Post by Jenna Close, written Dec 21st, 2022, shortly after Moose’s passing
“Human beings are a part of the animal kingdom, not apart from it. The separation of “us” and “them” creates a false picture and is responsible for much suffering.” ― Marc Bekoff, Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
“When animals express their feelings they pour out like water from a spout. Animals’ emotions are raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating. Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.”
― Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy – and Why They Matter
If you told me five years ago that a pigeon would break my heart, I would have laughed and called you crazy. And yet here I am, listening for that Barry White coo, the specific clatter-pattern of toenails running down a ramp, the flap of wings in anticipation of peas. It is not just a bird or a pet or an animal that is no longer here. It’s so much more than that.
Moose was epic, and he lived an epic life. From the day he arrived he was a singular presence. He was supposed to be a wife for my male self-rescue, but 24hrs into his arrival he swiftly disabused us of that notion by marrying the other female I had just adopted. He then proceeded to try and secure 3 different nest boxes for himself and his bride. Being new to pigeons, I spent a lot of time frantically trying to get one move ahead of the chocolate flecked maelstrom I had invited into my life.
To say that Moose taught me how to care for pigeons would be an understatement, because Moose was Moose and he always went big. He was my first egg swap. He was my first broken blood feather, and to such epic proportions that I thought he had punctured his side and rushed him straight to the vet. When he got extremely ill with mycobacteriosis (I remind you that Moose only did epic, and this was one epic diagnosis), he taught me how to be an advocate for a breed that is often dismissed and denied the medical attention they deserve. He taught me to watch closely for signs of change, to trust my gut, to not stop until I found a vet who would invest in him the same level of care they would a dog or a parrot. He was my initiation into oral medication, my first car sick bird, my first commitment to long term hard core (4x a day for 18 months) daily medical care with all its trials and errors – and, through it all, my first glimpse at the power of a pigeon with a will to live.
I have secretly dreaded this day for a long time. I knew it would happen and that it would hurt, but I couldn’t grasp how much until it actually arrived. Every moment of my life is now filled with an epic Moose-sized hole and I am painfully aware of just how much my joy was tied to his. My hope for him was many more years of good health, rain baths, pea stomping and not-my-wife flirtations, but even so I am so grateful for the years we had. I feel like the luckiest person in the world that by some flick of fate Moose and I found each other. It has been a privilege to shepherd him through love and loss and illness and joy. So much joy.
