omg Donkey's reaction after seeing little girl who raised him.

[Maraya1969]

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. That makes me cry every time!

[CatMor]

2. That was beautiful. Brought tears.

[Deuxcents]

3. Be still my heart

Life is beautiful

[Butterflylady]

4. Crying

😢can't tell me animals don't have emotions.

[malaise]

52. Me too

Happy tears

[soothsayer]

5. Aww! Auto tune donkey

[orwell]

6. This is why I stopped eating meat...

...I moved to the country 20 years ago. I was the biggest meat eater you would ever meet.

I made friends with the neighbor's animals - a goat, a bull, a pig, and a donkey. I grew up in the big city. I had never been this close to farm animals before on a daily basis.

After I got to know them they would often greet me like this...running to the edge of the fence to get petted and rubbed. They would moo and snort and bleat when they saw me.

Once I saw how sentient these so called lowly animals were my whole concept of eating meat changed. If I wasn't willing to take their lives to eat them what was I doing unconsciously stuffing a hamburger in my mouth in the first place.

That was 15 years ago. I stopped eating meat and have never regretted it.

I have no problem with those who decide to eat meat. That is their choice. I did it for most of my life and loved every minute of it. When I cook for meat eaters I cook whatever they like - from bacon to roast beef.

I just can't do it anymore.

[KPN]

8. No kidding. Once you go down that path, you can't unthink it anymore it seems.

[MLAA]

9. Me too. I've been meatless 12 years and vegan about 8 years.

There is also a video of a cow playing ball with a person. Here is no difference between cats and dogs and other animals.

Plus the resources used to raise livestock is overwhelming/destroying our planet.

[Ms. Toad]

15. As to your final point -

There are resources that can be (and are currently being) used to raise livestock - that cannot be used to raise food that humans can directly consume. The Nebraska Sandhills are a prime example, because of the terrain and climate. The land is suitable for grazing cattle or other livestock for much of the summer - but completely unuseable for producing human food. At the end of the summer, after the crops have been harvested in the Platte River Valley - an area well-suited for producing crops for human consumption - the cattle are brought home and released to graze the remnants of the harvest - making full use of all of the crop (rather than wasting the remnants that cannot be harvested by machine and minimizing the supplemental food for hte livestock).

Slightly different dynamics, but much of the land to the west and north of Nebraska have terrains, climate, and water tables suitable for large-scale ranching but not farming. These farms do not necessarily have a seasonal split for grazing livestock, because the conditions mean that it takes far more land in Wyoming (for example) to produce the same harvest as it does in Ohio (for example). The land is generally more productive when the crops are processed through livestock which can graze sparse crops that are not economical to harvest for human food.

People such as Frances Moore Lappe take as a (false) premise that all farmland is equally productive for farming v. livestock. When that is the case you are correct. But when it is not the case eliminating livestock also eliminates the ability to productively use large swaths of the midwest and western (but east of the coast) land.

Factory farming is an abomination that destroys land and is inherently cruel to the animals raised in those conditions. But that is not the general reality of family farms in the midwest. Believing that it is immoral to raise animals for slaughter is a perfectly reasonable position to take. Just don't justify it on the false premise that raising livestock is inherently an economically wasteful/land destroying process.

[orwell]

23. There is also some evidence...

...that grazing helps the environment. I saw this Ted Talk a while ago and never forgot it. It is well worth watching.

The environment is a very complex system that does no lend itself to simplistic analysis. Grazing animals have been here for eons.

[Ms. Toad]

27. That's exactly what my father is doing in the Nebraska sandhills

He's sectioned the property, bunching the cows in one section to fully graze it, moving them to the next section, and so on. His goal wasn't to mimic herds and predators - but to better utilize the grazing area. (We can't do the next step he suggests on that property becuase the topology isn't suitable for farming.)

[blaze]

28. Thanks for posting this.

I hadn't heard even a little about this approach.

[Merlot]

36. Grazing? There's no grazing in factory farming.

[BobTheSubgenius]

47. Have you seen the documentary "Kiss The Ground?"

A very compelling case that weaves very well with parts of your post. It doesn't delve into the livestock issue, but other docs certainly do. There is one on YT that has a title something like "Meat - The Best Worst Thing You Will Ever Eat." It's appears to be produced for children, based on the production values, but there are some pretty shocking points therein.

"Kiss The Ground" is currently on Netflix.

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, militant on this issue. I've moved my own life forward fairly slowly within this meat/no meat "conflict," and have no wish at all to become "That Guy."

[Ms. Toad]

50. I haven't. But I'll look for it.

I'm primarily vegetarian, but was raised in a Nebraska farm, with an associated ranch, and have ranching relatives in Wyoming. My father has always farmed with an eye to preservation of the land. We lived on a timber claim property, with several stands of the original cottonwoods. While neighbors were tearing theirs out to reclaim a few more acres of farmland, my father was staging burns to rid the prairie pasture adjacent one of our cottonwood stands of invasive plants in order to return it to native plants. Once he no longer needed to work from dawn to dusk to feed the family, he eat about sectioning the bill pasture to allow complete grazing in each small section, giving the remaining sections time to lay fallow and rejuvinate.

[roamer65]

17. The resources used to provide sustenance to 8 billion humans is what is killing the planet.

We need a non-genocidal world population reduction plan ASAP.

[CousinIT]

43. I'm not sure it's about feeding humans. More likely it's about greed. We have plenty of food.

I think the issue is getting food to those who need it. We have a distribution issue and and economic / poverty issue.

We have food deserts. Or places where only junk or fast food is widely available, while affordable healthy options are out of reach for the destitute. It's not because there isn't enough. It's because it's not accessible to them. No matter how much there is. Increasing production won't fix this.

Corporations run our food system both big ag and processed. They want to make money on big, heartless, carbon-producing factory farms to sell meat. Others abuse migrant labor to pick their crops and then sell at a hefty profit. Some pay no taxes. AND get subsidies (our tax dollars) from the government.

US food system is messed the hell up like everything else here. I can't believe it that we need more food. What we need is fewer greedy corporations and some regulations that make them pay taxes and the money used to feed the destitute.

We live in a nation of people that largely don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. That's how we ended up with POTUS that...doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself.

Until or unless that changes, America or humanity doesn't stand a chance. Corporations need to be HEAVILY regulated by a congress they can not control or own -- forcing them to work for the public good. Otherwise -- they won't.

[BobTheSubgenius]

49. There is a video on YT that points up the gigantic waste of food "we" currently create.

A journalist goes into the back lot behind a WalMart and is promptly approached by security, and encouraged to leave. Before he pulled out, though, he or a co-worker caught what was going on there. Dumpsters FULL of what appeared to be sorted meat products. One full of turkeys, one full of hams, etc. It was shocking.

That kind of behavior is illegal in France, and maybe more places by now.

A small example from my own life: I used to go to WalMart for pork loin to make dog food. (Amazing what a whole food diet did for our Cairn), because it was by far the cheapest decent meat product I could find.

One day, I went there and the price had gone up by well more than 50%. I asked an employee what had happened, and if she thought that price would ever come back. She told me it had happened because they had so much inventory to reduce.

"Head office" had sent them an unordered shipment of 12 pallets of pork loins. That is a HELL of a pile of pork loins. Wouldn't be hard to imagine an oversupply like that could end up with a lot of spoilage, and maybe it did. I didn't think to ask, as I was focused on dog food.

A nice little ending to this anecdote is that she was a big-time dog lover, so she marked down a loin to the previous price for me, and invited me to look her up the next time I needed to make dog food. Lovely lady.

[Maraya1969]

53. In that Tiger King documentary that's where he got food for himself and the

workers and I believe even some of the animals.

It's criminal to not allow people to take that food.

[c-rational]

12. Well said and agreed.

[orwell]

24. I worked in a pork processing plant...

...for a summer job in my late teens. I lasted about 2 weeks.

I never ate a hot dog or bacon again...even though I loved meat.

[wnylib]

44. I grew up in a city, but my father

grew up on a farm and most of his 8 siblings lived in rural areas. Each summer, I spent 2 weeks at the home of my father's brother (who was my godfather) on his 10 acres in the country.

One summer, Uncle G decided it was time to slaughter the 2 free range geese he had raised. I remembered when they were little goslings that my cousins and I had petted. So when Uncle G and Aunt E asked me to help them block one goose's escape from the spot where they had cornered it, I shooed the goose away from them instead. They sent me indoors. I heard the squawks and then the silence.

Next day they served roast goose for dinner and tried to tell me it was chicken. I said, "Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean I'm stupid." I ate veggies and mashed potatoes, with butter instead of gravy, and refused to touch the goose. Uncle G said, "You eat chicken all the time. So what's the difference with a goose?" My answer: "I didn't know those chickens personally."

Uncle G chalked it up to me being a "city kid" who didn't know where my food came from. Not true, though. We ate fish that my brothers caught, and venison from a neighbor who hunted. I just could not eat something that I'd had a personal relationship with. It felt like cannibalism.

[cab67]

48. This is why I really don't like wasting meat.

I'm not a vegetarian, though my wife is, so I eat less meat than I used to.

I grew up with a strong aversion to wasting food, but I've become even more averse to wasting food if it has animal products - especially meat. To me, it disrespects the sacrifice made by the animal.

I know the animal did not make this sacrifice willingly, but if we're going to take an animal's life, the least we can do is ensure it's not wasted.

[procon]

7. Donkeys are very smart.

Many years ago we adopted a BLM a wild donkey. It didn't take her too long to figure out that being a game donkey was much more rewarding than being a wild one.

She loved her big stall in the barn and shared it with her goat pals. Every morning she lead the horses out to pasture and then returned for her oats. The only things I taught her was to wear a halter, be led around and tied as need be. She had to accept getting her feet picked up and trimmed, but she never liked it. Being an old lady when we got her, she did like wearing a warm blanket in winter. She would pull it into her stall if I left it where she could reach it, clearly complaining about the poor service.

She spent many years with us and the silly old thing is still remembered fondly.

[volstork]

10. I am

NOT CRYING!!



OK-- I'm actually crying.

[birdographer]

11. I'm not crying

You're crying.

[SunSeeker]

13. Yup, animals have feelings, just like us. nt

[marieo1]

14. Four legged friends

This brings tear to my eyes - what the human race could learn from our four legged friends!!! Thanks for sharing!!

[wendyb-NC]

16. So beautiful.

I can feel their emotion in my heart.

[MojoWrkn]

18. This makes me cry! So sweet how much he loves her!

[Sloumeau]

20. Someone must be peeling some onions nearby. :) nt

[iluvtennis]

21. Aww, so, so sweet. Love it. Thanks for posting. nt

[packman]

22. That's nice

[Evolve Dammit]

26. Animals don't feel or have emotions? Yeah right. That was pure happiness from a long lost friend

[Blue Owl]

29. That smile -- it's too much!

[Skittles]

30. so sweet

[peacebuzzard]

31. sweet little donkey

[LudwigPastorius]

32. I'm going to have to stop calling Trump a jackass.

It doesn't fit, for they are clearly capable of love.

[wnylib]

45. I decided to stop calling him

a jackass when I realized what an insult that is to the Dem mascot.

[FuzzyRabbit]

33. Beautiful video

The donkey isn't the only one crying.

[LPBBEAR]

34. Wonderful video

One of my outdoor Cats had been missing for a day. I got quite worried that something had happened to him since he loves breakfast and dinner and never misses either one. I searched the neighborhood and couldn't find him. Late in the day I see my neighbors Cat coming around the back corner of our garage. Right behind him is my missing Cat limping badly but following the neighbors Cat back to our home. I figure the neighbors Cat found our Cat holed up somewhere and somehow got him to come home. As soon as our Cat rounded the corner of the garage he looked up at me a gave me one of his signature meows as if to say "I'm glad to see you and glad to be home". Got him to the Vet today, foot injury, will heal up fine they said.
Animals are amazing!

[Maraya1969]

54. One of my neighbors shot my cat with a beebee gun. I was standing in front of

my bedroom closet and he came in and sat next to me and leaned in. I looked down and saw something shiny on his cheek. So I picked him up and took him into the bathroom and pulled it out. He didn't move at all. He knew I would fix him.

I don't know who shot him but I think it was an older kid who lived next door.

[democrank]

35. Beautiful sight

Thank you

[sandensea]

37. Pure, unrefined joy

Thank you for posting this. We needed it.

[Historic NY]

38. Very loyal and very protective....

Lots of farms keep one or two with their animals out in the fields.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

39. That was beautiful!

[3catwoman3]

40. I have watched this about 10 times already.

So moving.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

41. Now that's a good and proper nuzzling!

Sooo sweet......... ........

[raccoon]

42. Isn't that sweet? Nt

[BlancheSplanchnik]

46. LOVE!! 🥲🥰

[Nitram]

51. Hilarious - and moving!

[frogmarch]

55. Made me cry.

So beautiful.

[electric_blue68]

56. Ahhh ... So sweet! Happy tears.