by Rebecca Moore, founder of the Institute for Animal Happiness

At the Institute for Animal Happiness and vegan animal rescues around the world, Love is not just in action on Valentine’s Day, but every single day. To IFAH, love is a force for healing, and healing can extend to both the caregiver and the nonhuman person receiving care when done in an environment that creates a respectful and thoughtful space for that to happen. Especially for the disabled avians in residence, being held and feeling the warmth of a caring connection is incredibly important: it’s a form of physical therapy that gives each individual relief and the crucial opportunity to connect. Being hand-fed treats or held in arms to relieve pressure from joints–the love that is embodied through care brings so much relief and a sense of peace. Love is so essential for all beings to not just survive, but thrive.

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by Anouk Frolic, author of The Be Kind Alphabet

The love for our companion animals can be intense, vast, grounding, therapeutic, hard and fast, and heartbreakingly sad when they leave us—always too soon—but worth every tear and heavy heart…to the point that we do it over and over again, because we know the love is so worth it. There’s infinitely more love within us to give and unfortunately, animals in need of being rescued from their circumstances.

If we’re lucky, we form a bond so close, we call them our “heart” animal. I have been fortunate so far in my life to have experienced several of those. My first one came to me when I’d set out on my own, leaving Canada for L.A. at age 24. I adopted a pup from a shelter in Glendale, CA. It was like the universe had an arrow pointing straight to her, as she lay snuggled in with her littermates. There was no hesitation, as I zeroed in on her. A squirmy, distended-bellied, white, whippet-lab mix, who needed to grow into her loose skin. I called her Meisje, which is Dutch for girl. She was my constant companion for 15 years, through moves across countr(ies), relationships, jobs..and for every single hike, walk, swim, camping trip I took. She was so in tune with me, all I had to do was give her a look, and she understood what I was saying.

One of my favourite memories was sitting with her in the dark at night, watching scary movies on my bed. She would be pinned to my side, and when things got tense, we’d look at each other, her eyes would be as wide as mine, and then I’d scream and she’d jump and lick my face and stick her butt up in the air and we’d laugh our heads off. 

The last year of her life with me, I fell into a depression, as I watched her slow decline. Everything in my life slowed down alongside her. Every moment was more precious than the next. Until that final day, with the vet on speed dial, we went for our final walk. We didn’t make it more than half a block from the house, when she turned to me, and I knew it was time to say good bye. The vet came and she fell into her deep forever sleep, while safely in my arms, and wet with my tears. She died knowing love. Something I wish for all animals.

My heart expands with love every time I think of her, and I share that love now with the two ginger cats I’ve recently adopted.

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by Tracey Glover, author of Lotus of the Heart

I’m not sure I know exactly when I fell in love with her. I think it was probably the moment I first saw her, or first heard her sweet little peep in the backseat of my hatchback. And then that love grew and deepened over time, as love does. 

Fannie was one of 40,000 Cornish Cross chickens, a.k.a. “broiler chickens” being raised at a Colorado chicken facility that went bankrupt in the winter of 2019. They turned off the heat and stopped feeding the birds in their sheds. A local sanctuary, Luvin Arms, found out what was happening and got permission to go in and rescue as many as they wanted. 

They were only able to rescue the ones they had homes for. I saw something about it on my social media feed and without knowing what I was doing, volunteered to take two. I ended up taking eight. I’d never had a relationship with a chicken. I didn’t really know how much of a relationship was possible. I just knew that they were suffering, and that I could help at least a couple. 

I made the five hour drive to Warm Springs, GA where all the chickens destined for new homes in Mobile, AL were being temporarily housed at Full Circle Farm Sanctuary. I believe I probably already loved her even when she was just one little white lump in the backseat along with about 20 others. I loved them all in the way animal lovers love all animals, in the way Buddhists love all sentient beings and that Universal Love becomes tangible in the face of a real life sentient being in your presence, especially one so innocent and vulnerable, one who has just escaped from hell.

I brought them all home, and after the other local people had come and collected their chickens to take them to their new homes, I was left with 8 little white clouds whom I couldn’t tell apart. Eight little earth angels with snow white feathers and faces red like kisses. A couple were smaller or bigger, but otherwise I couldn’t differentiate them. I put different colored leg bands on so I could tell them apart. And I quickly realized that there was one in particular who was always following me around. Every time I walked out to the yard, the little white bird with the green leg band would come running over to me. If I sat down, she would stand at my feet and look up at me with penetrating eyes, chirping up a conversation. Initially, I didn’t know if the chickens would want to be held, but when I picked Fannie up, she relaxed in my arms, and I knew that was exactly where she wanted to be. I named her Fannie after a great cousin on my mom’s side I never knew. Because she was family now, and that’s what people do. They name their kids after relatives.

Fannie was the loveliest creature. She was dignified and elegant. She was curious about everything and so smart. When there was food around, she, like every other Cornish Cross I’ve ever known, went wild. But otherwise, she was calm and self-possessed. While her sisters scratched around in the leaves or luxuriated in their dirt baths, whenever I walked out into the yard, Fannie would drop whatever she was doing and come running for me, following me around until I’d stop and pick her up and hold her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her. 

Fannie passed away this past spring when she was about 5 1/2 years old. All but one of her sisters are still with me. So it feels like Fannie died far too young. But the truth is she was bred to be killed as a six week old baby. That’s when chickens in the meat industry are killed. If not for that farm going bankrupt, and all the rescuers jumping in to save them, I never would have known her. She never would have had a life. She never would have been able to become who she was. 

I never really felt like I had enough time with her. I always knew her life would be too short, that the end would come too soon. When I first adopted them, I didn’t think any of them would live to be more than a year or two based on their terrible breeding, the results of genetic manipulation and human exploitation. Maybe that’s part of why I never took her for granted. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t make a point of holding her in my arms and stroking her pink cheeks. 

A couple years ago, she developed a respiratory infection, and I brought her in the house to monitor her and make it easier to treat and medicate her. When she got better after a few weeks, I put her back outside with her sisters, but at bed time she’d go to the door of the run and look into the house expectantly. I think I held firm for two or maybe 3 nights before deciding that she would just forever sleep inside. It was clearly what she wanted. And it was what I wanted too. So for the last couple of years of her life, she would sleep right next to my bed and then go outside during the day to enjoy her sisters, the sunshine and the fresh air, and all of the simple pleasures of freedom and safety. 

One morning, last spring, when I went to wake Fannie up, I could see she wasn’t herself. I got her into the vet right away. The local vet sent us to the specialist at Louisiana State University teaching hospital about four hours away. I got pulled over for speeding on the way there and of course I sobbed to a confused highway patrol officer. We went in through emergency after watching the sunset together on the ride over. She got a blood transfusion that night, but didn’t get better. She was scheduled to have a second transfusion a couple days later, but she died before she could get that.

I was only a few minutes away from the hospital getting lunch when it happened. When they called to give me the news, I remember the feeling of collapsing into myself, of wanting to rip open the fabric of space and time and follow her wherever she had gone. Losing her was one of the most painful experiences of my life, but she left all the love with me. All the love she brought into my life is still in my heart forever. Losing Fannie was and remains one of the great heartbreaks of my life. But I can’t think of her without feeling my heart melt and overflow with love, without seeing rainbows in my mind’s eye. I don’t know why she loved me, but I’m so incredibly grateful that she did. She was the most amazing tiny feathered person. She was perfect, from her prettiest little face to her daintiest little toes. 

She lives in my heart forever and will forever motivate me to create a world where all beings are respected, treated with kindness and mercy and compassion, a world where we all can experience what it is to love and to be loved. 

Real love is not restricted to our own species anymore than it is constrained by any other category we use to differentiate and divide ourselves from each other. Real love is boundless both in measure and reach. Real love has no limits. My love for Fannie is not different in kind or degree from the love that I’ve had for dogs, cats, or human beings. Love is love. Real love transcends all of the limitations and boundaries that we have created and use as ways of dividing us up into hierarchies of those who are superior and inferior, deserving and undeserving. Love knows no such bounds. Love leads us to truth beyond human convention, beyond the limitations of our minds. It is real in a way that our human constructs are not. Real love transcends the illusions of hierarchy and supremacy. Real love is revolutionary. Real love can change the world. 

When I was on the way to LSU with Fannie that last time, as the sun was setting out her window, I told her how much I loved her, and I told her that she would change the world. I tell her story to anyone who will listen because I do believe that if the world knew Fannie and others of her kind, there would be a revolution. A revolution rooted in love.

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by Hope Bohanec, author of The Humane Hoax

As a long-time vegan and animal advocate, I’ve always respected chickens’ lives. However, I had never lived with a chicken until the day I rescued Kukkuta. A friend called me in a panic about an injured rooster around a shopping area in Cotati, California. He was part of a group of chickens living in the tall grass around the parking lots. The population was growing as more people were abandoning unwanted roosters and hens due to the recent trend of backyard chicken keeping, which often has good intentions but cruel consequences. 

I drove there and found a small rooster lying motionless on the ground in the middle of a parking space with blood splattered around him on the pavement. Blood splattered around him on the pavement. Another rooster paced triumphantly back and forth, hovering over him on the curb. I shooed away the tormenter and examined the poor guy. He was frozen in shock. His face, head, neck, and comb were covered in murky blood and his left eye was swollen shut. It was Easter weekend and there was no one to call, so I ended up with a rooster in my car. I knew he would be my responsibility. His life was now in my hands. 

For seven days he didn’t move. The poor soul was so traumatized. Every morning I ran to check on him, so afraid that he might have died during the night. We named him Kukkuta (rooster in Sanskrit).

Slowly the swelling of Kukkuta’s eye subsided. On the seventh day of being a guest in our home, he stood up and started drinking some water. We were thrilled! He dunked his head under the water, washing the crusted blood from his face and comb. The following morning, we heard him crow for the first time, and it was a joyful sound! A robust celebration of life! He recovered quickly and was a perfect gentleman, never pecking or protesting when I reached for him. He was a gentle soul. 

I had a strong vegan ethic before, but now more than ever I can’t fathom anyone intentionally killing a sentient individual like Kukkuta. He awaked a new and profound level of love. Everything in me wanted to protect him and preserve his life. This is an experience I wish for everyone, for you can never again think of harming an animal after knowing this kind of love. I will never forget my dear friend Kukkuta.

You can read the entire story of Hope and Kukkuta in The Humane Hoax.

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by Carey Theil, author of Brooklyn Goes Home

When we brought Brooklyn home for the first time, Gina was curious. Then furious. Who was this big white and brown dog, this interloper from the Fare East, doing in her house? More importantly, why was Christine giving him so much attention? It didn’t seem to matter to her that they were both greyhounds.

I loved Gina and we became close in her last days before cancer took her across the Rainbow Bridge. I nursed her during this terrible time, and we became inseparable. 

But for most of her life she had no use for me. She only had eyes for Christine. When Christine entered a room, Gina’s heart grew wings.

So this was the complicated family dynamic Brooklyn found himself in after we rescued him from Macau’s Canidrome, the worst dog track in the world. He had spent ten years living in a concrete cell, and had not had a family since he was a tiny puppy a decade earlier.

Over time, Gina began to warm up to Brooklyn. She realized how friendly he was, even to our cats!  When he was diagnosed with cancer, she saw him lose a leg. She saw him struggle for life after a stroke a year later, still appreciating each day. In truth, Gina truly came to adore Brooklyn. One night, she even walked over to his bed and laid down to comfort him. This was unthinkable behavior for our stunning fawn dog, a greyhound who only had eyes for Christine.

And so it was that during the three years that Brooklyn lived with us that his closest friend became Gina. She was with him every day, galloping around our office with him, kissing him. When his final days finally came, we all spent weeks holding on to him for dear life. She loved her brother, and did not want him to go. None of us did.

Somewhere in the sky Gina and Brooklyn are now together and we have no doubt she is Brooklyn’s Forever Valentine.

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