Death Be Not Proud

September 20 begins Animal Week and I'm guessing there are lots of events in your neck of the woods celebrating our kinship with beasts of all types. Here we have lots of events surrounding the Pennsylvania legislation on puppy mills that is going through "growing pains" as it makes its way through the state government.

The local outrage that surrounded the recent news that two Bucks County kennel operators had shot 80 dogs rather than pay for their veterinary care, resulted in renewed support for the legislation as well as the usual vigils that pop up when random acts result in the death of innocents. More than 100 people in Lancaster (site of the kennels in question) turned out in an impromptu candlelight vigil to demand that the new law be passed.

Yet it seems that not all people are on the same page when it comes to public displays of sorrow for "innocents." TalkBack, the online forum of Lancaster Newspapers carried comments such as: "This is pathetic. You don't even have that kind of turnout when kids are killed" from those who questioned the mourners priorities.

Of course it is possible to care about both issues just as it is possible to become "numb" to repeated episodes in which random, innocent children are killed. Sherry Wolfe of Lancaster noted both points in her letter to the editor: "The public becomes numb to the constant news stories about murder....Every day someone's murdering someone."

Something, however, about animals being killed cuts through the noise and numbness and it's not just about dogs and cats. It happens with horses too. Witness the tremendous public outpouring of cards, letters, gifts and food for Barbaro after his injury. Witness the public display of mourning at the Memorial Service for Eight Belles. Visitors regularly pay homage to the horses buried at the Kentucky Horse park as well as those interred at Churchill Downs's Kentucky Derby Museum. Stonewall Jackson's horse, Little Sorrel, was "officially" buried at Virginia Military Institute in 1997 in a ceremony replete with mourners dressed in Civil War garb.

There is something about the plight of animals and their demise that strikes a chord in our souls that cuts to the chase--not that the death of children does not do the same thing--but I think the fact that it does it at all is what makes us stop and take notice.

I do think you can be affected by the death of everything that breathes and that paying respects to one species over another does not diminish the importance or depth of loss equated with each one of them.

And if public displays of mourning lead to public action to prevent the tragedies in the first place, then far be it for me to pass judgment.