Leveret Had Different Plans
It is a mistake to believe that animals and humans cannot form bonds. A person who is willing to spend time with an animal will learn this, and they’ll be rewarded in countless ways, one being the fact that something so much smaller than you feels safe by your side.
Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton was one of the most enchanting stories I have enjoyed this year. It is a memoir in which she tells us the heartwarming story of an unlikely friendship.
Dalton had the job she had always dreamed of, following her passion to work as a political adviser with access to the “war room.” She could not have imagined how one act of kindness could change it all.
When Chloe discovers a leveret (a newborn hare) alone on a track outdoors, she is torn at first about what to do. What happened to its mother? Did she abandon it, or did she plan to return shortly?
Look! See! A Leveret
Dalton describes her tiny companion:
The animal, no longer than the width of my palm, lay on its stomach with its eyes open and its short, silky ears held tightly against its back. Its fur was dark brown, thick and choppy, and grew in delicate curls along its spine.
At first, Chloe goes on her way, hoping that the mother hare will come back for her leveret. She decides to let nature take its course:
I would leave the leveret where I had found it, in the hope that it would hurry into the long grass as soon as I had gone, and be reunited with its mother.
Four hours later, she returned to discover that the leveret remained where she had left it, exposed to the elements and unclaimed by a mother hare.
Chloe knows now that she cannot abandon it; there are too many predators in the vicinity. She takes it to her home, planning to nurture it until it is strong enough to disappear once more into the wild.
Before long, however, a powerful bond begins to form. Chloe hand-feeds the leveret as if it were her own child, and the leveret begins to trust her as though she were its own mother. As the leveret grows, it is allowed to frolic about the house, picking amusing hiding spots. It keeps Chloe company as she reads or watches TV.
It soon seems evident that the leveret might go outside to play for a while, but it is not in a hurry to abandon Chloe and her home, the only safe place it has known in its life.
The Hare of the Matter
The story of the leveret was charming, almost like a fairy tale, but I recognized several greater messages burrowed into each chapter. I will list a few of them here:
• Why do we like to pretend other species are so different from us? Love is a universal emotion; just because animals express it differently doesn’t mean it is not true.
• If you found an animal in distress, would you do as Chloe did? Would you speed past it, ignoring an opportunity to perform an act of kindness for the sake of kindness?
• Some animals are not meant to be domesticated. Chloe refuses to give the leveret a name, feeling that by doing so she would be claiming it as her own, when it was never her intention to force the leveret permanently into her lifestyle.
In fact, the opposite happened. In her final chapter, Dalton wrote:
The sensation of wonder she ignited in me continues to burn, showing me that aspects of my life I thought were set in stone are in part as malleable as wax. She did not change, I did. I have not tamed the hare, but in many ways the hare has stilled me.
What Love Looks Like
What does it mean to truly love someone, human or otherwise? Dalton made me think that love has certain characteristics:
• Love does not force the other person to change who they are. If your condition for giving affection is that the loved one do all that you say when you say it, that sounds more to me like keeping a pet than a lover — and Chloe Dalton never did this with the hare.
• Love is not a trap. You must leave the door open; then, you’ll know that the person is returning to you because it enjoys your company and feels secure in your presence.
• Love compels us to try to speak the language of the beloved. In the case of a creature who cannot speak our language, pay attention to what they do; take the time to look into their eyes, and be compassionate.
Raising Hare is not just a memoir about a leveret. It’s a book about the importance of paying attention, crossing barriers, and loving another living thing — patiently, and with great care.
Mariella Hunt 
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