Benny & Belle

Their Story of Rescue, Hope & Love

Benny & Belle
Their story of rescue, hope & love.

Meet Belle.
Her name is NOT #114 as the tag on her ear might lead you to believe.
Her name is Belle.

At the dairy she was a number. But away from that dairy, and at Imagine Acres, she is a soul… a sentient being. In animal agriculture, numbers remove the personal connection you can feel toward a being. (Sound familiar? Man has created atrocities against fellow Man in this same way.) Remove an identity and the being becomes a “thing”. And without identity and personal connection, disconnection happens. Disconnection and removal of feelings... feelings for the animals, feelings for ourselves, feelings of our connection to Creator. And this is how people are taught to forget the connection between the animal and the flesh on your plate. We then begin to forget we are connected to all beings walking this earth. Disconnect from animals and we disconnect from other human beings.

But with a name, you can see her. Look into her eyes and see her. 
See who she is … She is Belle. And she is a beautiful, sentient being.

Belle is sweet yet sometimes uncertain, sometimes eager for affection… sometimes still unsure of humans. She was a bottle-fed baby because, as in all horrible dairy practices, she was taken from her mama at birth. She came to rely upon humans for survival. And in this process of being fed and cared for, she became connected to humans. But humans had a “job” for her to do and when Belle was “of age”, she was made to live in the confines of a dairy away from the people she grew to love… she was betrayed by the very humans she depended upon and connected to and was cast outside to live like a number and produce milk. 

But when she couldn’t fulfill her “job” (conceive a baby)… She became “useless” to the dairy. You see, without pregnancy and a calf, there is no milk. And in order to take the cow’s milk, the baby is “removed”. These babies and mamas spend days and sometimes weeks crying for each other and a reunion that will never happen. Baby girls are raised to become dairy cows and baby boys are left to die, are killed or are chained outdoors alone in little sheds to be sold for veal. 

This, folks, is the truth behind dairy. Belle’s story and her eyes can tell you the truth.

Then there’s Benny…
Benny was almost a “casualty”, since he was a boy calf (steer) who wasn’t going to ever produce milk. But his mama did and he was removed from her at birth so humans could take Benny’s milk for themselves. Luckily some of Benny’s “people” at the dairy felt compassion for him and instead of sending him to slaughter, they set out to find a rescue home for him. 

Why did they save Benny & Bella and not many of the others? 

Because they bottle fed him. They cared for him….They created a bond with him… They NAMED him. By naming him, they grew to know him, they saw he had a personality. They SAW him… and his soul. They all have souls… souls beyond the numbers that they’re given to objectify them. 

And herein lies the hope…

Half of the family who owns the dairy either allowed a part of their hearts to feel compassion for him, or they felt a piece of their hearts awaken. They knew Benny needed a safe place. And if they could feel it for Benny, can’t they also begin to feel it for the others?

So when pictures of Benny in his new home were sent to the dairy to show them how loved and safe he was, the same family asked about saving another cow by the name of Miss Kaye or #144… the lovely creature whose name is now Belle. Her name at the dairy was Miss Kaye… But she got here, and as her bond grew with Benny, her name quickly changed to Belle… a name of beauty. Because that’s what her life will be… beautiful.

Benny bounces gleefully at meal time like a puppy romping… an 800 pound playful, goofy, joyful puppy romping! He rolls and plays in his freshly made bed of wood shavings and bedding straw in his barn after I’ve made it for him. He runs to me when I call his name. Hopefully he will help Belle reveal that same joy deep inside her. She is more reserved most probably because she had less time with humans than Benny. He came to us as a 10 month old and she came to us at 3 yrs. old. But big ole Benny and his big ole heart paints a different picture of the world for her…

So they both give me hope for a world of deeper understanding and compassion.

For now, sadly, many agricultural groups teach children to disconnect from farmed animals by calling them “livestock”. Calling a living being “stock” as thought it was a can on a shelf is another way of objectifying them as well as not naming them.

Imagine the horror a child feels at selling a being they loved to be loaded on a truck, and sent to its death? How can we continue to brainwash our children this way and  close down their beautiful, loving hearts? Notice that farmers use the name of the “product” and not the name of the animal to keep the disconnect from the awareness that there’s a sentient and suffering being involved? i.e: “dairy”, “beef”, “pork” versus pregnant cows, cattle or pigs. This is how a culture becomes brainwashed and fed lies.

But recently many “dairy” & “beef” farmers have converted their farms to almond farms, organic produce farms, or other ethical and cruelty free businesses. It can happen with minds and hearts waking up to the truth.

And hearts CAN be re-opened… and once they’re opened, they can remain open. And in a quietly tucked away place in their hearts, I believe the dairy family’s hearts opened with Benny & Belle. 

And my deepest hope is that your minds, too, will allow that secret place deep inside your hearts to be reawakened and see the truth, feel the love, and begin a new, more compassionate life.