I was warned – it just didn’t help
As someone who has spent their life ignoring warnings, you’d think I’d have learnt my lesson by now. Some warnings, of course, should always be heeded.
‘‘This is not a toy’’ or ‘‘this pig bites’’ are ones that spring to mind, but almost everything else I cheerfully discount, only to be surprised at the consequences.
It’s a vicious loop and my latest warning regret stems from one I wish I’d heeded on a recent story.
It was a piece I knew was going to upset me, yet seeing as ‘‘I should have known better’’ will surely be my epitaph, I read it anyway.
And now I’m upset.
The story was about Reginald Ozanne, who was jailed in 2020 for stabbing a miniature pony 41 times while it was tethered to a fence.
Star ultimately died of the injuries, and the Otago man was jailed for two and a half years.
Ozanne was back in the news last week for breaching a parole condition banning him from any physical contact with any animal, unless with prior written approval of a probation officer and under the direct supervision of an approved, informed adult.
He has now been charged by Corrections, having been caught in the company of a dog.
The story rightly revisited his earlier crime and at the top in bold it read: ‘‘Warning: Article shows graphic photos of wounds to a horse’’.
And man, did it ever. In pictures taken under those harsh surgical lights, the stabs looked for all the world like little open mouths covering the pony’s back. I wish I’d never seen it because it made me angry and sad, but mainly because I didn’t need to.
While graphic images are important to highlight the realities of inhumanity, some of us are already well versed in it.
I didn’t need to see the photo because I’ve seen similar sights in real life.
In another life I was a vet nurse, working both for the SPCA and my own absurd little animal sanctuary, so I know firsthand there is no limit to the cruelty people inflict on animals.
I’m not just talking about negligence either.
In those cases, well-meaning owners have been either overwhelmed by or underprepared for caring for their pets. While the results were often heinous, there was no ill intent involved.
The monsters were different. These people deliberately harmed creatures for their own sick thrills.
We received their victims in the clinic, tried to fix them, sometimes could, sometimes couldn’t.
The only certain thing was that, just when we thought we’d seen the worst, something else would trump it.
I could write you a list of examples, though it’d just make you sick, which is what it ultimately did to me.
My empathy never dissipated but my ability to do something practical with it did. Some people describe that as burnout, but whatever you call it I walked away, leaving stronger souls to keep picking up the pieces.
There are degrees of cruelty. There is negligence and there are the monsters, then there is cruelty carried out perfectly legally.
Last weekend, the death ship Awassi Express returned to New Zealand to load yet another cargo of souls for a hellish voyage into the unknown. Cattle are being shipped to China in record numbers despite a government promise that live exports would be wound up.
Those who support these shipments say the animals are well cared for, treated humanely and that all welfare requirements are being met.
I say that sometimes we don’t need to see photos to know what’s happening. We see you anyway.