Happily Ever Esther Page 8

  Unlike April and her piglets, the goats were already a family when they arrived, so it was really neat to be able to keep them together. Goat and cow dairy farms operate the same way in that the animals produce milk only when they have babies. The babies get taken away; the male goats are raised to be meat goats, and the females are turned into future dairy goats. Very rarely, if ever, would they be kept together. Catherine had just given birth to her baby, George. William was the stud. When they carried George off the trailer he was tiny, about the size of our dog Reuben, and still nursing. Now that Catherine was at our farm, not only would she not be forced to have another baby, but she would get to keep this one. Keeping the mom, dad, and baby together was a rare situation. William, being the stud, probably had many “wives,” but when they came to us, Catherine got to be the only wife.

  When they first arrived, we decided to put them in the forest pen. It turned out goats are even worse with fencing than pigs and cows—not because they break the fences but because they jump over them. Catherine would climb up a big rock five feet away from the fence and leap over the fence to get to us. We used to joke that she was the worst mother in the world, because every single day, we’d be in the barn with the animals, and suddenly Catherine would appear at the back door of the barn. At the time, we thought it was hilarious that Catherine would just abandon William and George and that they were too scared to make the leap.

  There were times we’d be done with breakfast and doing errands or whatever, and Catherine would be grazing in the grass and doing her goat thing for up to two hours, while poor George was starving. Catherine seemed to prefer to spend her time with people in the barn, while poor William and George looked on from the fence.

  William did not take this betrayal lightly. He would always make a big fuss, alerting us to Catherine’s absence really quickly. He was such a tattletale. And when we walked Catherine back to the pen, William would greet us at the gate with his little tail just wagging away. We never knew if he was happy to see Catherine return, or if he was laughing at her because she got brought back to the pen. Probably a bit of both, we thought. This went on for a while, until we moved them into the pasture where the pigs were, an area that didn’t have a rock close enough for Catherine to launch herself over the fence.

  In this instance of fence debacle, we hadn’t failed. We just hadn’t thought of animals leaping. A friend of ours made a joke that’s apparently an old saying: “If it can’t hold water, it can’t hold a goat.” We hadn’t heard that one before, but it’s definitely true. Goats are the Houdinis of the farm animal world. So this became our new challenge. We had finally succeeded in building fencing that kept our other animals in, and now we had these escape artists to deal with. But once we got the goats into a pen that didn’t have rocks Catherine could climb, things were under control. She’d stay put, so George had his mom there for nursing.

  The way George would feed was ridiculous. Goats head-butt things, as I’m sure you know. He’d put his head down and ram Catherine at full speed, right in her crotch—I’m not sure why—but then he’d make his way to her nipples. As silly and painful as it looked for her, that was George’s source of food. He fed off her religiously for four months, well past what we’d believed was acceptable. His little horns were growing in, and he was almost half Catherine’s size, and by that point she was trying to wean him. George didn’t care. He kept coming back and ramming her for more. After a while, she wanted nothing to do with it. (Can you blame her?) She’d kick her leg and run away from him with one leg in the air, and he’d be hanging on to her with a nipple still in his mouth. It was awkward, like those pictures you see where the way-too-old kid is still on the nipple. I’m all for breast-feeding, but when you can walk up and ask your mom to whip out her boob, I think maybe it’s time to stop. That’s how it was with George and Catherine.

  But it’s worth noting that we had this dairy baby who wasn’t taken away from his mother at a couple of weeks, as dairy babies normally are, so we got to see the whole process. We watched George nurse for as long as he wanted—or as long as Catherine would tolerate it—and then grow to be happy and healthy. To this day, they’re inseparable. They sleep together, graze together, play together. It’s the sweetest thing.

  The situation with William, however, turned out not to be as good. I loved William; he was so sweet, and he and the other goats were the first animals we got from a true commercial setting, so I knew William had had a hard life. I was ecstatic to be able to give this goat a happy, peaceful retirement. William was hilarious, and he was an awesome dad. When Catherine was constantly escaping from their pen, William always stayed behind with baby George and took care of him. He was more like a dog than a goat, always affectionate, loved to be scratched or petted, and would follow you around pretty much everywhere you went.

  Then one day we noticed something was wrong. William just wasn’t himself. He was usually very social and always came up to say hi when you went into his stall, but now he was keeping to himself, not his usual happy-to-see-you goat self. He also seemed uneasy on his feet, a little bit wobbly.

  I called the vet out to take a look, hoping maybe it was just a virus or something. The vet tried treating William with meds, but we soon learned William had a disease called caprine arthritis encephalitis virus (CAEV), which is actually from the same family of viruses as HIV. The vet said we would have to put him down.

  I hadn’t known about this goat disease. These were our first goats, and we’d done only a basic vet check. We didn’t have any other goats yet, so we didn’t quarantine them or do any of the procedures we do now when we take in new animals. Not that it would have made a difference.

  The way this went down, we didn’t really understand what was happening. William was limping a little bit one day, and we just thought, Well, goats are goats. He’s climbing and jumping, he probably just needs stall rest. But that wasn’t the case. This was heartbreaking. I was gutted.

  I had expected to have him here much longer. I felt like William had just arrived, and he didn’t get to experience as much of a free life as we’d hoped he would. In my hokey vision of life on a farm, I pictured being best friends with all my animals. I imagined walking around with my goat and my pig and my cows all following me, and William fit that bill. George was a wily little bugger, and Catherine would abandon her family without giving it a second thought, but William was my pal. He was so calm and loving; he just wanted to be touched. The minute you walked into his pen, he’d walk up and stand right at your legs and touch you with his shoulder, and then he’d nuzzle up against you and rub his face on your leg. He didn’t want to wrestle or chase or head-butt you. He wanted to be your pet. He would run over when he saw you and always wanted to be cuddled. He was like a dog-goat to me.

  He’d been on our farm only about six months, so we hadn’t even considered death as part of the process. It just wasn’t on my radar—but this was a stark reminder that the more animals we had, the more often we would have to say goodbye to them. You always know that, of course, but you can’t really prepare for or figure out how to handle it. Moreover, because these are sanctuary animals, I thought I’d remain a step back from them. I thought I could keep myself at arm’s length and believe these were not my pets. (I guess that’s hard to do when a pig is an integral part of your immediate family.) We’re rescuing these animals, but they’re not part of our immediate family. I’d do anything I could to try to detach a tiny bit, because I knew that if I got too attached and lost an animal, that sense of loss would shut me down.

  But even with all the mental preparation I thought I’d done, William’s death hit me really hard. I realized it was going to be a lot more difficult than I’d thought to keep my chin up and not get too emotionally entangled when these things happened. But it was something I knew I would have to learn to deal with if this was going to be my life from now on.

  People ask what’s the hardest thing about running a sanctuary. It turns out everything is ha
rd, whether it’s losing an animal or dealing with a financial concern—the unknown about where your next dollar is going to come from—or regretfully having to say no to taking in an animal. That last one is something I’m not well equipped to handle. I’d never thought about how much of an emotional drain it would be to say no, but we can’t take every animal, and some people, as a result, can be really cruel. They’ll say, “If you don’t take this animal, it’s going to be put down—this death will be on your hands.” That’s pretty harsh when you’re trying to do a good thing and simply can’t save every animal in the world.

  I was not ready for William to go. Watching him deteriorate over those last few days, hoping he’d get better but knowing he wouldn’t—that was one of the most painful things I’d ever experienced. We had to put him down. You never want to think of having to make that call for somebody, to say, “Today’s the day.” Scheduling a death is not easy, even when you know it’s for the better. Knowing you’re going to lose someone is different from knowing you’re going to lose that someone at 1 p.m. It’s tough, but it’s part of the deal.

  William was cremated and joined the piglets in a plot on the farm. We told him that the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary would be his home forever, and that held true even after he passed away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As beautiful as the farm was… it was a mess. Sure, before we’d even taken possession of the property, I’d noticed a few pockets of rubbish in various places. So I knew we had some cleanup ahead of us. But we had completely underestimated the scale of the task at hand. It seemed like everywhere Esther would dig, she’d unearth broken bottles or tiny slivers of rusted-out metal. Not exactly buried treasure, in other words, no matter how exciting these shiny discoveries might have been for her (or terrifying for us).

  I guess in the old days, it was acceptable practice to turn your property into your own personal garbage dump. Or maybe lack of access to regular weekly trash pickup back in the early 1900s had something to do with it, especially in a rural area such as this. Regardless, by the time we moved in, most of the glass and metal had been buried under years of dirt and overgrowth. I’m sure most of it never would have been seen again if not for our darling girl with the built-in rototiller on her face.

  Esther’s always had a knack for getting into things she’s not supposed to, so why would broken glass be any different? I mean, love her as we do, and we do very much, at the end of the day she happened to be born a pig. And a pig’s gonna be a pig.

  On one of our daily walks, I noticed Esther had a bit of a limp. It didn’t seem serious per se—it’s not completely out of the norm for her to occasionally favor one leg a bit, as we all do—but she obviously wasn’t feeling quite like herself. We looked her over and assumed things would improve by morning. But the next day she showed no noticeable improvement, so we called our vet. In typical fashion, I started to assume the worst, and I’ve learned that it’s usually best if I just call in somebody who can talk me down from the edge of hysteria. (At least temporarily, because with apologies to Aerosmith, most of the time I’m livin’ on the edge.)

  Dr. Kirkham arrived around 8 p.m., when Esther was already settled happily on her bed in front of the fireplace. We had gone for our walk, she’d eaten dinner, and everything seemed pretty much normal, aside from the limp. The doctor examined the leg in question. He checked out her foot, knee, and shoulder, and again everything seemed okay. She clearly had some discomfort, but it looked like a muscle issue, as we had initially suspected, so our minds were put at ease for the moment. We decided to just give Esther some quiet time and not encourage her to tag along for walks as we usually did. (Of course, that’s easier said than done when the young lady wants to join us.) But the doctor’s recommendation was bed rest, so we had to keep her as inactive as possible for a few days while whatever was bothering her sorted itself out.

  Keeping Esther inactive was no small task, but it was certainly better than the other scenarios playing out in my mind. It all seemed like a pretty straightforward situation when Derek and I went to bed that night. But that changed when I woke up the next day and went into the living room. Nothing I could say would get Esther up and into the kitchen for her morning juice.

  (Yes, she still drinks her juice every morning. It’s a very diluted iced-tea mix, but it can’t be diluted too much, or it won’t pass inspection, and thus it ends up angrily spilled across the kitchen floor. It’s one of her diva demands, along with memory foam mattresses and no noise after 10 p.m. And yes, she’s spoiled. Americans have their Kardashians. We have Esther.)

  When Esther wouldn’t get going, I started getting worried, of course. And just because that’s often my natural state doesn’t mean my concerns aren’t valid on occasion. But I tried not to think about the limp she’d had. Esther is known to be more of an afternoon pig than a morning pig on the best of days, so her behavior this time wasn’t entirely out of character. Imagine trying to rouse a fussy teenager who just wants to sleep in on a Saturday morning, and you’ll get the picture.

  I got behind her and started gently but firmly poking either side of her butt with my index fingers, saying, “Come on, Boo Boo, piggy breakfast time.” She hates being prodded out of bed, so I knew that would get her moving, and it definitely did. But when she leaned forward and lifted her back end to stand up, her front end collapsed, and she fell forward onto her face, squealing in pain. She tried to get up again, but she couldn’t get her footing, and her legs kept slipping out from under her.

  I’d never seen her have this kind of trouble before, and it was terrifying. This was truly unprecedented: something was seriously wrong with my little big girl. My heart was in my throat. I screamed for Derek and tried to help her get up, but she was way too big for me to really do anything but support her a bit. There’s no way I could actually lift her enough to help stabilize her feet. I felt like one of those mothers summoning superhuman strength to lift an overturned car off one of my children, but in this case the car was my child. By this point she was flopping on the floor like a captured tuna on the deck of a fishing boat. Every time she tried to put her foot down, she’d pull it up in pain and fall right over again, causing her to panic as much as I did. It felt like the scariest few minutes of my life, although in reality it was only a few seconds, because Derek had heard my scream and the commotion and came flying into the room like the house was on fire.

  As soon as he saw Esther and the trouble she was having, Derek was in just as much of a panic as I was. He immediately called our vet’s office, and they instantly got the message that it was an emergency, because they had Dr. Kirkham on the phone right away. Derek explained the situation, and Dr. Kirkham told us Esther needed to go to Ontario Veterinary College (OVC, at the University of Guelph) immediately. We weren’t about to argue, so we confirmed he should make the necessary calls and get us in as soon as possible.

  But there was one complication. (It seems like there’s always at least one.) We didn’t own a trailer. In other words, at that very moment, we had no way of transporting our 650-pound girl to the hospital, which is eighteen miles from the farm. You might think that’s something we should have thought of before this, and believe me, we agree. But like so many other things on our insanely long to-do list, it simply hadn’t been done yet. It’s a list, after all. You cross things off as you go, as quickly as you reasonably can, and that one was still on there. It hadn’t seemed like the biggest concern—until it was suddenly the greatest concern we could imagine.

  We had to come up with something fast. I knew it was serious when the vet was as concerned as I was. I called Ray, a real estate friend. I knew he used an enclosed trailer to move furniture in and out of houses for sale when staging his listings to make them look better to prospective buyers. His trailer was available, but he wasn’t. He was out of town at the moment. We had to call around to find someone who could go to Georgetown and pick up the trailer, then drive to Campbellville to pick up the three of us, and then dr
ive at warp speed (but a really safe warp speed) to the hospital. In total, it would be about an hour and a half of driving, depending on where the person lived who agreed to do it. Derek and I are really lucky, because we have the most amazing friends in the world. After just a few phone calls, we found someone who dropped everything to help us out.

  While we were zipping across town to pick up the trailer, our vet was making arrangements with the hospital. He called while we were still on our way to Georgetown, letting us know that OVC had agreed to take Esther that same morning. But there were three conditions that came along with the agreement: we couldn’t take photos, we couldn’t bring any guests, and we couldn’t spend the night. It seemed our reputation had preceded us, but I knew there was no choice. I agreed to their rules, even though I had no intention of following one of them. No guests? Okay. No photos? Fine. But leaving her alone in a strange place, with strange (to her) people? That was not going to happen. Not in a million years. I think Dr. Kirkham knew I felt that way too, but he had to relay what OVC told him, and he knew I knew I had to agree… at least until we got there. Formalities.

  We finally got the trailer, made it back to the farm, and got Esther loaded up. Remarkably, given her condition, that wasn’t too tricky. We backed up the trailer right to our back deck by the sliding door, and then dropped the ramp directly onto the deck itself. Esther didn’t even have to step up to get into the trailer. It was a straight line and as easy as we could possibly make it for her. With a little encouragement, she hopped and hobbled into the trailer without argument. But every step broke my heart a little more, because I could tell that every step she took was torture. We had prepared the trailer as best we could, with plenty of straw and some of her favorite blankets, so she would be as comfortable as possible. As soon as all four of her hooves were in the straw, she lay down with a big sigh. Derek and I followed her in and lay beside her, riding in the trailer with her for the entire trip.