Animal Magic Read online

  First published in 2015

  Copyright © Carolyn Press-McKenzie 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Allen & Unwin

  Level 3, 228 Queen Street

  Auckland 1010, New Zealand

  Phone: (64 9) 377 3800

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

  ISBN: 978 1 87750 548 5

  eISBN 978 1 92526 689 4

  Internal design by Kate Barraclough

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  For my mum Judi and my dad Neil, my big brothers Stephen and David and both of their amazing families for years of love and support.

  For the HUHA team who are still travelling with me on this magical lifesaving journey.

  But, most of all, for my husband Jim and step-children Shaun and Leah who travelled this part of the journey with me.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1: A motley crew

  CHAPTER 2: A post-apocalyptic pig

  CHAPTER 3: The best of friends

  CHAPTER 4: The magic of breathing

  CHAPTER 5: Beethoven and body doubles

  CHAPTER 6: A tired dog is a good dog

  CHAPTER 7: The lost monkey

  CHAPTER 8: Jim, and a new home

  CHAPTER 9: An unconventional marriage

  CHAPTER 10: Three horses, a goose and a common weed

  CHAPTER 11: A knack for learning

  CHAPTER 12: Head dog handler

  CHAPTER 13: Desperate to belong

  CHAPTER 14: Not every dog’s normal

  CHAPTER 15: Becoming part of the solution

  CHAPTER 16: The neighbours

  CHAPTER 17: Libby and co.

  CHAPTER 18: A wanted dog

  CHAPTER 19: A change of environment

  CHAPTER 20: King Kong and some monkeys

  CHAPTER 21: A devastating journey

  CHAPTER 22: Gut instinct

  CHAPTER 23: Laurie

  CHAPTER 24: Weathering the storms

  CHAPTER 25: Rachel

  CHAPTER 26: Piggy Sue, three Burmese and a Chihuahua

  CHAPTER 27: Good Morning

  CHAPTER 28: Henry the heron

  CHAPTER 29: A different way of thinking

  CHAPTER 30: Community Max

  CHAPTER 31: Laurie gets his Jungle

  CHAPTER 32: An emu, a pig, a turkey and Colonel Stinky

  CHAPTER 33: Stanley

  CHAPTER 34: The fine art of protest

  CHAPTER 35: Saving nature from itself

  CHAPTER 36: A sad end

  CHAPTER 37: In the nude

  CHAPTER 38: Christchurch

  CHAPTER 39: Doing what we do well

  CHAPTER 40: HUHA magic

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  ‘ANY ANIMAL GIVEN THE CHANCE IS A REMARKABLE CREATURE, IF ONLY THAT CHANCE IS GIVEN.’

  CAROLYN PRESS-MCKENZIE, FOUNDER, HUHA CHARITABLE TRUST

  If I think about it I have always been surrounded by the magic of animals.

  Growing up in the idyllic seaside village of Eastbourne our family cat, called Blue Print Press, was the most devoted and constant companion a young girl could ever ask for. Blue arrived in our family several years before I was born. My father had been putting aside some money for new curtains. When the money had been saved, my mother went shopping for curtains, but instead arrived home with a tiny blue point Siamese kitten.

  Mum often told the story of why she spent the curtain money on a kitten that day, and in a way it became a family fable. My father had always claimed a strong dislike for cats—he said they were too disloyal and independent—but every Saturday morning my mother would watch Dad sitting on the steps of the front porch, leaning down to slip on his shoes and tie the laces, and every Saturday morning the neighbour’s cat would be there ready to assist with my father’s routine. After he had tied the laces, the two of them would sit side by side contemplating the day that lay ahead. As my mother watched, my perpetually hard-working father, who during the week left for work as a fruit and vege auctioneer by 4 a.m., seemed to relax and soften, giving the visiting creature some gentle words and strokes, and even a smile. She decided then that it was time for our family, which at that time consisted of Mum, Dad, toddler Stephen and baby David, to expand. It was time to bring the magic of an animal into our home. Knowing my father would stiffen and protest at the idea, she just went ahead and did it anyway, knowing, as she always seemed to, that it was for the absolute best.

  As always she was absolutely right.

  From the moment I was born Blue was at my side. He had grown into a huge cat with piercing blue eyes and a booming great voice. Any dog brave enough to walk on the footpath outside our home was quickly shown the error of its ways and would know next time to cross the street before passing by Number 9. But to me and my brothers Blue was nothing but gentle, attentive and patient. He wasn’t just ‘the cat’, he was an important member of our family. He drove in the car to the shops with us, he holidayed with us, even on boating trips to the Marlborough Sounds, and of course he always had his own piece of fish on fish and chips Sunday.

  When I was old enough to catch the school bus, Blue would walk me to the bus stop and wait until I was safely on board. Then, at 3 p.m. every week day, my mother would smile and laugh as Blue would wake from a deep sleep, stretch and make his way unaccompanied back to the bus stop on the other side of the main road and wait for me to arrive back into his care.

  I was thirteen years old when Blue passed away of kidney failure at the age of sixteen. Our whole community mourned the loss of such a local character. Everyone who knew him was devastated, and as for my immediate family, we were inconsolable. Nothing was right without Blue’s strong and nurturing presence. But, as always, life goes on and we learnt to cope . . . though we never forgot him.

  Eventually we decided it was time to bring another cat into our lives. Beauregard was small and timid; he had come from a breeder who had failed to socialise him and the emotional damage that plagued him in the beginning was severe. But even as a young girl I quickly realised that no matter what the animal’s story was, no matter where they came from and what they had been through, it was the here and now that mattered. Each animal that passed through my life growing up had had troubles along the way, but every single one of them learnt very quickly the magic of trust and respect. They learnt that my family treasured them and that they were important, included and safe. And so the timid newcomer thrived and carried on Blue’s legacy: being known as exceptional to all who met him.

  As a teenager I developed an obsession for horses. Everything in my room was horsey, and horses were the only thing my friends and I talked about. I even had a voluntary job shovelling horse poo, and grooming and driving trotters around the track every Saturday morning. The stables were located at the Hutt Park race course and were leased to several different trainers. My best friend Fiona and I were lucky to work for a trainer who was a kind man, who respected his six or so horses and treated them well. But as I watched the other trainers I learnt my first lesson in fate. The happiness, well-being and safety of these horses all came down to the luck of the draw. As with all animals it was 100 per cent pure fate who their
owners were. Being owned by my boss meant good food, enrichment and kindness, but to be owned by one of the other trainers could have meant anything.

  The actions of one particular trainer are burned in my mind forever. He had a young horse that wasn’t performing well, and as the trainer got stressed about its poor performance, his palpable dissatisfaction caused the horse to become stressed, which in turn caused the trainer to lose his temper and so triggered the horse to act out. Other trainers around the yards would laugh and say we’d best all stay clear when he was having one of his moments. But that day as I was walking around a corner of the stable, square in front of me I saw the two-year-old pacer hog-tied and hoisted upside-down by its legs. The trainer was kicking the horse and cursing at it, calling it a lazy so-and-so and telling it how he’d show it what a loser deserved. The trainer left the horse hanging for another hour or so, then after he had cooled off he untied it and everything was apparently back to normal. Life at the stables carried on.

  As a shy young girl, I had not yet found my voice and to this day I regret that I didn’t say or do anything. But what has struck me the most, as I look both back and forward, is the effect a human being can have on an animal.

  An owner’s method of care or treatment of the animals in their charge is their choice, but the effect of poor choice can be devastating or even deadly to an animal. Whether this is brought about by an owner’s lack of education, ignorance or just having a bad day, what is most concerning is our culture of turning a blind eye and allowing each animal to just accept its fate.

  Animals in New Zealand are big business; racing and farming are both important industries and having animals as pets is woven into the fabric of our society. And yet, if we opened our eyes and saw what is regularly excused within these industries and in many homes, we would be horrified by what is complacently accepted as normal. These ‘normal’ practices include providing no shelter for livestock; keeping sows in crates and factory farming of pigs; tethering goats on roadsides; chaining up dogs in backyards; cats and dogs being left undesexed to breed indiscriminately; caged birds left with little enrichment; dogs, cats and rabbits being bred in poor and inhumane conditions and very young puppies, kittens and bunnies being taken from their parents for pet store stock.

  The Animal Welfare Act in New Zealand offers little protection. It is perfectly acceptable to shoot your dog in the head if you feel it is not agreeable to your way of life. It is okay for anyone to breed their pet no matter what their situation is and with no regard for the well-being of the animals or an overwhelmed community. It just goes on and on. Every animal deserves to know the love and safety of a responsible home, whether that is within a business or a suburban backyard, and yet in New Zealand this is sadly often not the case. Surprisingly, safe and sensible homes and businesses are the exception not the rule.

  Of course the way forward has to be education. The cycle of suffering at the hands of ignorance and complacency needs to stop.

  This book is about the journey that led to HUHA (Helping You Help Animals) Charitable Trust. It tells the story of how I and the amazing team of people I met along the way built what have become New Zealand’s leading no-kill animal shelters. I have been careful to leave in my mistakes, as no one is perfect and we all change as we grow. It is my wish that this book not only delights you with the magic of the happy ever afters, but that it also offers penny-dropping moments.

  I also want to show you the power of community and of social media. We are living in an age when anything is possible, especially if we unite with one strong voice.

  So, please learn from my experiences, my successes and my mistakes and grow with us. Together we can start to make the changes in our culture that animals so desperately need.

  It’s true that my cat Blue was exceptional. But that was because he was allowed to be a significant, involved and enriched member of my family. At HUHA we have a saying which we use almost daily as animals with a reputation for being bad, untrainable or useless come into our care.

  We simply smile confidently and say, ‘Change the environment and you’ll change the animal.’

  CHAPTER 1

  A motley crew

  Enter piglet, exit husband.

  I’m not sure if it’s normal but I didn’t cry when my first husband left. Not even a tear. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, it’s just his leaving somehow made everything seem easier.

  We’d only been married for a year and to be fair to Leon the huge changes I was going through had come from out of the blue. I was becoming the polar opposite of the tidy, conforming, café-dwelling girl he thought he had married. My father had passed away six weeks after walking me down the aisle. I had announced to the world that I was vegetarian even though previously I had been a voracious steak eater. I had walked out on my apprenticeship as an animal trainer and in the same week I was offered a contract to work as an animal wrangler for a children’s television series. And our little first home in suburbia by the sea had unexpectedly turned into a petting zoo, alive with the pitter patter of tiny feet . . . a pig, chooks, cats, a movie-star dog called Bob, nine actor rats and Felix the magpie.

  Leon told me the moment of truth was when the magpie I was training, who enjoyed the freedom of our home, backed up to him as he sat relaxed in a bath, shook its tail and plopped a poo into the bathwater.

  To be honest, we both realised that the marriage wasn’t working and hadn’t been the best idea either of us had ever had. After the bath incident, it felt like mere minutes before there was a For Sale sign on the front lawn of our little cottage, a Sold sticker was slapped across it and I was excitedly loading boxes into my very old TK Bedford house bus and heading for 5 acres of ragged swampy paradise on the Kapiti Coast, animals in tow.

  Felix oozed personality. He was the first magpie I had raised and if the reports I had heard were true I knew I would be up for at least a year of cheeky fun and entertainment before he would head off to the call of the wild. When Felix was handed to me by my boss, a renowned animal trainer for films and television, the instructions were simple: ‘Lord of the Rings is going to be filmed in New Zealand and if we are to win the animal wrangling contract then we need to start putting the work in now.’ My boss had been trying to source some wild rook fledglings from the Hawke’s Bay, as they are New Zealand’s closest relative to the crows needed for the movie. But as I was just the junior trainer, this fuzzy wide-eyed magpie was to be my practice run at Bird Training 101.

  At this time, about eight months before Leon left, my dad, who had been struggling with cancer, was close to passing on. My dad had an amazing skill and uncanny instinct for seeing things for what they were: ‘It is what it is, so get on with it’. He had been such an amazing provider for my family. Although he worked all the hours that God gave him, we always had the best holidays together and my memories of growing up in my family are probably the happiest of anyone’s I know . . . we were some of the lucky ones.

  On the final day of Dad’s life I called my boss.

  ‘I am so sorry, I know we have a TV commercial to film, but my father is not going to hold on any longer and I need to be with him,’ I said.

  She was furious. In her eyes my request was inconvenient and I was being disloyal. She told me that if I wanted a career in film then I had better get my priorities straight. She then said that she was away filming when her father had died and it was that sort of commitment that had gotten her ahead in the business. I apologised profusely and, feeling slightly numb and shaken, went back to my family and my father’s side.

  I was hand-rearing Felix during Dad’s illness, and the little magpie had to go everywhere with me. With all that was going on inside the house, Mum and I parked him up in her glasshouse. It was such a lovely building, housing a grapevine—Dad’s pride and joy—that wove its way in and out of the open slats, providing just enough shade so that the sun was not unbearably hot, and just enough warmth to take the bite out of the crisp spring air. Visiting Felix in
the glasshouse was cathartic for all of us; he became our little get-away from the reality of what we had to face in the days ahead. As family and friends came to pay their respects and say goodbye, they each in turn visited the glasshouse to escape and to smile, if only for a moment, in the presence of this confident and cheeky little creature.

  After Dad passed peacefully, we set about making arrangements for the funeral, with Felix in tow. No one in my family questioned his presence through all the decision-making and organising. He was part of our journey and we were all a little grateful for the light relief. Shoelaces were Felix’s specialty. He was usually nestled on my shoulder where he gave me a sense of comfort, but would hop down to floor level and helpfully undo the shoelaces of our visitors, encouraging them to remove their shoes and grieve comfortably. And I allowed myself a smile through the sadness, as my mother, her friends and I numbly wandered through Mum’s glorious cottage garden, selecting flowers for the casket. For every perfect flower we lovingly chose and cut, Felix would fly one step ahead of us, snapping away the bees and bugs as though it was his job to usher us through the garden with no interference from nature.

  As everyday life carried on I continued to train and care for Felix. Back at our little cottage a few weeks later, Leon and I noticed that Felix was starting to get a head tilt, which worsened over the following day until his head had flipped over his back and was upside-down and looking backward. He was still singing and eating his soggy cat biscuits with great zest but it really did look most alarming and uncomfortable. With our local vet unable to help, we booked an appointment with an avian specialist. He didn’t puzzle over Felix’s predicament; he knew straight away that I was at fault. I had been killing Felix with kindness.

  Cat food is commonly recommended as an acceptable food for rearing young magpies. But being the diligent vet nurse that I also was I had chosen to feed Felix only the best cat food available, staying well clear of the products that were bulked-out with cereal as I thought they were rubbish. But the vet confirmed that it was Felix’s expensive dietary habits that were in fact making him sick. As an omnivore his diet should be more varied including the cheap and cheerful brands that were crammed with cereal filler. I had been giving him other food like vegetables and bugs, but with the staple being the posh puss pet tucker, Felix had essentially gone into protein overload. Thank goodness it could be fixed!