Why should humans cherish animals? How can animals become a person’s family?
Sy Montgomery’s animals taught her important lessons about love and community. She had a special relationship with three specific animals: two border collies, and her pet pig that helped her build a community.
Let’s look at the importance of animals to humans, using Montgomery’s examples.
Cultivating Love and Community
After moving frequently as a child due to her father’s military career, Montgomery felt truly at home for the first time in her life when she and her husband Howard settled into their farmhouse in a small New Hampshire town. It had eight acres and a barn, and it served as her home base between her research travels. Three animals shared the house that Montgomery grew to cherish, and she learned the importance of animals to humans.
The Border Collies
In their many years at the farmhouse, Montgomery and her husband Howard rescued several border collies. Let’s look at the lessons about love that Montgomery learned from two of them: Tess and Sally.
Tess
According to Montgomery, her first border collie Tess taught her lessons about how to trust others, be resilient, and love life even when your circumstances change. Montgomery and her husband got Tess from a rescue when she was two years old. By that point, Tess already had a difficult past, but she was a loving and active dog.
Tess loved to chase frisbees in the field surrounding Montgomery’s home. Montgomery particularly enjoyed playing frisbee with her at night—Montgomery would throw the frisbee blindly in the dark, and Tess would always find it with her canine night vision and bring it back. Tess guided Montgomery patiently through the dark, and they developed a bond of love and trust through this ritual.
As Tess got older, she lost her hearing and began to lose her vision, which meant she could no longer play frisbee as she had in the past. At first, Montgomery despaired over Tess’s new limitations, terrified of her dog’s mortality. However, she soon realized that Tess seemed to love her life just as much as she had before. Tess was content to switch roles with Montgomery on their nightly outings, allowing Montgomery to lead her around on walks in the dark.
Tess’s contentment just to be around the people she loved showed Montgomery how to appreciate the simple joys of life. Additionally, the trust and affection Tess showed on their nighttime walks was a type of love Montgomery had never experienced before. Tess trusted her enough to entirely depend on her, and the collie’s strength of spirit through all her difficulties moved Montgomery deeply.
Sally
Sally was the second border collie Montgomery and Howard rescued. She was different from Tess in almost every way, but Montgomery still loved her—proving there’s no limit to the amount of love we can offer.
After Tess and Christopher passed away, Montgomery went through a period of intense grief and depression. She couldn’t picture a future without them in her life, and she wasn’t ready to think about adopting another dog.
Montgomery’s reluctance to adopt another dog changed when she had a dream where Tess appeared to her and then transformed into a different border collie. Montgomery saw that as a sign that it was time to get a new dog, and she set out to find the collie from her dream. After a long search, she and her husband found a border collie at the same rescue they’d adopted Tess from. To Montgomery, it felt like fate, and she was certain that this was the dog from her dream.
They named the dog Sally, and she proved to be opposite from Tess in almost every way—she didn’t like to play fetch, and she loved to get into mischief and steal household items. Unlike Tess, who’d been more interested in playing than cuddling, Sally loved affection. Despite these differences, Montgomery loved Sally just as much as she loved Tess. In her unique way, Sally filled the hole that Tess had left, and she proved to Montgomery that her love had no limits—it only expanded to fit Sally.
Christopher the Pig
Finally, Montgomery’s pet pig—Christopher Hogwood—gave her a wealth of love, family, and community that she’d never experienced before. Chris was the runt of his litter, and Montgomery and her husband got him from a farmer close to their New Hampshire home. From the beginning, he had a boisterous, friendly personality. Montgomery became enamored with him.
Chris’s open and loving personality helped Montgomery build a network of new friends. Chris enjoyed meeting new people, so he often broke out of his enclosure to visit the surrounding neighbors. By the time Montgomery arrived to lead him back home, the people he visited were always delighted by Chris. These interactions gave Montgomery a perfect entry point to get to know people—everyone was happy to talk about Chris.
Soon, Montgomery and Howard began inviting people to bring Chris their leftover food and watch him eat. She and Howard developed a particularly close relationship with a single mom who lived with her two daughters next door. The girls visited Chris often, and they became surrogate daughters for Montgomery and Howard, who didn’t have children of their own. Because of the love that Chris extended to everyone he met, Montgomery gained a nontraditional family. He showed her that family isn’t just based on having the same blood—or being the same species—and home is where you’re loved and accepted.
