Photo by HVargas, Flickr
My earliest childhood memory is of grass. I’d fallen face down on the brown-green Los Angeles fuzz and frantically summoned my 18 months of coordination skills to get up and toddle away from an angry goose that believed my little pig-tailed self was a threat.
I remember the loud honks and the look of hate in its eyes as it relentlessly followed me and nipped furiously. I was upset at my chubby little legs for not working and at my smiling family for just standing under a sycamore for shade. That was just the beginning.
I’ve had a long-standing track record of somehow invigorating normally docile creatures and not knowing why. I even became a vegetarian at nine years old because I wanted to have nothing to do with these furry demons. But no matter how hard I tried to avoid them, animals seemed to seek me out.
While on a quiet hike during my UK travels, a Welsh sheep decided he’d escape from his pen, find me, sneak up on me and jump on a fallen tree while snorting and stomping his hooves enough to scare me onto a different trail. I got lost for hours.
Then there was the time in a Lahu village in Northern Thailand on a narrow trail summiting a mountain. While walking with a group of children we didn’t get very far before we were met by a herd of cows storming down the narrow mountainside trail. We had no option but to run for our lives until a kid saw a dent in the mountain, pressed his body against the stone and indicated to the rest of us do the same. That’s when stampeding cows rampaged past our group.
And of course the great bunny scare of 2005 when I was rabbit-sitting for a friend in the Hollywood Hills. After tending to Mr. Bunny’s needs, who had free-range in the house and was busy in the next room, I snuggled up with a glass of red wine and an emotional film in my friend’s white living room.
The drama’s soundtrack was about to break into a full violin symphony and my body pulled closer to the TV to hear the whispered dialogue when Mr. Bunny jumped into the air, somehow suspended himself long enough for me to scream and, of course, spill my red wine over every white thing in the room.
I stared into his soulless beads and realized that the bunny had never been anywhere else except right under me. He had been sitting patiently, waiting for the perfect moment to make himself known.
Los Angeles threw other cute animals my way – snorting deer that prevented me from getting to my car, peafowl that circled me and hostile squirrels that stole my food. But then, Los Angeles tossed the cutest creature of all my way – a daughter, born in the summer of last year.
When my husband and I decided to move to Vancouver, I knew I’d have to put an end to this bad animal karma, mostly for my daughter’s sake. I want my child’s first memories to be of hugging friendly bunnies while looking up to see her family smiling at her, not of running away from a Granville Island goose.
Since Vancouver is full of animals, my plan has been simple. Every day, we venture out to find animals before they find us. With this mindset, the only disappointment would come out of not encountering an animal, a consequence I’m willing to accept.
Every day, we have been successful in our mission and my daughter’s fearlessness has become inspiring.
Recently, we visited a private farm just outside Vancouver, where she ran up to the biggest goat she saw in a pen, bypassing all the adorable and more popular kids, and gave him a nice pat.
To my amazement, the goat didn’t snort at her or give her an evil glare. Instead, he let her know that he was grateful for the rare kindness and thoughtfully turned and walked away.
Like the old goat, my affinity towards being an animal target just needed a gentle pat – something to wake it up and point it in a new direction.
My daughter will never get me to eat meat, but I’ve learned that it’s impossible to live without animals.
