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photo by Kathy Gorish for VINE Sanctuary

“VINE Sanctuary began when two people drove past a chicken in a ditch and made the snap decision to stop and at least try to offer care to this unfamiliar animal. In the 14 years since, the sanctuary has been the scene of so many episodes of interspecies cooperation and care. These days, a gaggle of peace-keeping geese help us with the project of rehabilitating former fighting roosters. A cow called Buddy makes it his business to welcome every newcomer, regardless of species. The 3,000-pound cow called Thunder once used his huge forehead to gently nudge newly-arrived young turkeys into the coop where they could nest, feather to feather, with the rest of our truly motley crew.

As Peter Kropotkin showed in his classic 1902 book by that name, Mutual Aid among animals of different species is commonplace. On the internet, stories of trans-species adoptions or other instances of  one kind of nonhuman animal helping another always circulate widely. Such stories seem wondrous to us because we’ve been taught to be selfish and told that competition rather than cooperation is the norm in nature.

We’ve also been taught to see animals as passive objects of human attention rather than as active participants in problem-solving. Sheep tend to be particularly persistent problem-solvers, creatively trying different strategies until they figure out how to get where they are trying to go. And they are anything but “sheepish” when it comes to vocally expressing their wishes.

I can’t know what thought feels like to a sheep, much less what Lemon was thinking yesterday morning. But I do know that she deliberately helped Matisse solve the problem of the snowy pasture, taking time out of her day to do so. She could have run to join the other sheep scrounging for spilled birdseed by the pigeon aviary, but instead she stepped slowly, stopping each time Matisse needed to regain his balance on her wooly back. Such moments remind me that we are not the rescuers of animals but, rather, allies in the mutual project of care-giving.”

~ excerpted with permission from Ewe Helps Rooster Stay Out of the Snow, Vine Sanctuary News

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