Do we need animals?

Do we need close involvement with animals in order to remain human? Now that is both a broad and rather tricky question, to say the least.

Until the end of the 1950's a great many people in this country still had some ties to the land. Granted, in some cases it was only in the form of visits to the Grandparents on a farm, but it was still a tie. I fall into that very category. Summers, school holidays and some long weekends during the school year were spent on my Grandparent's farm.

During those times I was expected to help feed the chickens, help catch any that managed to find a way out and who would then head at once for the river bottom land. I helped feed the calves, weed the garden, walk the 1/2 mile to the mailbox and back every day on a gravel road.

I collected eggs every day and once a week was the one sent into the chicken yard to catch the chicken that would be dinner later in the day. Every three years there would be a mass slaughter of all the chickens and the hen house would be totally cleaned, scrubbed out, new nesting boxes installed and then the entire place laid fallow over a winter. In the spring an entirely new crop of Rhode Island Red chicks would appear and need tending. One year I got so tired of listening to all the adults wondering when the new chickens were going to finally start laying that I did the unthinkable. I snuck a couple of eggs out to the icebox and carefully carried them around with me until they were warm. Then when I was sure no one was watching, I snuck down to the hen house and put them in two different nests.

What an uproar when my Grandfather came back to the house later carrying the two eggs. Seems they were way larger than any young laying hen should ever produce and live to tell the tale. It was a couple of days before anyone figured out what had happened and who the culprit was. Then they couldn't figure out whether I should be spanked for my prank or laughed at because I had managed to pull it off. The laughter won out.

There were barn cats to feed every day and a couple of "yard dogs" that also got fed, talked to and who were my companions when I headed for the woods or the river bottom on pursuits of my own.

My point in the above reminisces is that from childhood on I learned about the circle of life, the importance of taking good care of the animals you are responsible for and that each species has different needs that must be met in order for them to remain healthy. I learned that if you were rough and/or impatient the animals at best wouldn't cooperate and a worst just might harm you. In a word, I learned respect for other living things which in turn taught me to respect human life.

Currently we are seeing and hearing about more and more teens, some as young as 13 and 14 who have zero respect for human life. They have been allowed to grow to adult size with no guidance or training in the very things that make a human a kind, caring, thoughtful and considerate person. They are barbarians. They are brutal, cruel, insensitive individuals and I am willing to bet there is one thing each and and every single one of them have in common.

No animals in their cold, dreary, lifeless lives. Go on YouTube and take a good look at the eyes of this next generation. So many of them have dead eyes. Eyes that only see a two dimensional world. They have no animals in their lives to be responsible for, to feed, clean-up after, nurture when young and harvest when needed. That is what HSUS has stolen from all of us.

We must come together as a civilized, caring people and stop HSUS/PETA in their tracks. Give them not one penny more in the way of money. Help your family, friends and neighbors understand that HSUS/PETA is made up of barbarians who hate humans. Who is using our very legal system against us to steal away all our humanity.

"Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
This statement was written by the Rev. Martin Niemoeller. Friends don't let friends give money, time or help to HSUS/PETA.