with all my might to keep a terrified 900-pound new blind friend contained—to keep him safe. Circle, circle, circle, keep his head in, keep his body away from you. Don’t collapse in the snow. Halfway back, my arms cramped and I fought for breath. “Walt! Lorraine!” I shouted for backup, but no one heard me. “Ten more steps...you can walk ten more steps,” I said to myself, and continued this mantra ten times ten times ten, all the way back.

Finally, we were safely inside the barn. Well, Buddy was. Gasping for air, I shut him into his stall, and collapsed in a shaking heap on the barn floor. Keeping that horse safe for that distance was the toughest physical thing I’ve ever done. No joke. Tougher than the 100-mile bike rides I used to do.

I took a steaming Epsom-salt bath that night, but the next morning, I couldn’t feel my limbs. I couldn’t feel them the next day or the next or the next. Why it didn’t dawn on me that the numbness was connected to the extreme physical challenge I just described I’m not sure, but it didn’t. Maybe because the numbness kept changing, moving around. One moment it was severe and involved my entire right side, the next it was slight and involved just my lower arm. Its severity and region constantly shifted.

I made appointments: chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapists. The day before I was scheduled to see an osteopath, the numbness disappeared. And when it did....boy did pain announce its arrival. “I’M HERE!” it shouted with a relentless pulse to the lower back.

As I said, however, back pain and I are old friends. While I happily live a relatively Spartan life, you’d never guess it by my collection of ice packs and heating pads. Out they come, along with the Epsom salts, Ibuprofen, and the realization that I’d do it again if I had to. Animal rescue is animal rescue, period. Abused animals, abandoned animals, needy animals....they must heal in their own time, on their own terms. Occasionally that means we humans hurt like hell.

Buddy the Third--yes, our third blind Appaloosa named Buddy--is having more good days than bad now. And that feels good.

Buddy arrived a couple months ago from a family that loved him deeply but could no longer afford his care. But Buddy had "issues," too--issues about which we weren't told until after he was surrendered to Catskill Animal Sanctuary. He was blind, which we weren't told, he had panic attacks, which we weren't told, and several times he'd broken out of his pasture (probably during a panic attack). Once he was found standing alone in the woods several days after he was missing; once he was hit by a car.

When Buddy is calm, he's a delight. Perhaps because he cannot see, he is exceptionally tactile. He craves touch--he loves being the "toucher" as much as the "touchee," rubbing his head on our backs, nibbling a sleeve or an arm, or occasionally letting us cradle his head in our arms when he's dozing after a good dinner.

But his panic attacks continue. They're both worrisome and frightening, since the possibility of injury to him and to his handler is very real when they occur. We anxiously await the arrival of the only equine opthalmologist in our region. She'll be able to determine if the attacks are because he has some tiny degree of sight left and is perceiving "floaters" -- tiny particles that float across the eye -- and senses he's being assaulted.

Aaaah, yes: Buddy's sudden and wildly erratic movement is EXACTLY the way one would behave if he were trying to escape from something. Even in his stall, he gets so panic stricken that he crashes into the wall, and nothing we can do--not a calm voice, a calm touch, a treat, holding him in place to help him "get" that nothing is coming at him--consoles him.

Come on, Doc.. We need to help this boy. More good days than bad are welcome, indeed, but each new attack is so hard on him, so hard on us...

Nine Happy Horses

My house is situated high on CAS property and in the middle of a horse pasture. From my back deck I can see the three cow pastures, the sheep pasture, three of our four horse pastures, the duck pond, our “special needs” area for blind duck Sassafras and his protector Succotash, one of our rabbit houses, the pig paddock, the goat pasture, three of our chicken houses. From my office window I can call out to our blind calf Helen and her devoted seeing-eye calf Rudy who, at 6:10 a.m. on a frigid April morning, are still snuggled in their barn.

Indeed, I’m a lucky woman.

The sky lightens slowly. Beyond the pond outside my back door, fifteen cows rest peacefully at the far side of their pasture. Only young Jesse stands near the pond. At nine months old, he’s still a calf, and he’s fascinated by the wild turkeys that strut and preen and peck the ground in front of him.

Athena, Fritz, and Abby stand at my deck, staring at the door. Five other horses—Mango, Mary Anne, Callie, Eloise, and Katydid—turn from the pond’s edge to join their pals. Still in their fuzzy winter coats, the horses nonetheless look good, and I’m pleased. They’ve all gained at least 200 pounds since their rescue from a Saratoga horse farm whose owner admittedly “just didn’t want to feed them.” I smile to myself, stunned that after just three days in this particular pasture the horses already have my number. They know that all they have to do is ask (and they’re doing it beautifully by simply crowding the deck and STARING at my door) and I’ll emerge, treats in hand.

I take a five-pound bag of carrots from the fridge. “Good morning, girls and boy,” I say. (Fritz was the lone boy from this particular animal rescue). I sit on the deck and a pile of rescued horses surrounds me. I’m struck by their patience and politeness as they wait for me to open the bag and dole out the orange prizes. There’s no jostling or competition—even Athena, the head honcho, allows others to cluster more closely than she. Beautiful Abby—pure white—nuzzles the top of my head as she waits. Abby is a wonderful success for Catskill Animal Sanctuary. Near death when she arrived, she could also barely walk: her hooves were a foot long and riddled with abscesses. It took over an hour for her to limp, one painful inch at a time, off the trailer when she arrived. But here she is just three months after her rescue, galloping from one end of her pasture to the next, no sign of pain.

The horses munch their treats as I tell them how fine they look. They’re grateful to be here. While skeptics would say I’m being anthropomorphic, they’d be so dead wrong. Rescued animals show their gratitude in myriad ways obvious to anyone who knows and observes them.

I wait for them to saunter off. They’ll head toward the barn, knowing that it’s nearly time for breakfast. Sure enough, after a few minutes of pats and praises, Athena turns: she has heard Lorraine exiting the kitchen with the breakfast bowls. Eight other horses eagerly follow, and another day begins at Catskill Animal Sanctuary.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a tiny goat who had arrived from Manhattan. He was desperately ill; we weren't sure he would make it.

Well make it he did. "Zen Sunshine" is his name -- Deborah from Luna 61 offered "Zen," and a volunteer was hooked on "Sunshine." We went through the same process a year earlier with Zen's lookalike predecessor. Volunteer Chris Seeholzer dubbed the little goat, who was slightly larger and far less ill than Zen, "Lenny."

"No!" I exclaimed, having already chosen a name. His name is Nelson!!"

So "Lenny" became "Leonard H. Nelson," and most of us used his full name when referring to him.

A few weeks after his arrival, Zen Sunshine has doubled in size. No more crusty nose; no more coughing or sneezing. Much to his dismay, he's been weaned from the bottle he loved. But the bottle is probably the only thing he misses from those first few weeks spent in quarantine. Today, Zen has replaced our young pig Franklin as resident troublemaker. (As a free-range piglet, Franklin wound up spending so much time in "time out" that we reluctantly, a couple months ago, placed him in the field with the grown up pigs. He does just fine, as long as volunteer Allen Landes remembers his treats--squash microwaved for 30 seconds--each day.)

So Zen is our newest free-range animal, challenging 50-pound feed bags to duels and using wheelbarrows full of shavings as trampolines and staring down a blind horse, not understanding why the horse who cannot see does not quake in fear.

Why do we do this? Because we can. Because we have lots of space and lots of loving hearts and hands to get the newest member of the "underfoot family" out of trouble many, many times a day. Because allowing young or new or inexperienced or timid animals free range of the property always seems the very best way of convincing them that life is good.