No Dumb Animals

Thank you to Lynda Lee at dVerse for tonight’s prosery quote: “A cow is screaming across the arroyo.” It led me to exploring a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately.

If you’d like to take part, click on the link to read about prosery and dVerse.

Photo by Jake Fagan on Unsplash

“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. ”

Mark Twain

No Dumb Animals (144 words)

A cow is screaming across the arroyo. She recognizes the helpless fearful cry: where have you gone, my little one?

The calf probably slipped down the embankment. Mare approaches the currently dry stream bed where she hears a responding bleat.

Countless times, she’s mocked: “It’s a stupid cow.” “Just a deer.” “Dumb squirrel.”

She bites her tongue, every time, lately not so much. Age? Research? The world? Who knows why her tongue’s become greased lightning imparting undesired opinions.

She thinks of her pup, Kasey, grateful for her presence through his pain, placing his chin one last time on her hand, moments before the injection. How that chin once rested on her shoulder as a foster who didn’t want to leave–and didn’t.

The universe with its vast bastion of secrets but one she knows and knows to be true: no animal’s a dumb animal.

end

Sascha Darlington

21 thoughts on “No Dumb Animals

  1. Amen! The first step in exploiting a being is to devalue and objectify the being. How could we eat steaks if they came from intelligent creatures?

  2. I like where you’ve taken your prosery, Sascha, and agree that there are no dumb animals! And I love the caring nature of your character.

  3. Loving this and such a truth you’ve referenced. Anyone who’s had a pet in their home – most especially a dog or a cat….or horses in their fields…knows how animals can sense our feelings….how they can be trained to tasks. Mostly, I’m impressed with their empathy. Having had to put down two of our family pets many years ago….I remember the feelings well.

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