Once his diet was corrected, Felix’s little head started to straighten up. And I had learnt a valuable lesson: no matter how much love you give these animals, knowledge of a species’ specific needs is vital. I knew I was on a steep learning curve and I couldn’t be more excited. I thought about what this funny little bird had meant to my family, and how, in the absolutely worst time in our lives, he had managed to give us the miracle of distraction and humour. I wanted to know everything about these amazing creatures . . . and I wanted to get it right. I decided then and there that ignorance of breed-specific needs was not going to be my style. Knowledge was to be my new bliss.
So just weeks after Leon had made his polite exit, I was living the dream. I was doing well out on my own as an animal trainer, and driving a big and smelly Nissan 4x4 beast. My house bus had scrubbed up nicely, and during the day I could leave the windows open so Felix could come and go—he loved lounging on the couch with the cats in the sun or plucking the petals off whichever fresh-picked flowers I had arranged on the table.
Outside my window, lazing in the breeze, was the most magnificent collection of animals I could ever imagine. At the base of the pile was Drum, a 22-year-old Clydesdale horse, a huge and gentle old man who had come to live with me the day I moved to the country. Under Drum’s chin was Dottie, the first pig I had the pleasure of knowing. Between Drum’s legs was Mabel the Friesian calf who had come to me at just four days old in a sack. Draped on top of Drum were Ernie and Thistle—an orphaned lamb and a kid goat. And the cherry on the top, of course, was Felix the magpie.
Over the years to come I would befriend a diversity of animals, but the memories of this special bunch will always be closest and dearest to my heart. I treasure the fact that fifteen years later I still have Mabel in my life, but as for the rest of the crew, I grieved for them one by one and said goodbye to each of my special friends as time took them. But I will always be grateful for the life-changing lessons I learnt as I watched the complex relationships form between the different species, as they lived, loved and relied on each other as a family.
When one of them was in a cheeky mood and looking for adventure, I would find myself having to retrieve all of the mismatched crew from whatever trouble they had gotten themselves into. They were never far from one another and it was obvious that they were content and accepting of the traits that each of their vastly differing species brought to the relationship. There was never any doubt that they communicated with one another as I watched, learned and steadfastly cared for and protected them. The detail and skill with which they communicated with me grew too.
Little did I know at the time but this motley crew and the respect and understanding I had for them was to be the beginning of HUHA.
CHAPTER 2
A post-apocalyptic pig
For the next two years I immersed myself in everything animal.
When I had first met Leon I was living on site as a senior surgical veterinary nurse at a clinic in central Wellington. But when our relationship grew, I left my job and my home town to set up a new life with him just an hour’s drive away in his home town. Aside from working part-time in a pharmacy I was career-less, and quickly started to feel twitchy. When I heard about a local legend who trained animals for movies I was transfixed with the idea of honing my animal behaviour skills and trying something new.
I approached the trainer about taking me on as an apprentice. There are no special requirements for becoming an animal trainer; you learn on set and by being around it. Of course you have to be naturally good at working with animals, and my problem-solving and veterinary nursing skills helped too. The deal was that for the hours I was learning the trade, I would work for free, but I was also expected to do labouring around the farm, jobs such as thistle-grubbing the 300 or so acres for which I would be paid $7 an hour. My boss decided what was paid work and what was free. She saw it as on-the-job training. So for each long and taxing ten-hour day I would come home with approximately $21 in my pocket. I have never been driven by money, and I saw the value in learning, so I hung in with her for a polite year. But her drive and stony determination meant I couldn’t stay a moment longer. Her ethics demanded that I change and toughen, and I didn’t want to. I liked who I was.
No one could deny that my ex-boss got very impressive results with her style. I had developed a reputation for being cheerful and easy to work with, and my animals were not as robotic as hers, but that just came down to preference and style; for me, a stress-free environment for everyone, especially the animals, was the key. Within days of leaving my boss, I was approached by a children’s television series, asking if I would take the job as head animal wrangler.
The series was about post-apocalyptic child survivors ruling the world . . . but they had a pet pig and a dog and a farm with animals they visited every few episodes to get supplies. In the script the kids formed gangs and ran free, fighting, forming cults and getting pregnant. I’m not sure you could get more far-fetched storylines, but for me the opportunity to live my dream and continue to learn my trade was huge.
For the two years that I worked on the series, I had to have a trained piglet at the ready. The thing is, however, that piglets grow up and so you need to replace them every four or five months with a smaller one. During my apprenticeship I was taught to go to farms to source the animals, to train them, use them and return them. In theory that seemed very practical. But my problem, as it turned out, was returning them. Anyone who has known the love of a pig would completely understand. They are the most amazing animals and are said to be as intelligent as a three-year-old child.
My first visit to a pig farm surprised me because the farmers were scrummy old folk, just like the lovely couple from Babe. They smirked and chortled at the idea of one of their pigs becoming a star, and agreed to sell me a piglet that I could return when it had outgrown its role. I sat in their kitchen drinking dark teeth-fuzzing tea with what looked like hunks of clotted cream straight from the udder floating in it. They had a wood burner blazing away with a line of gumboots and socks steaming as they dried. The smell was like nothing I had experienced before. Sweet and putrid would be my best crack at a description.
They owned a small piggery, only 30-odd sows and, as I was about to find out, about 200 piglets. The sows were kept separately in concrete stalls with wooden frames that allowed the piglets to get away from the mother so she couldn’t roll on them and kill them. Of course, today I have been to several piggeries, including one that held 10,000 pigs, but this little piggery was my first and the smell and the conditions were something I will never forget. We said hello to the penned mums and looked at their tiny babies suckling away, lying on the sawdust and concrete. They were too small to be trained and on set by the end of the week so we moved on to the large shed.
This old shearing shed was the kind that had a suspended slatted floor. Tap-tapping across the floor with only centimetres between them was a sea of piglets; it seemed like there were hundreds. It was the most crowded dance floor I had ever seen. Apparently these wee fellows were the weaners and this is where they would live until they were ready for eating or breeding. The windows were few and far between, and the smell was intense. I could see the hoses that I assumed blasted the faeces through the cracks of the slatted floor and I wondered how the piglets managed to move out of the way of the freezing water in the winter chill. I suspected they were so jam-packed they couldn’t.
So, getting back to business, I decided that these guys and girls were the perfect size to be cast as Porky the post-apocalyptic pig. It was just a matter of choosing one. Oh crikey, how could I choose? I studied them intensely with my casting director hat on and a ponderous gaze. I was really surprised that each piglet looked quite different. The dish of the nose, the flop of the ears, the fear in the eyes . . . they were all completely individual. And yet here they were jammed together, being grown en masse to kill and to eat. No individual needs were being met—these babies had no fun, no freedom, no life.
It was clear that they had been fighting, which was not surprising. It reminded me of how my brother David used to thump me on the arm when we three kids were all cramped into the back seat of the family wagon during the long drive to Taupo on our childhood holidays.
But which one should I choose? I cast a look at the section of the shed in front of me, and there she was, her fed-up little eyes looking straight at me. I pointed her out to the farmer who was still chortling at the idea of a movie-star pig and he immediately went into stealth-like ninja mode. Within seconds a surprised little pig was dangling upside down, being held by one leg in a firm farmer’s grip. I paid my money and went out the door. I was still a little overwhelmed by everything and was so busy trying to look carefree and chipper that I wasn’t really listening to what the farmer was saying to me. But I knew we had agreed that when she was too big for her movie-star role he was happy to take her back. I hopped in the car, popped my seatbelt on, waved a smiley cheery goodbye and as I drove away I knew in my heart that this wee dot of a piglet was never going back . . . not ever.
CHAPTER 3
The best of friends
Collecting animal actors was a learning experience, and I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing in the beginning.
Up until then I had been hiring the animals, which involved relying on local owners to be on set on time, or my career would be in shreds. I had formed a wonderful relationship with a local character called Skin. He had the hugest pig that ever walked the earth. She was called Jane and for the random farm scenes Jane and her piglets were just the ticket, rendering the makeshift set with an instantly farm-y look. The downfall of hiring farm animals is that you are never completely connected with them, unless you have the gift of time. Essentially you are just a friendly stranger with lots of nice food. The system works, but it only gets you so far.
So with Dottie safely in my care I set about socialising the nervous little pig. Her time jammed in the barn had reinforced her fight-or-flight instincts, meaning that because she hadn’t been able to get away from situations that she didn’t like, she would stand her ground and fight. We see this a lot in chained dogs, tethered goats, and penned and caged animals, and to make matters worse for Dottie, she had been taken from the highly charged barn and was now in a world that was beyond her comprehension. Dottie was like a hissy wild kitten, but I knew it was all in the name of self-preservation. My job was to ensure that not only was she safe, but that her life as a free pig was pleasurable and fun. So I stared to detox Dottie from the trauma of her past, the only life she had ever known, teaching her that I was of value to her, which is essentially the key to any connection with an animal. You just work out what they value the most and then become a calm and non-demanding provider. As I worked with Dottie I gave her options; she was allowed to disengage and walk away when she felt unsure, because I wanted her to put that reactive fight trigger right to the back of her mind—and it worked. She started to become more and more precocious and surprisingly confident. As time passed she learnt to seek me out for not only food but tummy tickles and play as well.
Once Dottie showed me that she was beyond simply coping and was now ready to learn, I started teaching her as I would a young puppy by training her to wear a harness, to sit, to stay, to lie down and roll over, to come and to fetch. We never had any bad moments and she soon learnt to trust me. She would storm along beside me around the farm and loved to supervise the other animals. One of her favourite things was to scratch herself against Drum the Clydesdale’s legs. Of all the animals Dottie was the bossiest, the princess, the attention seeker. She was always the first to her food and the last one away.
Soon after I had cast Dottie as the inaugural Porky, my next mission was to find an assortment of animals for the farm scenes.
Mabel, the little four-day-old calf, was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. I had asked at the local food and grain store for where I might find a farmer with some calves to spare. The grain merchant laughed and said at this time of year I could take my pick and gave me the names of some local farmers. When I called one, he confirmed that calves were a dime a dozen that year and the surplus little heifers were being trucked off to the abattoirs with the bobby calves. He agreed to let me come and see his surplus stock with a view to buying one. As I walked into the barn the farmer was busily telling me that he too had an amazing love for animals.
‘These girls are my whole life,’ he proudly reported, nodding in the direction of about 100 or so cows working their way slowly and surely towards the milking plant.
I watched them ambling along the lime avenue with severely swollen udders, while they called out, belly-rolling bellow after bellow with long strings of saliva ribboning in the breeze from their lips to their shoulders. We were standing approximately 50 metres away in a big open sawdust-strewn barn sectioned off into pens with farm gates. As we walked past the first pen the farmer said the bobbies would be on the truck in the morning. I knew exactly which truck he meant and as l looked down at the perfectly formed little boys, I naively reassured myself that I wasn’t part of this horror because I was vegetarian. (Later I opened my eyes and was honest with myself. If you square up and stare down the barrel of reality, the cold hard fact is that society’s consumption of milk is the reason that these beautiful creatures die. Seeing the young calves killed because of this social demand is one of the reasons I eventually became vegan. To be honest I am very fit and healthy, and happy drinking my rice milk and eating my soy ice cream, and the best part is that no being has had to suffer or die.)
I met the tiny heifers, some only a day old, in the next pen. The farmer had already chosen the ones that he would raise as replacement milking stock and put them in the end pen, but this group of twenty or so had a less certain fate. The ones he couldn’t sell would be joining the bobbies, heading to the abattoir for slaughter.
Why do I always have to pick just one? I agonised as I climbed into the pen.
Their doughy brown eyes were framed by lashes that would be the envy of any woman, and they batted these at me as they surrounded my legs and started to nuzzle and suckle my jeans. I shut my eyes and pointed. As I relaxed my guilt-ridden squint to see which of the dozens of babies I was saving, my heart melted.
She was beautiful. No, she was perfection. I had truly never ever seen any creature so completely perfect.
As the farmer carried her from the barn I noticed a pile of dead calves off to one side.
‘Oh no, what happened to them?’ I tried to sound cool and unflapped by the distressing sight.
‘Oh, you get that,’ he said. ‘We always lose some, especially in years like this when the milk powder is so expensive. It’s just not worth putting the time or money into the weak ones.’
I took a deep breath. ‘So does a vet put them to sleep?’ I asked.
‘No, I just stop feeding them and they fade away. Most of them already have diarrhoea so it’s pretty quick and painless. A complete waste, though. I could have sent them to the works too.’
It was more than I could bear. I had no words. I still had no words when he carefully slipped Mabel into a sack and tied the twine around her neck, so, in his words, ‘I could travel safely’. Words still failed me when he gave me his number and said he’d really like to take me out for a nice steak dinner sometime soon. And still no words, just tears, as I drove past the queuing cows, waiting for their breast milk to be pumped into vats, while their vulnerable young perfect babies waited for a truck. But Mabel was safe and now fifteen years later she is still one of the most important friends in my life.
Drum was like a big old oak tree under which both Mabel and Dottie sheltered. And I understood why; he was literally one of the kindest and most steadfast animals I have ever had the pleasure of loving. To tiptoe up and throw my arms around him and then just bury my face in his strong protective neck was my daily indulgence. On my funny little 5-acre block, Drum was like Santa, making every day a lazy dreamy Christmas.
; Bringing Drum home had been a spontaneous and unexpected decision, but then so was buying the land and the bus. I had seen an ad for a twelve-year-old Clydesdale, going cheap to a good home, on the grain store noticeboard, and just couldn’t shake it from my mind. I was going through so much change, but because of my move to the country and complete independence I was in such a new and liberated state of mind that I thought, Why the hell not! I had always kept horses on leased grazing over the years, mainly wonky damaged ex-racers who I barely rode but doted over and cared for with great diligence—and the thought of actually living with my dream horse was very exciting. So I answered the ad and drove to meet Drum that afternoon.
He was an awesome beast, but with a kind and grandfatherly way about him. The lady explained that she had driven past him standing alone and starving in a barren stoney paddock in the Wairarapa. After a few more drive-bys, and seeing his state decline, she approached the owner and bought him. It had not taken her long to get the weight on his big bones and the sparkle back in his eye, but due to a change in circumstance she wasn’t able to keep him any longer. For me there was never a moment’s hesitation. I wasn’t convinced that he was only twelve and his back end looked somewhat stiff, but I knew from first glance that it would be an honour to have him in my life.
As I tracked Drum’s history it turned out that he was in fact 22 years old, and the stiffness in his hind quarters was derived from a very long and hard career, slogging as a harness horse. His previous owner had driven Drum in a team of up to six, and had used them for ploughing land in early-settler-style re-enactments and demonstrations for a local museum. When Drum’s hips had failed and the top vets could not find a suitable solution to keep him in work, he was put out to pasture, except from all reports that pasture was rocky and sparse.
Animal Magic Page 2
