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When my adviser informed me he thought I should take a course in animal welfare offered here at Purdue, I was more than a little nervous about what stood in front of me. Having spent my entire life in the dairy industry, I had many preconceived notions about animal welfare, based largely on the efforts of extreme animal rights groups such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In my mind, the dairy industry and animal welfare were two diametrically opposed forces destined to perpetual disagreements, with little hope for harmony. I now see this could not be further from the truth.

Yesterday as I was sifting flour into my new batch of bread, I smiled as I remembered how my mother taught me to make bread when I was nine years old. She didn’t give me a recipe card with neat measurements and full-color glossy photographs to show me the end result. She simply said, “This is how Grandma taught me to do it.”

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for city girls who marry into an agricultural way of life. They are expected to learn, understand and participate in a culture that is as alien to them as the life of a New York cabbie, a San Francisco homeless person, or Donald Trump’s butler. But, to their credit, most of them try.

A story according to Rolf Flake: A horse thief was arrested. He had a good lawyer and was found not guilty. “Does this mean,” he asked the judge, “that I get to keep the horse?”