Sympathy

Here's a song which sums up my love for animals and children. It's called Sympathy and was recorded by Rare Bird. Lenox sings it sometimes.
Sam Cooke with Summertime
Jean-Jaques Goldman with Comme Toi
Malicorne with L'Écolier Assassin
Here's Khaled with Chebba Cheb
Celtas Cortos with Odin
El Koala says he's going to build a shed - Opá, yo viazé un corrá
The Horseflies play Hush Little Baby
Carmina Burana O Fortuna
Carmen's Factory Fight
Sad Song from Richard Marx
Nobody Knows with Paul Brady
From Oliver 'Be Back Soon'
Love Song with Randy Newman
Warren Zevon

Some of these are songs that Lenox would sing to me when I was in the hospital or feeling down the rest are some of my favorites. Carmina Burana my father used to play every Sunday, and for El Koala you really need to be Andaluz to understand it but he is very funny. The reason I put things like Sympathy on here is because Lenox can sing them so much better than the versions you hear that it makes my hair stand on end.

(Sorry Darling, I've added one of mine here: Abdullah Ibrahim and Carlos Ward).

Animo

This is my ANIMO logo. I thought you might be interested in how it came about. ANIMO -Asociación Nacional de Investigación Mojácar. We had a contest of my disabled students to come up with a logo and got lots of suggestions. Animo in Spanish also means to caress, love, encourage and animate someone so we felt it was appropriate; we just had to come up with the right words to spell ANIMO.
The word-design was eventually made by Lenox, on the spur of the moment at the lawyer's office, when he turned the letter 'a' into a wheelchair. Because it dealt with Animal Assisted Therapy, especially dogs and horses, we wanted them to show. The little man in the middle is the symbol of our town, the Indalo. It is a god holding up a rainbow, or so they say, and was found in a cave painting near here. The horse-shoe is upside down for most of you but that is because here in Spain they believe that the horse-shoe should go that way because it takes the luck from the ground and then returns it, as opposed to the way we think that if it goes the other way the luck will stay in. There are seven studs in the shoe which is very important for the Spaniards. All horse-shoes should have seven holes for luck. I am very pleased with the logo and it has served us well. I don't think anything else could visually describe what we did and how we felt as well as this. 'Animo' - as in 'cheer up!' - is one of the most common words that I heard when I was in the hospital. Everyone from the janitor to the doctors would say 'animo' when I went for operations or tests or anywhere.

Chicken Luck

Most Animal Stories Have Sad Endings:

It is true that a lot of animal stories have tragic endings so I try not to include many of them but there are a few that stand out both as sad and happy. One day I was given twelve laying hens in a row of wire cages where the eggs just rolled down a slope into a tray. There were two hens in each box, not really even big enough for one hen. They had had their beaks and nails cut off so they couldn’t hurt each other. As pleased as I was with the gift I couldn’t bear to see them confined this way, having never experienced scratching in the dirt or stretching their wings. The row of cages was put into my large bird pen where we had once had ducks and turkeys and birds of all kinds. It was my favourite spot on the property, full of trees with a pond and waterfall and birds of all kinds mixing with the exotic plants. I even had a hammock hanging between two trees so I could just lay there and ponder. Several times the fox got in and killed most of the birds and the few remaining birds went into the peacock aviary. We cemented under the fence, filled any holes and made it fox-proof. I didn’t get any more birds because the whole place just didn’t have the same magic about it. It was a few years later when these hens arrived and we hadn’t seen a fox in years. After a few weeks of feeling sorry for the chickens I decided to let them out into the real world. They were stunned. They didn’t know what to do or where to go so they just followed me everywhere. Little by little they started to stretch their cropped wings, scratch with their cut nails and pick at things with their beaks. They were truly in heaven. I was so pleased at having finally let them go, as I watched them try out and learn what the world was about. It was so funny that I stayed there most of the day. Some of the hens even tried a dirt bath. When I finally came into the house, I spent hours telling Lenox how wonderful it was to see them free and having room to move and about how funny they all were as they tried new things. I was very pleased with myself until the next morning when I went out to feed them and found that a fox had killed all twelve without even taking one to eat. I was so devastated that all I could say was “well at least they had one great day of freedom”. The poor things - they had no wings to speak of and certainly didn’t know how to use what they had or some could have flown up into the trees to get away.
After another fox attack, even more devastating, the only bird left was a guinea-fowl, she was the sole survivor of a fox attack that killed over twenty birds. We called her a Jeannie-bird because of the awful noise she made and she lived right under our alcoholic neighbour Jeannie’s bedroom window. We put her in with the peacocks, which lived in a large aviary, to see if she could survive. Not only did she survive but she flourished. Peacocks, like turkeys, aren’t very smart and often kill their young by accident or maybe a male kills them. Once our Jeannie-bird moved in that was no more. She took mothering very seriously. The chicks all ate before the peacocks, they were kept gathered in her clutches and in general she cared for every baby in the aviary. After the fox problem was solved by not having any more birds out, the neighbour’s dogs took a shine to checking us out from time to time and killing anything they could. We had two wonderful chickens that we kept in the garden, known to us as Scrambled and Poached, that we put away every night so they would be safe, but unlike the fox, dogs in packs don’t care whether it is day or night and they raided and killed our two chickens. We finally realized that if we wanted a chicken the only way was to let it out in the garden when we were there and put it in the aviary when we weren’t. Prunella was our chicken and you have seen her in pictures on this blog. She was a delight. One day a friend came with her dog that jumped out of the car and attacked Prunella right under our noses. She didn’t look like she had a chance for survival so the contrite dog owner left and rushed back a few hours later with another hen to replace her. You can’t just replace one pet with another that looks the same, they all have special qualities and Prunella was a cracker. Remarkably, Prunella did survive the attack and her new friend is called Henrietta. They both lay eggs and wander the garden with our dogs for protection during the day. They are very good gardeners by the way, scratching at the ground and pecking at bugs and weeds. They are put away when we go out and at night.
But animal stories often have sad endings. The pack of dogs came back down a few days ago during lunch time and they took poor Prunella from us. Now Henrietta lives alone, she still lays two eggs a day and spends most of her time in an aviary and at night in her coop. We don’t want to lose her because I don’t think I have much luck with chickens.

I love rabbits and we have had many, large Angora, miniatures, country and pet shop leftovers; most however came from farmers that raised them to eat and usually let me take one or two home out of sympathy. Even though we vaccinated, a horrible man-made disease called myxomatosis took several of our rabbits.
The miniature travelled with Jessica everywhere even in her pocket on the airplanes coming and going to school. The enormous white Angora was free to live in the house, sleep in bed with the girls and basically live like one of the family. Most people don’t know but rabbits are very easy to house-break. All you do is put down a kitty-litter box and they will use it. Our Angora lived inside for many years until she had finally nibbled on too many wires for us to put up with, like the telephone wire and the cables to the lights, so we decided to move her outside to a run we set up just outside the front door so that we could still spend lots of time with her. Even though vaccinated she got myxomatosis from being on the ground where they pick up the disease from wild animals. So my next two rabbits were not going to have that happen to them. I had a huge cage built up off the ground and put fresh straw in every day so they would stay clean and away from the ground and any contact with wild bunnies. It turns out that straw carries the disease so I lost them too. Nowadays, from bitter experience, I am much more knowledgeable about rabbits. Several years back, while in Pamplona, I was allowed a hospital rabbit. His story is on this blog so I won’t go into the details but I can tell you that he has outlived just about any other rabbit: he is a family favourite who lives in an elevated run just outside the kitchen door so we can talk to and play with him all the time and he uses newspaper as bedding. His potty corner is always The Euro Weekly, a local freebie without much merit. So rabbits can be great pets, don’t under-estimate them, they are very smart and affectionate and if well cared for can live a long time. This story is dedicated to the memory of Pepe, a rabbit friend of ours, who lived with a little girl in Madrid and was the biggest rabbit we’ve ever seen, well at least his ears were huge and he was like a puppy, always scratching at the door and wanting to come sit on your lap and watch the telly. I am sorry to say that he got too fat for his breed and is no more. All of my grandchildren call rabbits ‘Pepe’ so when they see one on the road or in the country they say “look, there goes Pepe”. I don’t have the heart to tell them he is gone.

When we left America for England I had to leave my sheep behind. I was so distraught that shortly upon arrival my parents bought me an apricot miniature poodle called Chaussette. It wasn’t the same but it helped. Chaussette had a wicker basket and everywhere we moved the first thing unloaded from the truck was her bed, then she felt safe and at home because we moved almost every year. She was a feisty little thing, I remember my father taking a fire poker to her in the hall because she wouldn’t take her food outside and no-one could touch her. I had her from early childhood through university. I don’t think I remembered life without her. One day I came home from work and she was having a nervous break-down in the driveway. Then I saw it. The neighbor’s puppy had stolen her bed and eaten most of it. She died a few days later. I know it is a sad story but she had the longest happiest life of any dog I know, and this is a section about how most animal stories have a sad ending.

Girl with a Bunny

Here's a picture from our ANIMO days that I hope shows the joy that animals can bring, especially to a little girl with cerebral palsy.

This and related photographs have written permission from the parents or guardians to be used on this blog for the promotion of animal assisted therapy. They are not to be copied or reproduced.

Spiders and Insects

Spiders have a head and an abdomen with eight legs, while an insect has a head, thorax and abdomen with six legs. My husband has always been fascinated by bugs of all types and knows most everything about them. He has tried to pass this passion on to our children. Daniel caught on at a very early age and he and his father would spend hours in the garden looking at bugs. Daniel has maintained his interest and increased his understanding of these creepy-crawlies. He and his father still show each other bugs they have found. I use the word bugs so that I don’t have to keep differentiating between spiders and insects. When Daniel was in his twos he could tell the difference between a good spider and a bad one. We found this out one night when he came into our room, late at night, to tell us there was a bad bug under his bed. We were sure it was a Wolf Spider; they are very ugly and hairy but harmless. We went to look and sure enough he had a tarantula under his bed. How he knew the difference I will never know. When Lenox didn’t know what the bug was he would give it a name and it sounded very real and are called that to this day. Like one the girls found upside-down in the ash tray and asked daddy what it was, he said, without hesitation, that it was an ash bug and so it became. Lenox has named several bugs here one of his favourites he says reminds him of me. It is the golden splendour beetle. When you touch it, it lets out a shriek, rolls over on its back and puts its legs in the air. I have no idea how that reminds him of me or what the beetle is really called.
I don’t know if they have them everywhere but here we have stink bugs. They look like little beetles and come in three fragrances, pine, lemon and shit. This keeps any predator from eating more than one, so by preserving the species.
I can take bugs or leave them as long as they aren’t in my bedroom. Living in the country it is inevitable that you will get bugs in the house. That is one of the great things about Geckos because they eat the bugs, until the little lizards get so fat that the stickers on their feet don’t work so well and they fall to the floor or onto the bed. They also shit like birds and it is very hard to clean. Geckos usually hide behind pictures or mirrors, and make a little screech noise during mating season. They are considered good luck to have in your house here in Spain. It even used to be the custom to bring a gecko to a house- warming to start the house on the right foot. Whenever I see a spider I ask my son or husband to please release it into the garden, which they do while having a long discussion on the wonders of the thing. My husband has a thing about mothers. A mother spider will carry hundreds of babies on her back until they are ready to go out on their own. Lenox has a strong feeling that they should be left alone until such time but all I can think about are the hundreds of new spiders I will have in my room.
Our daughter, Amber, suffers from severe arachnophobia. If she sees a spider, she becomes hysterical, can’t breath and has an instant panic attack. Insects don’t bother her so much. Our house is so big that the children lived on one side and we live on the other. One night she saw a spider. It was in her room, in the corner of the ceiling and she had a panic attack. She was screaming for an hour or so and couldn’t breathe. We couldn’t hear her. Finally she screwed up the courage to slide passed the spider and run to our room for comfort. Before we could comfort her we had to slap her a few time to get her to breathe and then came the cuddles. She said she had been screaming and crying for hours and why hadn’t we come to rescue her. We just hadn’t heard her. Our other daughter Jessica can take them or leave them. They don’t bother her but she has no real interest in them. She will however gladly move one outside for you.
When we first lived here there were always hundreds of different bugs hanging around the front door by the light at night. Lenox would spend ages examining each one. Now they have mostly all gone away and we just have flies and mosquitoes.
Scorpions are still about in abundance and they belong to the spider family or arachnids. They can give you a very nasty sting. Most people I know here have had that experience once or twice. You actually are a bit of an outcast if you are a country person and haven’t had your scorpion sting yet.
Don't worry about this beetle, he's from the Amazon. Cute, isn't he?

Learning Something New

I always felt it was important for our children to try new things. When they were little, Mojácar had very little to offer so I tried to provide experience in as many aspects of life as I could here at home, usually with a group of their friends. We had riding, trampoline, art, cooking, swimming, dance and a petting zoo, where they all had their responsibilities. When they were a little older we even sent them to boarding school, much against my wishes, but there were no opportunities here to learn and experience new things like art, music or mountain climbing. We chose a school not just on its academic record but on extracurricular activities. Until a child tries something they have no idea whether it might become a passion or even a future career. I took advantage of the abilities and hobbies of just about everyone in Mojácar. One seemingly useless sport we took up was roping. A German girl here had worked in the American rodeo in Germany and was kind enough to come teach us how to rope. There were no cows here so it seemed rather futile but I thought you never know when it might come in handy. We used to go out in the back field and lasso beach balls and chairs. It was a lot of fun but not very practical until the girls had to leave Spain and moved to live in a Midwestern state in America. They started riding with a woman who was a roper and had four horses. The locals were quite shocked, and I think, so were the girls, when they knew how to handle a rope and swing it properly over their heads. They may have been a bit out of practice but the skill was still there. So you see no matter how mundane or silly something seems it is worth trying to learn it. You never know when it might come in handy. I know the girls enjoyed riding but I was not a teacher and just rode bareback which is the way the girls learned. They even did jumping and dressage bareback. Later when they went to school and joined the riding team there wasn’t a pony that could throw them, they both went on to be Three-Day-Event champions and now still enjoy riding for pleasure and relaxation.

Foaling with the Army

When we all started having horses around here, after buying it, you either had to ride your animal home or it went into a big flat-bed truck with sides, where they were just thrown from side to side and dumped off on a hill, somewhere near enough that you could ride it home from there. When I bought Honda, the mule, she was driven to Vera and I had almost a day’s ride to get her home, but it was the closest hill they could find to put the tail gate on. I even brought some of the smaller donkeys home in my Nissan Vanette. Most of us had campo horses without papers or breeding, it wasn’t until later that things started to move up-market. Once a year, the Spanish military would bring some stallions to Albox and farmers could take their mares there to be bred to a pure-bed stallion giving the foal half papers and so on. The trouble was getting to Albox which is at least 40 kms away from where we live. The mares were put into a pigsty that had been cleaned for the purpose and the stallions were kept well locked away on the other side. They of course had the poor old teaser (an unfortunate and ultimately frustrated second-rate stallion) that had to see if the mare was receptive to the idea and then he was put away while the real stallion came out to take his place. The mares couldn’t wear hind-shoes and their legs were tied so they couldn’t kick the valuable stallion. The unlucky teaser had to go back unsatisfied only to come out and repeat his performance. It all seemed a bit awkward, with all the help they received and the lack of nature taking its place, but to protect the valuable stallions that is the way it worked.
One year a group of us decided to try this government service and found a German girl with an old clapped out trailer. With my horse having never seen a trailer and Casi suffering from claustrophobia, it was not an easy task to get them in. It took hours. We finally got my old Spanish mare called Mora in but there was no way Casi would go near it. Every one tried their trick but no-go. Because Casi was so spoilt and hand- raised - I didn’t ride her until she was nine - I finally got her in by having her shake hands all the way up the ramp. Well, it worked. When we arrived I told them Mora would be easy but that Casi was a special case and very sweet and innocent. Please be kind to her. It turned out to be the other way around, Casi was uncontrollable and Mora was so horney that she actually jumped through three pigsties with horses in them to go straight to the stallions, much to the amazement and ribald amusement of the military. Casi on the other hand broke people’s fingers and wouldn’t go near the stallions; she was a ‘right pain’ for the military. After a few weeks we were allowed to take our mares home. With all the military, farmers, gypsies and horse people they thought getting Casi in the trailer would be a breeze. With all the know-how and tricks and me in floods of tears at the horrible things they were doing to my little baby they had no luck. When I finally got a word in I said let me show you and I had her shake hands all the way up the ramp. That was a first for all of them. Mora had a beautiful foal and Casi was still a virgin. I know there is a much simpler way and more natural to accomplish this and it happened right here. Our daughters were riding in the ring when a man came up on a beautiful black stallion, to see if I wanted to buy him, although it turned out later that he was stolen.
I told the man to let me bring my girls in and their horses and he could show me what the stallion could do, even though I wasn’t in the market for another horse, but it never hurts to look. The man didn’t wait very long and came up the hill just as Amber and Mora were entering the corral. With Amber still riding and tacked up, Mora backed up, lifted her tail and the stallion mounted her right then and there with a very frightened little girl on top and there was no pulling the two horses apart. After thanking the man and telling him we weren’t interested we were blessed with another black foal eleven months later. So you see it can be done in a much easier way if you have a horney horse.
Then there is conception without a stallion or at least that is how it seemed. Our horse Nata was bought home by Lenox one day, having sworn that he could never be talked into buying a horse, but who had got drunk in a bar and came home with an albino mare for the girls. Thus we acquired Nata. After a year or so she seemed to be changing shape and losing weight and I was afraid she was very ill. The vet could find nothing wrong with her so we thought we would just watch her closely for a while. One morning I went to feed the horses and standing in the driveway was a new-born, peach coloured palomino with a long curly mane. I didn’t know where she had come from as we had no pregnant mares and no near-by stallions. When I checked Nata it turned out to be her foal whom she had rejected, so for a week we had to restrain Nata, both front and rear, put the foal between our legs and milk her ourselves. After a week she took to mothering. I think the whole thing was as much of a shock to her as it was to us. It turned out that the kids had ridden over to Manolo Coronado, a very famous painter, in Vera and they tied the horses up to go inside for some refreshment. When they returned all seemed fine, everyone was where they were supposed to be, we just never saw what happened when the kids were inside. Manolo had one of the few pure-bred stallions in the area, Galión, and it seem he jumped the fence for a quick-one while the kids weren’t looking and then returned to his stall. Eleven months later that is how Salsa, shown in this painting came about. Later as our horses got more up-market people started getting trailers and taking them for breeding and to shows or courses.
Vets were few and far between in those days so you had to depend on old remedies and common-sense plus experience. My mule had cataracts so a gypsy told me to grind up cod-bones and take a piece of bamboo and blow it into her eye and the cataracts would disappear. For colic, a bottle of lemonade down the throat. I actually found that ‘gripe water’ (a popular British mothers’ remedy for colic made from dill water) was very effective so always had some on hand. For hoof-rot an old man came out and put agua fuerte (nitric acid) in rags, flooded them and then nailed an open tin can to the horse’s foot. I have to say it was a bit off the wall but it worked. After we got a few vets in the area things didn’t change all that much. Two of my horses hated vets - they could smell them for miles, even I couldn’t catch them. We even built a ‘box’ to lock them in while eating so no one could get kicked and the horse couldn’t move. Javier the Vet was clever. To get near to my two cranky mares, he took riding lessons on them and did a lot of grooming, then when it came time for injections and inspections he would just get them out and start brushing and do what needed doing and the horse was none the wiser.
I have some great pictures for this story but you will have to be patient until I find them.

Identity Crisis

Are you my mother? A few cute pictures that show how things were here on the ranch.

Who Makes the Rules?

What makes the perfect dog? That depends on who you are talking to. If it is someone who is into showing and pure bred dogs, then they will have a totally different idea than someone who wants companionship. The Kennel Club sets strict rules about how each breed of dog should look. Should it have a tail? How long should the muzzle be? What and where is the correct coloring? I have no idea who comes up with all theses rules but it has led to terrible over-breeding causing lots of problems in certain dogs. Too narrow a head on Collies and Dobermans, hip problems on almost all big dogs and so on. I have been very lucky in having a lot of pure-bred dogs but they were all rejects and not suitable for showing or breeding. My best friend when I was young joined 4H-Dog and got a Dalmatian to breed and show but when her parents spent a fortune on this dog they didn’t know all the rules. The dog was fabulous in character and body-build, she had a beautiful shiny coat and lots of spots. When my friend went to her first show she was immediately disqualified and told not to bother trying to show her or breed her. It turned out that a few hairs on a spot on her ear touched a spot on her eye.
This is apparently a no-no. So all her time and money for a show dog were wasted but she still had a fabulous friend. My Bearded Collie had a similar problem and was donated to me. His name was Wilberforce: we called him Wilbur. He was brown and white and his ears were half brown and half white matching perfectly with his head but ears are only allowed to be of a solid color to make the dog have any value.

Who decides these things? Wilbur turned out to be my demonstration dog for service-dogs. He appeared in many international events and fairs on disabilities and even participated in a commercial for Telefonica. He was a fabulous dog all the way around, but because of his ears being of two colors he was considered useless and to be put down. Again I ask who decides these things? I had four Belgian Shepherd pups given to ANIMO for training as service dogs because a black male had mated with a salt and pepper bitch making them not saleable and not breed-able. My children each took one and trained them to do different tasks to help disabled people. One was very good at getting horses out of their stalls and leading them to the ring for people in wheel-chairs and so on. We were never able to finish training the Belgian Shepherds due to my children growing up and going away to school and lack of funding. But they went to a fabulous home where they were easily trained to totally different tasks as work dogs on a farm, protecting and taking care of the property, animals and children.

The town hall had a dog show during fiesta and we decided to enter these five dogs, not knowing it was an official kennel-club show. One of the shepherds, a salt and pepper won best of breed and I never saw a judge so embarrassed, as when our black one went in to find out it was the brother of the one she just awarded best of breed to. When it was Wilbur’s turn we were just sent straight out of the ring, after the judge had reached between his back legs only to discover that he was castrated and, then of course, his ears were two different colors. How many fabulous dogs go to waste just because of their coloring or some other invented flaw? A lot of rules are changing now about cutting ears and tails and they are trying to solve the over-breeding problem but really don’t you think a good dog is a good dog no matter how it looks? One of our best dogs was a tiny mutt, we had for twenty-one years, and her name was Freetxua. It started as Free To A Good Home but the longer she stayed with us it just became Freetxua. I have mentioned her in several of my earlier stories because of some of the spectacular things she did even though every one would have to admit she looked like two different dogs glued together. Not so cute but a family favorite.

Animal Expressions and Actions

If you live around animals long enough you learn to interpret their facial expressions, body language and the amazing tasks they perform. The reason I thought of this is because yesterday I walked into our bedroom and our dog Charlie, a greyhound lab cross, was sitting on the floor and by her expression I immediately knew she had done something wrong so I started to look around the room to see what she had done all the while she was lying closer and closer to the ground, her eyes down and her ears pulled way back, then I spotted it. She had been lying on the bed, which is a definite no-no. I could see the mark on the bed and felt it and it was still warm. When she heard me open the door she jumped down in the hope not to get caught. On asking her “did you do that?” she couldn’t get any closer to the ground. I told her nicely not to do it again but to her it meant don’t get caught next time. As a family we always raised Great Danes and they love to put their posterior on chairs and beds while their feet remain on the floor, it is a trait that runs in a few breeds other than Danes. The reason I bring this up is because my father showed me a cartoon once that showed a man arriving at the door with his brief case and a Great Dane blowing on the sofa where he had been sitting. It captured their personality with one little drawing.
Two examples of heroic deeds by animals happened here in this house. There are millions of other stories out there but these happened here. We had a ginger cat that decided to move in with our neighbor because the food was better and he got a lot more attention. They made a great pair. The only time he would come over to visit was when she was away. One day he came to the window and began to cry and would not stop. I went out to see if he was alright and he just kept crying and moving towards the lady’s house looking back to make sure I was following him. He never stopped crying or looking back until we got to the house the gate was locked but he kept insisting so I climbed the gate and sure enough our neighbor was very ill and in need of help, which we were able to get her but we would not have known if the cat hadn’t of been so persistent. The other pertains to one of our daughters, who was exercising our neighbors horse. She had not ridden the horse many times and was in our ring not theirs. After a hard work-out she was cooling the horse off in a walk with the reins loose when a dog jumped out of the bushes and bit the horse in the heel. Scared and hurting the horse began to buck and run throwing our daughter off. The horse left at full speed after the dog leaving our daughter out of hearing range and with a totaled knee. She couldn’t get up and was in terrible pain. To her surprise a few minutes later the horse returned to where she was, lowered her head and let my daughter grab the mane and pulled her to her feet then supporting her so she could hop all the way home where we then had to take her to the hospital for a new knee. All our daughter kept saying amongst the floods of tears was, “well it was so kind of her to come back for me”. We really couldn’t believe it ourselves because it wasn’t even one of our horses. There are so many stories of animals saving families from fire or accidents that it makes you wonder. That is one of the reasons I went into Animal Assisted Therapy because once you know how to interpret an animal’s body language it is amazing the bond you can make and the benefit you can receive. That is why service dogs for veterans and riding therapy are becoming so popular and even being studied scientifically. So if you have a pet be sure to take good care of it because it may just be your best friend.

The Worst Dog in Town

When Win Wells the famous playwright and artist became ill he asked me if I could come take care of his house and animals while he was in England in hospital. He had two cats and two dogs. I didn’t mind as it was almost next door to my house and he said I could bring my small animals which consisted at that time of a strange abandoned dog that was nursing an interesting mixture of two baby bunnies and two new-born kittens. Plus I had my Great Dane, Nisha, who had come from the USA with me a couple of years previously. Who was, I freely admit, rather large. What Win had neglected to tell me was that all of his animals were pregnant and within a week of moving in, I had no less than 27 animals to deal with. The only male was a small brindle mutt named Elmer, who enjoyed a reputation for being quite the worst dog in town. I couldn’t believe that he was that bad and thought a little socialization was all he needed. I was wrong. I took him to the plaza on a lead and he attacked every dog he saw no matter the size, and Elmer was very small; he humped everyone and peed on everything. He was completely unmanageable. I ended up having to shut him in the phone booth so I could finish my coffee. I tried a few more times and the same thing happened so I started to leave him at home.
In another story on this blog I talk about Foxy the abandoned dog that nursed the two kittens and two rabbits so I won’t go into that here. About a year later Foxy was returned to her rightful owner whom we bumped into one day quite by chance on the beach. It turned out it was a custody battle in a broken relationship, so the man had thrown out the dog and it somehow had ended up at my house. We were sad to see her go but you could see how thrilled the lady was to have found her dog she thought was long gone.
I luckily found good homes for all of Win’s baby animals and I kept my two bunnies and kittens, one of which was called Cookie who I loved and she was very special and I have written about her too.
As time went on it was clear that Win’s health would not allow him to return to Spain, so he and his partner sold or rented the house, I don’t remember which, but I told the new people that the house came with two dogs and two cats one of which was Elmer the brindle mutt. Every day on my way home the people would be on the balcony and they would call down to me to say they couldn’t deal with Elmer and would have to put him down. I knew I couldn’t have him, I already had too many animals, and the last thing I needed was the worst dog in town. After a few weeks as I was walking home one evening they told me it was his last day so I broke down and said open the door and I will take him. He ran out the door and down the stairs like a jack rabbit and was at my side in a flash. When I arrived home with Elmer my father was furious because that was the last thing we needed. My father said he was my responsibility and one wrong step and he was gone. Well, I think Elmer listened to this very carefully because from that moment on he became a dream dog. The kind everyone wants. I don’t know what made the instant change in his personality, maybe he realized that this was his last chance but Elmer became the perfect dog. I remember once, around the same time, my mother had a horrible cat called Nando who was about as bad as Elmer and one day she picked him up by the scruff of the neck and said next time I will throw you over the cliff. At that moment too, Nando became cat perfect and never looked back. It is funny how we had the two worst animals in town and just like that they became the kind of animal every one wants around. They both lived a long and happy life with us.

My Animal Family

When I was about four year old I had lots and lots of stuffed animals. I never wanted to hurt their feelings so at night I would put my animals all in my big double bed. Lots of times there were so many that I had to sleep on the mat beside the bed. One night my father came in to kiss me good night and found me sleeping on the floor. After thinking the problem over with me he thought the animals would be very sad if I had to sleep on the floor so we had to devise a plan. My father’s plan was that the animals took equal turns in the bed leaving room for me. That way no one’s feeling would be hurt and every one would get their turn in bed. I agreed with his plan and that is how I got to sleep back in my bed. I must say that there were so many animals that sometimes I didn’t always get the turns right. I had a few favorites and they seemed to get a little extra bed time than the others. My favorite was Chubby Cubby. I think he actually got a turn every night. I remember the Christmas I got him. I always told my mother I wanted a polar bear and if she bought me one I would never ask for anything else. She told me that after a long talk with the man at the zoo she was told that polar bears had very bad dispositions so we couldn’t have one. I believed her but when I looked under the tree that year there he was, bigger than me. I cried with joy and my parents couldn’t understand why I was upset, they didn’t know they were tears of joy... He was a big, white, soft cuddly polar bear and about my height just a little fatter.

Each one of my companions had its own character and likes and dislikes. Chubby Cubby liked honey in his tea while my large Siamese cat, which cleverly held my pajamas behind a zipper in her stomach, preferred milk. My father made me a table as big as my bed and low to the ground to put my farm on. I had been collecting for many years, at least it seemed to me, until I had the whole farm, with barns, a water wheel, pastures, fences and every kind of farm animal and their babies. They all seemed to prefer rice over tea.
My father traveled a lot with his business and so did we, so I had a collection of dolls from most countries in the world hanging on my wall. They were all decorative and not to play with but the Spanish donkey had baskets on it and I used to hide my money in the basket against the wall. Even years later I would have a dream and say that is where I hid it and in the morning go to look for my money but there was never any there; it had gone a long time ago.

My sister and I shared a wing of our giant house and we had a bathroom in the middle. My room was very large and light with big bay-windows all around for sitting in and there was more than enough room for all my stuffed animals. I had a large canopy bed and a desk, a table for tea parties, a vanity and so many drawers and closets that you could never fill them. One of the closets was built over a small staircase and had a door just where I could reach the handle because it didn’t come to the ground. It was my secret hiding-place and because it was built over stairs it had a nice wooden slide inside. I loved my room. My sister’s room, she being older than me, was more mature: she had two single beds and a desk but other than that quite stark. She hated stuffed animals and dolls so there were none in her room. There were only four years between us but we had nothing in common. The house had about twenty rooms and 2,000 acres for us to play on and ride horses. Our house was so big it even had a ballroom. It was one of my favorite houses, and we lived in a lot. In the huge basement was a large cooking pot hanging from the ceiling, it was big enough for three children to get into. We used to make up scary stories and tell our friends that in other times it was used for boiling children. Some of the stories we told even scared us. It was in this house and at this age that I began my life-time habit of collecting animal both stuffed and alive. I brought home every animal I found in the countryside, even on one occasion a skunk. It was around then when I got my first horse, Peaches. I also got my first lamb. My mother was at a friend’s house and a sheep had given birth to triplets and couldn’t care for them. These people had thousands of sheep so had no time for hand-raising. My mother volunteered that she had three children and would give one to each of us to raise. It wasn’t as much fun as you might think because in the cold and rain and dark before school we had to go out and bottle feed them then again after school and again before bed. I got the runt, a little girl and my brother and sister got the two males. Mine was so cute and followed me everywhere. As they grew, my brother and sister's sheep went out to join the herd, but mine was so little and friendly that we kept her around the house. I even took her to school for show-and-tell one day. She rode with me on the bus and stayed in the classroom and played with all the children at recess. I don’t think the teacher was all that pleased.

There were terrible electrical storms there and we used to sit in the window and watch lightning hit a neighbors barn or a tree; we were allowed to go out and play in the warm rain unless there was lightening. I saw several terrible things that the lightning did. On one occasion, a ray hit a neighbor boy bringing the tractor back in, killing him and the other was when we were on the bus coming home from school one day we stopped at this one girl’s house. The firemen were there but the house was gone: only a piano was sitting on the lawn in front.
We had our land rented out to cattle so there were over two hundred head of cattle roaming the pastures where we used to ride. Our closest neighbor also had 2,000 acres and ran a riding school where my mother and I volunteered in the summer at a camp for riding for the disabled. That is where I first got my interest in working with animals and the disabled. At this farm they were all Down Syndrome teenagers making them perfect for me because they functioned at about my level so I was able to teach them about grooming and leading and basic care of a horse. I have never stopped collecting animals both stuffed and real and have continued my work with animals and the disabled to this day.

It Had Been a Long Time

I have lived in Spain for so long that I really feel more Spanish than American and I know our children don’t think of themselves as Americans. Between university and rejection of residence papers, after being here almost since birth, two of our daughters have moved back to the States. One now has blessed us with four grandchildren. She met her husband here at a fund-raising Burro-baseball game for our charity, ANIMO. He was a Marine based at Rota and the Americans sent up a bus-load to play a friendly game against Mojacar.
It was time to take a break and spend some time with the children and see something new. Coming from California, one of the privileged ones, or so they say, I thought the mid-west states would be very backward. I was so wrong. The people were gracious and friendly. The countryside was beautiful and the wildlife spectacular. What a change from southern Spain where the rivers are dry and the wildlife almost non-existent. We were also lucky because we hit Indian summer and our three weeks in the States was sunny and warm: not just the weather but also the people we met.
We had the good fortune to stay in the guest house of a friend of our children. It was next to the university and walking distance to the Old Town. Right next to the house was a river that ran through the city and there were parks everywhere. Lenox made great friends with an armadillo that lived under the neighbor’s house and with all the squirrels and birds. All the animals and birds seem bigger there. We took our grandchildren to the zoo to give our daughter a day off and we actually saw more wildlife just sitting on our patio than we did in the zoo.
Patsi, the woman whose house we stayed in, had a huge ranch just outside of town with four horses and lots of cows, all giving birth during our stay. I got to ride every day sometimes twice. My husband got to drive a four wheeler, a horse and a fourteen-wheeler which he drove to help bring in all the huge rolls of hay.
There is the ‘miracle mile’ with all the big shops and fast food but they have kept it all in one area. The houses in the town were all different, ranging from authentic log cabins, colonial and single storey brick or wood houses. They all had at least half an acre with an open area in the front, you couldn’t tell where one property started and the next one began, and a fenced back yard. All beautifully mowed, with a huge variety of trees and birds. Besides spending time with our grandchildren, which was a pleasure, we took in the sights. Lakes and rivers everywhere, we saw a parade for Veterans Day, Halloween was a treat, the food was fantastic and everything was relatively cheap.
Besides the escape from here and spending time with our children, for us the best part was the wildlife and riding everyday. I hadn’t ridden in about eight years I was a bit nervous at first but in a short time was galloping all over the countryside. I have always ridden bareback and that is how I rode. On the main farm you could just walk because of the prairie-dog holes but there was a lovely plowed ring for riding in and a forest that went all around the 180 acres with beautiful paths where you could see herds of deer, brown squirrels, owls and other wildlife. Nearby was a nursery with saplings in it, it was several acres and had a plowed road going all the way around it so you could trot or canter for ever. I had forgotten how happy riding makes you feel and the physical benefits you receive just by having a good time. Patsi, it turned out, was a roper so we went to several practice events and even got to ride some of her horses around just to keep them used to the atmosphere. In the arena we had to use saddles which I found very uncomfortable so will stick to bare-back. Every moment of every day was relaxing, interesting and fun.
It was a great holiday and I can’t wait to go back. It is all thanks to the organization of our children that made this trip possible. Daniel stayed home to take care of the animals and house while Jessica and Amber arranged our lovely accommodation and transport. Without their help we never could have made this trip and in the end it cost us less than staying here for three weeks. Thank you kids, we love you.
One of the interesting things that we noticed was in the grandchildren: they had all grown and matured so much. We noticed that the two school-age girls had lost a lot of their childish imagination in the arts. It is a shame that school tells you that grass is green and the sky is blue etc. because their drawings all looked the same, whereas before, they painted marvelous painting worthy of hanging in a gallery. The imagination on the story telling had increased even to lies but all in good fun. Jessica has been so lucky because she has been able to stay home to watch the change and growth in her children which nowadays is a privilege because most mothers have to work and miss out on a lot of changes both physical and developmental. We had so much fun playing and getting to know the new grandchildren.
The cows had to be counted every day and see if there were any new ones. As they were born they were given names in alphabetical order to try and keep them straight as to their age. They decided on using plants for names and I got to name three: Ivy, Hay, and Jalapeña. Lenox named one, Gooseberry. Patsi also had a mechanical bull and a big metal horse in the barn to practice as all good ropers do because sometimes you just can’t get outside to practice because of the weather or lack of people and animals to participate. At practice sessions all the cows are in a shoot wearing helmets to protect them and two horses back up on either side. The header, one who ropes the head and pulls the cow to the left, and the heeler who is a second behind and catches the feet as the header swings it around to the left and the steer kicks up its hind legs so the heeler can rope them. Then they all run to the far corner and into the shoot again. It isn’t a sport I see myself doing but it was lots of fun.

Strange Birds

Kalinska was a small Egyptian owl that fell on to a Russian cargo ship in the middle of the Suez Canal. How, no one knows. The sailors fed her and took care of her until they docked in Garrucha, the fishing village next to Mojácar. The sailors gave her to a Russian girl that lived in town. Kalinska lived in her room and ate chicken livers and hearts. The owl had no idea how to clean herself so was always covered in blood and sticky gore. The Russian girl would wash Kalinska with people shampoo after every meal and then dry her with a blow dryer. She got tired of this routine very soon. Knowing that we took in animals of all sorts, she brought it to us to care for. We had a lovely big aviary for her and every day we fed her by hand the liver and hearts that made up her diet. The butcher was so intrigued that he gave them to us for free. She still never learned to clean herself and all the washing and drying of her feathers had removed all the natural oils that she needed for flying and her health in general. What we thought was a fat healthy owl turned out to be a thin ugly filthy little thing. We didn’t wash her with the hopes that the natural oils would return and that she would learn to clean her own feathers. She never did learn to clean herself so she always looked rather mangy. She was very friendly and would eat out of your hand and we would wipe her feathers down from time to time. There was no way she could ever be returned to the wild and even if she could where would we let her go? So she stayed with us.
Another strange bird that arrived at our house arrived in the bra of a woman on horse-back. Her dogs had found it while she was out riding and it had a broken wing. She knew the only place she could take it to be cared for was to us. It was a hawk. We nursed her back to health and her wing healed. She flew a little more each day until one day she was ready to return to the wild. We kept food out for her for a while until she got the hang of living in the wild. She did very well and I hope went on to have a family. What I couldn’t understand was how that woman brought her all the way here in her bra because the hawk had one heck of a bite and a very sharp beak. The strangest thing about this story was our cat, Mouse, he was not a hunter and had never brought home his prey to show us, unlike Cookie who was a hunter and brought in everything from rabbits to snakes and rats. I don’t like it when cats kill just to play with the animal but Cookie ate every last bit so I figured it was nature at work. From the day we got the hawk, our cat Mouse took to bringing us a field mouse he had just caught. Apparently, for our guest to eat. This went on every day while we had the hawk until the day the hawk left and Mouse never hunted again. It was great for us because I hate feeding animals that eat other animals but I know it is nature’s way.

Just Because He is Different

Information for children about disabilities
By Mima
Note to parents:
There are many types and grades of disabilities that are too complex for children so I tried to pick a few that wouldn’t alarm them yet give them the idea that it is alright to make friends with someone who may be very different from themselves.

There are a lot of children with disabilities of many kinds. A disability means that they have some problem and can’t do everything like other children. They may look different or be in a wheel-chair or might be blind, which means they can’t see, or deaf, which means they can’t hear. Some children are born with their disability and some get disabled from being sick and others from accidents. Most people are afraid of people that are different because they don’t understand or haven’t been informed or exposed to disabled people. They tend to stare or look away and pretend they don’t see them because they don’t understand or know how to react. These are all things that go through your mind. Usually the disabled person is very smart but maybe they can’t talk or move their body the way they want because the brain doesn’t tell their body what to do. In a child without disabilities the brain tells the body how to move and think but in a child with disabilities the brain doesn’t connect properly. So their body doesn’t work well. Usually these children want to be friends but don’t know how to express themselves. If you meet a person with a disability you should talk to them like you do to everyone else. They know that they are different from the rest of the children but still want to interact.
Take a deaf person for example: they are just like you but they can’t hear. You don’t yell at them because it doesn’t help. You must look at them when you speak and if you turn off your voice, whisper, it is easier for them to read your lips. Deaf people have a language of their own: it is called sign language. In sign language they use their hands to talk. It is very easy to learn and a fun project for the whole family. It can be like a secret language you use with your friends so no one else understands. Then if you do meet a deaf person you can talk to them.
If they are in a wheel-chair and can’t move their body or it moves by itself and they can’t control it, then don’t be afraid. Treat them like everyone else. You usually find that they are lots of fun and understand you but it takes some time for you to learn to understand them. You need to watch their face and eyes because they tell you a lot and soon you will know what they want. Because they know they are different they are very patient and try very hard to make friends. Having a dog to help them open doors and pick up things usually helps them meet people because the people are curious about the dog and approach the disabled person to find out more about the dog. It helps to break the ice.
These children usually go to special schools where there are other children with problems similar to their own but you may have a few in your school, or meet them at the park.
They don’t mind if you ask them questions about their disability and maybe their parents can help you get to know them and their problems a little better.
Some children have Down Syndrome. This is where their brain stops learning at a certain age; it is different for each child. They have a very distinctive look about their face so it is easy to pick them out. They are always loving and friendly but act like much younger children so you have to have patience with them. Some of them are extra-talented at things like chess or numbers or art but can’t tie their shoes for example. They don’t understand when a change is made in their life like moving to a new class with a new teacher or a friend moving away. They like things to stay the same. They get very excited about the simplest thing and playing with them makes them very happy. Sometimes they get a little rough because they don’t know how strong they are so you have to tell them nicely to be gentle.
Disabled children usually have to spend a lot of time in the hospital which makes it hard for them to stick to a routine and keep friends. Some have operations to try and fix the problem. The doctors and nurses are very nice and treat them well so they are not afraid.
Horseback riding under the supervision of a doctor or therapist helps them a lot because when you are in a wheelchair you don’t use your muscles and your insides need exercise to work properly. This is where the horse helps because it massages their insides and strengthens their muscles without them having to work. Usually they need someone to ride behind them to help hold up their head and body and do exercises. They like to go places that they can’t in their wheel-chair and, for once, to look down at everyone instead of up.
Most animals can help people but especially a person with a disability. Stroking a cat can help relax the muscles and ease pain. Also animals aren’t prejudiced so they don’t care what you look like or sound like. They also make great friends because you can tell them all your secrets and problems and they won’t tell anyone. It is good for all children to learn to take care of another being but especially for the disabled because someone always has to take care of them and it is a nice change to take care of something themselves.
You don’t have to be disabled to be different, your skin might be a different color than your school-mates or you might be fat or thin or short or tall for your age. You might be poor or rich, have one or two parents or maybe none and you are an orphan or foster child. These things all make it harder to mix in and make friends. So try to get to know some of these people. You may really like them or you may not but don’t let their appearance decide for you or you will miss out on some good friends.

Barquette

When I was about four year old I had lots and lots of stuffed animals and one doll. Her name was Barquette. She was made of cloth and had elastic on her feet so that she could dance with you. As hard as I tried, I never loved Barquette as much as I loved my animals. I felt very bad about that but she got left out of a lot of tea parties and trips in the wagon. I never wanted to hurt their feeling so at night I would put my animals all in my big double bed but I would put Barquette in the closet so she couldn’t see the others in my bed. Lots of times there were so many that I had to sleep on the floor. One night my father came in to kiss me good night and found my sleeping on the floor. After thinking the problem over with me he thought the animals would be very sad if I had to sleep on the floor so we had to devise a plan. My father’s plan was that the animals took equal turns in the bed leaving room for me. That way no one’s feeling would be hurt and every one would get their turn in bed. I agreed with his plan and that is how I got to sleep back in my bed. I must say that there were so many that sometimes I didn’t always get the turns right. I had a few favorites and they seemed to get a little extra bed time than the others. My favorite was Chubby Cubby. He was a big, white, soft cuddly polar bear and about my height just a little fatter. I think he actually got a turn every night. When I wasn’t out in the barn with my sheep and foal, I was in with my stuffed animals.

My sister and I shared a wing of our giant house and we had a bathroom in the middle. The rooms were huge and beautiful. The house had about 20 rooms and 2,000 acres for us to play on and ride horses. This is when I got my first horse, Peaches. I also got my first lamb. My mother was at a friend’s house and a sheep had given birth to triplets and couldn’t care for them. These people had thousands of sheep so had no time for hand-raising. My mother volunteered that she had three children and would give one to each of us to raise. It wasn’t as much fun as you might think because in the cold and rain and dark before school we had to go out and bottle feed them then again after school and again before bed. I got the runt, a little girl and my brother and sister got two males. As they grew, my brother and sisters sheep went out to join the herd, but mine was so little and friendly that we kept her around the house. I even took her to school for show-and-tell one day.

Back to the stuffed animals. One night I had a friend spend the night so we decided to sleep in my sister’s room because she had two beds. Still asleep, in the middle of the night I went to the bathroom, still drowsy I climbed back into my bed and pushed what I thought were my animals over to make room for me when one sat up and said “what are you doing” I have never been so frightened in my life because I thought it was Barquette talking to me. My mind went wild with all the mean things I had done to her and about locking her in the closet at night. She kept saying it’s alright it’s just me but she never said who me was. My sister thought I had gone mad. I backed into a corner behind the dresses and screamed at the top of my lungs until my parents came from the other side of the house and turned on the lights It took them ages to convince me that it was my sister not my doll because by this time my imagination was going wild. They finally brought Barquette out of the closet to show me. I still never liked Barquette but from that night on she slept in my bed, it was at the foot of the bed but it was still the bed.

Smuggling Butter

In 1966 my family moved to Estepona Spain because my father was traveling with the Royal Navy doing scientific experiments. His ship would dock in Gibraltar every three months, for a week, so my mother felt it would be a great learning experience for us to move to Spain and that way we could also be closer to my father when he came to shore. Estepona was a small fishing village with four or five villas scattered around the hills, belonging to English families. One such family was that of one of the great English train robbers, Ronnie Biggs. One day, Ronnie Biggs took us kids out on his yacht, the Christina, and showed us where he had stashed all his share of the money from the robbery. The wads of cash were right there under the deck inside the cabin!
There were two apartments on the beach of Estepona and the rest were mainly caña huts dotted around the beach where the fisherman lived. Most but not all of the small community of scattered villas in the hills were running from the law for one reason or another. There was one small church and a bar-store. We rented the two apartments on the beach. Smuggling was the way of life there. We used to love to travel on the ferry from Gibraltar to Algeciras just to watch the people smuggle, mainly butter and tobacco. In the middle of summer, people would be wearing layers of clothes and huge shoes and hats. They always put something in an easy place to find so that the Guardia Civil would confiscate it and let them on their way with the rest of the stash. In those days the Guardia patrol of the coast line had a three kilometer stretch for each Guardia. They were provided with no equipment: anything they wanted they had to buy themselves. As each Guardia walked his three kilometers he would put fishing lines out and reel them in on the return trip hoping to catch the next day’s meal. We used to watch from the balcony at night as a small boat came ashore and unloaded boxes of goods, trying to avoid the passing Guardia. The little boats came ashore from a larger ship that was further out at sea carrying the contraband. One night the little boat that docked near us had its timing all wrong and bumped into the Guardia. After a lot of yelling and finger-pointing the Guardia left them to unload their contraband but not without having received a beautiful new American flashlight with a red blinking light at one end. The Guardia was so thrilled with his flashlight and used to shine it everywhere. Being children we thought it would be fun to shine our flashlight back at him. It became an every night ritual as he would pass our house he would shine his light and we would blink ours back at him. My best and only friend at the time was a young girl who lived in one of the caña huts with eight brothers and sisters. She had a baby brother that she was to care for at all times which meant he came when we went out to play. She always carried him by his feet over her back and he just slept all day. My brother and I got our first paying job there. We got two donkeys and every day would go up into the mountains and load the donkey’s basket with rocks and bring them back down and dump them on the side of the road. We would repeat the procedure until nightfall. The job only lasted two weeks because we never got paid and they had no intention of paying us. The rocks were for a building company that wanted to build a road to what one day would become the city of Estepona. We still had great fun riding our donkeys all over the beach and to the bar-store. It was there that my mother lost the little faith she already had in the Catholic Church because the priest was also the school-teacher and he had a little house next to the church and school. A few years earlier the roof had blown off the school and so he refused to teach until he had a new school and the villagers were much too poor to build one. He also had the only TV on the whole coast, I think, and the children would all try to look through his windows at this box with picture and sound. If they wanted to watch the TV he charged them a ‘duro’ - five pesetas. That was about what a family made a day in those days. My mother was so mad that she actually wrote to the archbishop to complain about the lack of compassion of this priest. Nothing ever happened so the children continued without school. It was the first time I had ever seen a mother nurse. It was custom to feed the mother well and that way she could nourish her children even the older ones because other than that they had little more than fish and bread to eat and what ever they could scavenge from the mountains.

Mi Cortijo

My parents had bought such a beautiful farm at the top of Mojacar, with spectacular views. After living in Mojacar for a while I knew I wanted to live on the hill as well. On an adjacent piece of property was an old converted pig sty. It had been fixed in traditional cortijo style. Small windows, rock and mud wall, bamboo ceilings and rock floors. It had been abandoned for about twelve years. After a lot of convincing, I talked the lady into selling it to me. It meant I had to work several jobs while fixing up the place, but I loved it and it adjoined my parents’ farm so the children could go from one place to the other with no traffic or dangers, just wild flowers and baby goats jumping in the grass. The children learned the old and the new at the same time, they learned how to make bread in an old dome clay oven outside and then run across the field and work on my father’s computer. They had the best of both worlds. It was perfect and always full of children as you can see in the picture To move in we first had to cut away about two trucks of spiky cactus to get to the front door. Once inside it had two floors one with kitchen, two bedrooms and a bath, down the steps and there was a living room and another bedroom and bath. The views were spectacular. It took a lot of cleaning to get ready to live in but was soon ready for occupancy. The house was completely surrounded by a wall. One morning we woke up to hear voices and see the ends of rifles all lined up against the wall. I went out to see what was happening, it turned out the Americans were doing military maneuvers with the Spanish army and they had to conquer The Cortijo de Maria. It looked like the right place on the map but I had never heard of our house as cortijo de Maria. It turned out they were right on the mark. We soon made friends and showed them around town on their time off. I t was a bit frightening in the beginning hearing American voices and seeing rifles. We left the cortijo in the traditional style because we liked it and we didn’t need any more convienences than it already had. We loved to collect wood and cook over the fireplace, mostly things grown on the farm, citrus, potatoes, onions and spinach. We did have a small fridge and stove in the kitchen. We had an era where the girls did their hay-surfing and then we started to collect animals. We seemed to start overflowing the cortijo, with children and animals, and decided to move into Lenox’s family home which was much bigger and had a swimming pool. Lenox’s childhood home also had lots of property which we soon filled with stables and paddocks, baby pens, aviaries. We have had many wonderful years in this big old house but it seems a bit empty with most of the children and animals gone. We have kept a few easy-to-keep animals and our son brings his friends over which helps to fill the void. This is still where we live to this very day. My brother now lives in my cortijo and it looks like something out of Better Homes and Gardens. I preferred the old look but it is much easier to clean now and a much more respectable house but I still think of all the memories we have from that little cortijo.

Negrita, Rubia and Benjamin

I have talked a lot about Negrita, maybe because she lived well into her twenties. Most sheep lose their teeth at about the age of seven making it impossible for them to graze. One day while I was sitting at work a shepherd walked by with hundreds of sheep and lambs. I ran outside and asked if he would sell me one. He said he would be in the river bed about 5:00 pm. if I wanted one I would have to meet him there because they didn’t stop grazing. I met him in the river and picked out a cute black lamb, just as I was ready to put her in my car up came a cute little brown one. I decided I couldn’t separate them so I bought both. The brown one was called Rubia. They followed the children everywhere and even played at gently knocking them down, which was a great favorite with the kids. They came on picnics and walks with us. Negrita even took the two day hike over the mountains with Lenox, myself a Whippet and a Briard. It was one of the best trips of our life. We drank from the springs, picked oranges along the way, were given spoonfuls of honey by farmers and we slept in a tiny orchard at the bottom of a cliff where eagles nested just above our head. The hard part was at the end of the walk, when we made it over the mountains and had to convince the taxi-driver to take us and the three dogs back to Mojácar. We all pretended that Negrita was a dog.
After Negrita and Rubia were a few years old I took them to a shepherd to see if I could breed them. He called me a few short days later and said I had to come get them because they were too domesticated and wouldn’t socialize and the males wouldn’t go near them and they were starving. I remember because it was Amber’s birthday. He had a bunch of white babies and said the best thing would be to buy my very own stud so he could grow up with Negrita and Rubia. It made sense so... Happy Birthday Amber! She named him Benjamin. The sheep all wandered around the farm in a group with the other young animals. He was just as tame as the other lambs and got along fine with the lack of discipline. He was definitely Amber’s though because she couldn’t make a move without him by her side. He liked to play ‘knock the kids down’ too. It was funny at first but he later grew a big bone on the top of his head and as he became more and more possessive of Amber he started to hit her harder to the point I was getting worried. It is a sign of affection and learning to play in sheep but doesn’t transfer so well to children. Negrita and Rubia remained gentle. After a lot of tears we decided the best thing was to sell Bejamin as a stud. That seemed unheard of to the local shepherds because he didn’t act like a sheep and the herd would reject him. We searched long and hard and finally found an American couple who would be willing to take him in as a pet.
It all went well until one day we went to the stables and to our surprise, Rubia had had a baby lamb. Obviously Benjamin was the father. It was a boy and they named him Winky but we knew we couldn’t keep him because the same thing would happen as with Benjamin. It was very sad but when he was old enough we gave him to a nice English family, without small children where he played with their big dogs, bashing them about.I find sheep to be wonderful pets; they are loyal, they eat the weeds but never pull anything up by the roots so even if they nibble on a few of your plants it won’t hurt them. The reason they don’t pull thing up by the roots is so it will grow back for eating next year, It is Nature’s self-preservation. They stayed around the property and even used to come on rides with us, even for the longer ones. Negrita stayed glued to Casi my foal as I got them about the same time, together with Petite Suisse the calf they made an interesting threesome. Negrita refused to eat out of her dish instead she would half strangle herself to lean over and eat out of Casi’s trough. I was told by a shepherd that it was cruel to keep sheep in a confined space because they needed to graze to grow properly but we found they did even better by being in a large pen with the other animals and eat what the others ate, wandering the property grazing to their hearts content and getting exercise by coming on walks and rides with us.

De Narices

Making a documentary of any kind is difficult. You need hours of filming just for a few minutes long documentary. Working with children and animals makes it that much more difficult because they never say or do as you expect. As a center for Animal Assisted Therapy, ANIMO trained dogs for different types of handicaps and gave classes in sign language and taught the importance animals can have on your mental and physical state.
ANIMO also had a small petting zoo with birds and sheep, tortoises and wild boar. We tried to have as wide a variety of farm and wild animals and plants, as well as the Riding for the Disabled which included hippotherapy, a medical form of riding taught by a physiotherapist to incorporate the movement of the horse to improve circulation, muscle tone and balance as well as many other benefits. The local school-children came to see farm and wild animals where they were taught about the animals’ natural habitat, feeding and mating. The children also learned about where their food came from like milk and eggs. Now that they all lived in town and not in the countryside where it would have been an everyday experience. The ANIMO center was accessible to all types of disabilities. ANIMO mainly offered hippotherapy to very severely physically disabled students. ANIMO had nine horses and four donkeys plus a host of other animals. We had a large turn-out pen where the animals that were hand-raised and used to each other could be turned out together. It was great fun for everyone but I think the blind group that came every year from Germany got the most benefit. I remember one blind boy feeling and smelling a sheep when he got to the neck and face he jumped in fright because it didn’t feel like the same animal. Even some of our younger animals got a bit confused as you can see in the picture of Mop-Mop trying to nurse on a gelding, she was kicked a few seconds later and got the message. It was the first time the blind group had ever been able to feel and smell animals that are normally behind fences. I always kept ducks with my horses, they even had little houses under the feed troughs. The advantage to ducks is that they sieve through the manure and eat the fly eggs while at the same time turn the manure into a fine dust, perfect for the garden. Theodore, our wild boar had moved in with the other boars, several months before a TV crew came to do a documentary on ANIMO. He didn’t move because of his temperament but rather because of his size and age, although he stayed as sweet and friendly as ever. The TV crew came and wanted to film how the animals helped the disabled or Animal Assisted Therapy. After a rather thorough tour they asked if Theodore could come back in with the others animals. It had been about six months since he had integrated with the other animals so I was a little dubious. I think the anchor was too because by this time Theodore was over 200 kilos and had huge tusks. Our spokesmen was a man who had done most of the administration for ANIMO, and has Cerebral Palsy. He was very calm as he hand-fed all the animals and described how each one played a part. When we let Theodore join the others it was a bit tense but then he just ran around and went kissing everyone - even the anchor girl. The cameraman was having the time of his life because every one of the animals from birds to boars came straight up to the camera and put their noses on the lens. That is why he said he must make a film after the documentary called De narices. Translated means ‘of noses’ but it has a street use which is ‘In Your Dreams Mate’.
Unfortunately they couldn’t tell us when or at what time the documentary was going to be on. I would have loved to have seen it. They also wouldn’t give us an edited copy because they said that every story they do, the people want a copy. Many other documentaries were made about ANIMO we even entered a competition for the best new project of the year. We had no money or equipment but the volunteers put a 12 minute movie together. When I went to Madrid to see the finalists, yes we made the finals, I was really embarrassed because all the others had been professionally made by TV crews and advertising companies with sound tracks and voice overs etc. No one had a home-made one, we even forgot to put on a title so they called it Montando al Caballo. Ours was just shots of the children in a hippotherapy class with the soundtrack to Queen in the background and my daughter making a few comments during the pauses. We won first place and received a video camera of our very own. The federation holding the annual competition said they never even knew that there were any projects like ours. It was the first in Spain. It is a shame that the town hall didn’t take any interest in the project because AAT is now big business and ANIMO, despite being closed down, is still one of the only centers registered nationally. We ran solely on free help from doctors, vets helpers etc. holding fundraisers from time to time to make ends meet. No one got paid. The students didn’t pay either and got free physiotherapy and medical information about their individual disability the whole while having a wonderful social day with other students and the animals.

Hospital Rabbit

You really have to be over eighteen and speak Spanish to get the full jest of this story but it is still sweet if you don’t. When I was in hospital, for a long time, in Pamplona, with some unheard of virus, I couldn’t stand not having any animals around. Yes I had my teddy bear, Javi named after my doctor, but it wasn’t enough. I asked my surgeon if I could get a miniature rabbit. Well, word started to travel around the hospital even the janitors knew I wanted a rabbit. They said we would have to ask administration. After that all my medical team gathered in a consulting room where we discussed the matter at length. The infectious disease people had to put in their two cents and then the internal medicine, then ear, nose and throat then the ophthalmologist, then the nurses and of course the administration had the final word. It was definitely a first for the hospital. After deciding that whatever medical condition I might have, didn’t come from an animal, it was agreed. I could have the rabbit. Lenox and Amber went out that very day and bought the bunny and all its accessories. It was so tiny you could barely see it in the cage and they didn’t come any cuter. The rabbit had to make the rounds from reception to the janitorial staff.
Everyday on my husband’s arrival at the hospital you could hear shouts from everywhere. “How is your wife’s little bunny?” The bunny wasn’t really allowed to stay with me but he came to visit me in my husband’s pocket. Everyone knew but didn’t say anything. We even had to get permission from the no pets apartment owners where we were staying, between operations, during my lengthy treatment. One day my chief surgeon took my husband aside and said “you must come up with a name for the little rabbit because it will never do having the staff yelling at you how is your wife’s little bunny.” It translates to something rather rude in Spanish. All of the doctors wanted me to name it after them. Lenox calls it Bungus, I call it Bunns Rabbit but the hospital decided on Rafa. That was the name of my anesthesiologist that was by my side during every operation even if it was just to put me to sleep and he was always there when I woke up. He had such a special aura about him that you just loved him on sight. So according to my doctors he is called Rafa.
As he grew, we realized that Lenox and Amber had been had by the pet shop. It was not a miniature rabbit at all, but a full size baby that the pet shop was pawning off as a miniature. It didn’t matter because I was out of the hospital before it became apparent how big he was going to get. We still have him and everyone has their own name for him but he is definitely a favorite in this household.

Chachi the Donkey

Chachi is a street word in Spanish used to mean cute, great, adorable, fantastic etc. and that is exactly what I named my first donkey. I found her on a trip to Morocco and couldn’t resist. Moroccan donkeys are miniature in stature but can carry a full load. She belonged to an English vet and lived out on his compound in an area known as California, because the terrain is so similar to that of California, USA. The vet also had a clinic in the medina to care for sick and hungry animals that belonged to the poor. He was completely sponsored by an English charity. Animals in too bad a state would be taken to his compound to live a long healthy life. I begged him to let me take a donkey back to my farm in Spain, ensuring of its good care. He had a policy: once an animal landed in his compound it never left. He did have one exception and that was a baby animal born on the compound. He would be willing to give me this particular donkey if I could get the necessary papers. Not an easy job I found out. I needed a vet certificate, not hard, and then permission from the ship company to bring her aboard, a stamp and passport from the department of agriculture and finally an OK from the douane, the customs. It took me three days to acquire the paperwork needed. Even that wasn’t the hard part; after checking and double checking with all the authorities. I then had to walk her about five miles from the compound to the port. She had never left the compound and was not pleased to do so now. I had Moroccans laughing at me and sometimes giving a gentle shove to help us along but it was a great adventure and gave us time to get to know one another. Lots of scruffy young children who speak all kinds of different languages and wanted to help (for a few dirhams). When I arrived at the douane, I stood in line with the cars and all my papers and of course the donkey. We definitely cheered up everyone’s day; it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Crew members on the ship were waving baby-bottles, even a few of the douane brought along baby-bottles.
Being American I was not used to the system; I didn’t know about bribery. I should have had a fifty dollar note in my passport and we would have had no trouble. I was afraid to bribe a policeman. And knowing that I had RIGHT on my side I stood my ground and told them they had promised me the day before that all the papers were in order. But they had lied and I was not able to pass with my donkey. I had to finally give up and take Chachi back to the compound. This was difficult because my ship left in two hours and the only way I could achieve this was by convincing a taxi-driver to take me. Finally one nice man, laughing at my whole ordeal, decided he would be kind and take me and my donkey, then return me to the ship. It must have been a sight, a donkey sat in the back seat of a taxi whizzing through Tangiers.
I did try three other times over the years, to bring Chachi to Spain but every time it was always that missing paper, probably that fifty dollar note. I know she has a wonderful life on the compound and I sent contributions for many years to this man’s great work.