Animal Karma

03/28/2024

Send a message to learn more

03/28/2024

Don't forget 😀 !

Send a message to learn more

03/23/2024

Sentient Kinship of Voice and *Belonging:

, not just some.

03/23/2024

Kinship with Nonhuman Life

08/19/2023

They call me Happy.

Before I had this name, I lived with my family, deep in a lush forest. One day, when I was still a baby, I saw most of my family killed in front of me, and my young cousins and I were rounded up and taken to a place that was nothing like where we were born. One of my cousins died within a few months, and the six of us who were left were sent to yet another frightening place. We were scared and missed our family terribly, but together, we coped with this life the best we could.

Then we were all separated. My cousin Grumpy and I were sent to the place I am now, where I have been for almost 50 years. There were many other elephants here then. We were all forced to give rides, participate in tug-of-war contests with humans, and perform tricks. One day, two other elephants attacked Grumpy, and Grumpy died. It still causes me pain to remember that time but I know Patty and Maxine did this to Grumpy because they were suffering, as we all were, from never being able to leave this small place. For a little while, I had the company of a young elephant named Sammie but she died too.

After that, I was alone. I have been alone for seventeen years, and they will not let me go. People come to look at me, and then they are gone. I often rock from side to side for comfort and I have to lift my feet to take the pressure off because it hurts to stand all the time on this hard ground. I can see Patty, the only other elephant left here, across the barriers, and I know she feels sad, stressed, and alone too.

These days, I think often of my mother–the feeling of her trunk brushing the top of my head, my body pressed against her much larger one when I was afraid, uncertain, or just wanting to be close to her. Other elephants were all around us, and I felt safe. The memory of that feeling has never left me.

Once, one of the humans, someone in the endless crowds of people who pass by on the train that grinds past us almost every day, called out to me. She said people were trying to help me. I never forgot this either.

I miss Grumpy so much. At the same time, I’m glad she is free from this place. I hope to be free from this place someday too. I want to see my mother again. I want to see other elephants again. I want to be able to roam in a quiet, green space again. I want to be an elephant again.

🐘🐘🐘

When elephants have the right to liberty, it will no longer be possible to deprive them of their freedom in zoos or anywhere else. The NhRP’s court case to free Happy made legal history for all animals and will help light the way to elephant freedom worldwide. Now, continuing our fight to free the Bronx Zoo elephants, we’re working to pass the first bill in the US that would ban elephant captivity, including in zoos. Please donate today to help us continue to fight for fundamental legal change for elephants, and your gift will be matched up to $5,000: https://donate.nonhumanrights.org/a/elephant-week?ms=FB080823ElephantWeek

06/14/2023

Trainers in Houston and at other zoos are guiding elephants in daily yoga routines to monitor their health.

10/22/2022

10/20/2022

Omg.

10/14/2022

Great news Everyone 🫶🏻!!!

10/10/2022

Beacon of Light and Love

10/07/2022

10/07/2022

I try not to waste your time. I assume we all know the easy, fun, often unhelpful—or unhealthy things we naturally do with our dogs. So I don’t waste your time with pandering, condescending, overtly obvious advice to “remember to do these too!”

Instead, I focus on the difficult, not-always-fun, often deeply challenging, but healthy things you SHOULD be doing.

If it seems lopsided, it’s because it is. Train thousands of dogs and owners and see what themes you see over and over undermining relationships and often costing dogs their homes or even their lives. It ain’t the absence or shortage of play, affection, freedom.

Just sayin’.

08/29/2022

So many are lost. So many have been slowly programmed, and that programming has created belief systems which are truly toxic.

Sadly, the pendulum always swings too hard. It perpetually seems unable to slow down and find its footing in a more balanced and healthy middle ground. Always overshooting, always over-correcting. Always going too far, and always necessitating the next too large reaction somewhere down the road.

From the heavy handedness, and emotional distance of the past, we now celebrate weakness and emotional neuroticism as positives, virtues.

And the bearers of the cost of this seismic cultural shift? Our kids, our family structure in general, our romantic relationships, our personal goals and resilience, society at large, and of course our dogs.

Happily, and finally, I feel a shift beginning again. The question is, instead of the typical bombastic, easy-to-rally-behind, easy-to-not-have-to-think, and easy-to-feel-righteous-about reactions, can we do the much harder work to find that sweet spot of incremental, judicious analysis and progress; working to do better than our past, and better than our present? Afterall, that’s what these movements are supposed to be all about: finding better, not obliterating all the value imbedded in the time and lessons we’ve experienced prior. Let’s slow the pendulum down, strive for fine-tuning and nuance, and when the fanatics stand up—full of sanctimony, anger, and opportunism—instead of cheering them on, let’s ask them to have a seat.

Otherwise, we’ll just swing again.

06/23/2022

05/30/2022

04/13/2022

What would we do without Nonhuman animals showing us how we can Be in the World ?

04/12/2022

Fascinating isn’t it 🙂 ?!!

Newts carry enough toxin to kill a dozen people. Yet in the Bay Area garter snakes feast on them without harm.

04/08/2022

These beautiful, insightful, eye opening videos from the Lion Whisperer Kevin Richardson never cease to uplift and elevate the Spirit