What do you do to steady your heart?

Winston is a funny old chap, sometimes loving, sometimes standoffish, but always honest.

The longer I travel through life, the more the importance of honesty is cemented. We all pour so much energy into other's, many times on fruitless ground, ground that wants to stay barren. Many of us left feeling empty by the nature of relationships that are lopsided, bruised by the selfishness of others actions or deeds. Caught in the whirlwind of the rat race while trying to stand firm against the onslaught.

Constantly giving is in some people's nature, as is taking for others, is this the yin and yang of it? Is it necessary to know people of one sort, to value those that are kinder natured? Many times I am told to withdraw, pull-back, protect myself, but if this is not my nature, then I must find other ways to heal my reserves, as must many of you that try so hard and end up feeling not quite enough. Put on edge by the turns of life, jarred by what you witness.

My remedy often is to look at my children, and ponder at their wonderful natures, hug them as often as I can and actively listen to them. Sit for tiny moments with the animals, let them come as they want and cover me with mud and kisses. Watch Jerome as he potters around, wait to catch his eye, and just share a smile. He is a bit short sighted so I have to be at the right distance or he'll give me a blank stare, which always brings me anxiousness, even after years together. Soft as putty it seems I stay, despite my advancing years.

When you are feeling low or emptied, what do you do to steady your heart?

A few thoughts on French "patrimonie" and animal welfare

Did you know Columbia has just passed legislation banning bullfighting! Another small step towards sanity, but still a mountain to climb. There are seven countries left that continue, France being one if them. Warning, if you read further it has references to the horror of bullfighting. 

Our beautiful Jack 

Southern France has a bullfighting tradition dating back to around 1289. That year, the Running of the Bulls was first recorded at Bayonne, down the coast from Bordeaux. Currently, bullfighting is slowly becoming less popular in Spain, Catalonia has effectively banned the sport, whereas in France, the corrida is well and truly alive.

France is set to become the bullfighting centre of the globe: an estimated 1,000 bulls per year are dispatched in French arenas. Jerome and I have been to a rally outside of one, where the use of tear gas was exceptionally and gleefully used. While we listened to screams and bellows of sentient animals and the mindless bloodlust of the humans. According to the pro-bullfight organisation, the Observatoire National des Cultures Taurines (ONCT), two million people attend corridas in France each year. 

The love for bullfighting is at odds with the country’s penal code, which under article 521-1 bans “cruel acts and serious ill-treatment towards animals”.  But, "cruel acts and ill-treatment" run rife across the board, throughout the land, just think of fois-gras and veal, dairy. Everyone's tolerance for cruelty is directly linked into their own "personal choice".

France is a nation where patrimoine (heritage) is always used as the trump card. Thus, the penal code allows exceptions for bullfights, as it does for cockfights, (Cockfighting is illegal in France, but a law passed in 1964 tolerates it in two northern departments, as well as in the overseas territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique and La Réunion, where this age-old practice has been a "tradition" since the 18th century) - where there is “uninterrupted local tradition”.

A presentation by the ONCT, the Ministry of Culture registered bullfighting as a French Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011, it all beggars belief. As does the ban on hunting in the UK, serving as just a veil for continued practice - the French parliament have voted to end the use of wild animals in live circus shows (although some travelling circuses still have them), and outlawed mink farming, in new animal rights legislation. But it flunked a ban on bullfighting, and it seems to continue generally to turn its heel rather quickly if animals are involved at all.

The Society for the Protection of Animals ((SPA) (RSPCA equivalent) has filed cases in cities where bullfighting is popular without success. Today 50 or so towns are organised in L’Union des villes taurines françaises. Created in 1966, the UVTF, was a key lobbyist behind the registration of bullfighting as a French Intangible Cultural Heritage. It's  hard to write some of these sentences and remain level headed. 

French supporters of bullfighting cite heritage, art and biodiversity, some claiming that since the bulls are raised outside this "rusticity" gives the bulls “a savagery essential to their behaviour in the arena”, (according to the ONCT). Then they cite heritage, again. Anyone with sense or knowledge knows that bulls are protective and courageous for their herd, they are not enraged. Perhaps one should consider the barbaric practices held just outside of the arena to incite fear, stress and excruciating pain to these desperate animals.

French fans, generally travel for tauromachie, which we saw and witnessed. But the patrimoine argument is absolute nonsense to put it mildly. The corrida form of bullfighting, where the animal is provoked and killed with swords, was imported in the mid-19th century from Spain, where the “sport” had begun in Seville abattoirs!!! (remember the humane argument we hear so often).

 For the south of France, with its, “Espirit du Sud", Spanish style torture represented resistance to Parisian centralism and perhaps still does, for those with a memory for excuses. Bullfighting is a trans-Pyrennean business; bulls raised in the Landes and the Camargue — there are some 40 members of the Association des éleveurs français de taureaux de combat — are transported to Spanish rings (a bull can earn its "owner" €3000 for their 15 minutes of hell in a corrida). Meanwhile the matadors appearing in French rings are largely Hispanic. No French matador entered the top ten rankings until Sébastien Castella in 2005.

The anti bullfighting song La Corida by French balladeer Francis Cabrel, is well worth a listen. Written from the bull’s point of view, the chorus runs: Est-ce que ce monde est sérieux?

Is this world serious? As humans that care about other earthlings, we say this rather a lot don't we?

French tauromachie originally had non-violent roots. In the “Course Landaise”, the matador leaps acrobatically over and around the bull; in the “Course Camarguaise”, men and women race about, trying to grab ribbons and pompoms from the animals’ horns. Angry, stressed, terrified, but alive, the bull is put out to grass afterwards. According to the Anti-bullfighting Alliance, 76% of French people wish to replace bullfights with the Camargue and Landes alternatives. Personally taunting and stressing an animal is unnecessary and distasteful, pointing to the character of the humans need to distress an animal for entertainment. But like Seaworld and Circuses, the lists of degenerative entertainment are long.

In the 21st century, a highly sentient creature is provocatively stabbed, then slaughtered for amusement. It really is astonishing, and highly hypocritical when we all point fingers to countries abroad that are "worse", when we all only have to look outside our own doorstep to see cruelty disguised as entertainment, sport or heritage. The bull fighting season runs March to September. 

Monty's Story

Monty joined the sanctuary residents back in early 2023. Like so many Monty was being given away as he was no longer desirable or wanted, the commitment to his needs no longer attractive. He was in a particularly gruesome state, which was clearly apparent in the first few seconds of meeting him. We knew, whether or not he was friendly with our other dogs, that we were not leaving him behind.

Monty was emaciated, ribs and spine showing, gangly, unstable and limping. His coat sparse, brittle, grey; with large bald spots revealing scabby red skin and scuttling fleas. He was being driven wild scratching himself and whimpering. He had a huge swelling on his head, lopsided swollen ears, discharging a putrid smell, and had a missing testicle.

We were told that he always hid with new people, peering out from under the table and piddling in the corner, yet he scooted over to us. Slinking, belly to the floor, he arrived at our feet, quivering, tail tucked, a desperate little boy in need. Popping him on a lead made him squirm and piddle, walking him for his toilet needs showed evidence of a warm overload. Monty sniffed at our car and jumped in without a backward glance, then vomited hard, raw, pasta all the way back home.

Arriving at the sanctuary we bathed him, fed him, wormed, flea treated and cleaned his ears. He only weighed 17kg and would only drink if we walked out the room. He was booked with the vet and we slept with him this first week. His first vet visit confirmed severe untreated bilateral ear infections causing cranial swelling. High parasitic load, skin infections, allergic reactions, deficiencies, fear induced incontinence, testicular problems and a 30+kg dog that only weighed 17kg.

We decided that he was so poorly and unstable that his story would remain unpublished. He was to be one of our many “quiet ones”; to only share if we could balance the sadness and horror with some hope and grace. The world is so turbulent, the news now so treacherous; as a sanctuary we decided long ago to not add to the misery. We want our active profile to match our real life, to have compassion for those reading and not to dump any more virtual sadness unless it can be tempered with a silver lining. That being said, for the first six months we just didn’t know if he would push himself through, or if his miserable start would be too much of an obstacle to the rest of his life.

His next vet visit, 10 days later, showed a weight gain of 6kg, just from being wormed and fed correctly. He was continuously drinking, so we knew something else was to be unearthed. We were cleaning his ears twice a day, rubbing in creams, walking only on a lead and using positive reinforcement all the time. Cutting a very long year short- Monty gained 15kg in the first two months, needed 5 trips to the vet for his ears and skin. He then needed stomach surgery to remove 4 large stones, we think from trying to fill himself up. He has needed intense care for his first year and remained emotionally fearful and incontinent for 6 months, if voices were raised, arms moved about or shone a lead.

By January 2024 he was finally able to sustain other exploratory surgery to remove his internal testicle and have his ears cleaned again under anaesthetic. fast forward and Monty now has a shiny black glossy coat and is 38kg. Monty is about to turn two and he has had over a full year and a half at the sanctuary to recover from his first year of life! He is confident, playful, and no longer wets himself. He sleeps in Louis’s room as he suffers from night terrors if he doesn’t have his human family on hand. It seems he has turned his corner and he has his family, his dog friends and his home.