Loving animals, no matter what

Verlyn Klinkenborg has an article in The New York Times about a mule:

The other night, my neighbor called, in tears. Her mule had foundered— that is, the inner tissue of its feet had swollen, a condition that causes intense pain and immobility. The vet was coming, and there was a very real chance the mule would have to be put down. She wanted me to listen to what the vet said and help her make the hard decision.
By the time we got up to the barn, it was nearly dark. The mule had spent two and a half days on its side, unable to stand, but now it was standing, frozen in place and shivering with pain. The fact that it was standing at all was an improvement.
Once, the mule had a name. But for years it has been only “the mule,” a small, dark beast with long ears, a wicked imagination and a genius for gates and getting through them. When I thought of the mule as I got ready to meet the vet, that was how I pictured it, an impish creature, more Puck than Bottom. But to see it transfixed by pain— caught in the beams of two flashlights— was to see only its beauty. I could not help thinking of the burros that appear in Nativity scenes, wide-eyed animals of the everyday caught in a celestial event. Even in its pain, the mule’s coat was sleek, the densest black giving a glossy relief to its dark brown flanks and neck.
The vet was hopeful. Trimming the hooves immediately would help a great deal, and, right now, so would something for the pain. And as it became clear that we would not be killing that mule that night, I caught a glimpse of something I almost never see, let me call it the unabashed vigor of life itself: the way the living force, whatever that is, filled that pain-chastened mule and made death seem almost extinct. I thought of the deaths I had witnessed— human and animal— and I believed that the life in this mule would not be denied.
Afterward, I walked homeward down the road in the dark. I hope that in another few weeks, the mule will rush the fence as I pass, as it always does, catching me unaware, as it always does, and making me jump mid-stride.

Rico says he's always loved mules, and is glad this one lived...

Mules at the 140th of Gettysburg