Three adults stand outdoors, surrounded by trees and grass; a paved path suggests a park or farm area with late summer/early fall lighting. 6:10
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Tracey Stewart is happiest out with her pigs

Jon Stewart gives one of the farm pigs a good belly rub and jokes that he was "so angry at animals" until he met Tracey. The real animal lover in this family is his wife. more

Count the household and you get four dogs, two pigs, three rabbits, two guinea pigs, one bird and two fish. The Stewarts bought their 12-acre farm in Middletown, New Jersey, about 50 miles outside New York City, with a plan already in mind. They're teaming up with Farm Sanctuary, a group that has worked for animal rights for decades, to make the land a safe place for animals in need.

Some of the pigs came here the hard way. Two of them were rescued after they fell off a truck and were left, hurt, by the side of the road. Tracey eats vegan, and when the interviewer confesses to loving a good burger, and bacon, and to feeling judged, she keeps it kind. "I feel so good about eating vegan," she says. "Now that might not be the case for everyone."

She has a real soft spot for pit bulls. Little Dipper, a three-legged rescue, is one of two among the family's four dogs. If she had a small child, she says, she would not pick a large, muscular dog, but not because a pit bull is dangerous by nature. What shows whether a dog will bite is "the history of the dog, not the breed." Too many are put down just for having a big, blocky head. "They are the sweetest dogs," she says. "He's a good boy."

Her book, Do Unto Animals, is mostly about caring for animals, but it also follows her own path. An old boyfriend who had gone to an Ivy League school loved to correct her grammar. He once told her there was too much space between her nose and her lip. She stayed until she adopted a dog named Enzo, and the boyfriend left the front door open. Enzo ran out into the street. The dog wasn't hit, but "at that moment I realized that it was time to go."

She gives another boyfriend, the one she married, credit for putting animals at the center of her life. Jon reminded her that she had dreamed of being a veterinarian as a kid, and he could not figure out why she wasn't doing it. So she went back to school to train as a veterinary technician.

One of the best days of her life came during that training, on a farm upstate. A pregnant cow was down, and no one could get her up. A farmer with a trailer lifted her into a pond, and Tracey and the others massaged her legs until the blood moved again. Tracey went in first, at the back end, with "feces flying all over me, and I'm there with my big happy smile." The interviewer decides the two of them have very different ideas of a happy day.

Then the cow stood up and gave birth to a calf. When everyone looked up, all the cows that had been far out in the pasture had walked in. They were lined up to see the baby.

Three adults stand outdoors, surrounded by trees and grass; a paved path suggests a park or farm area with late summer/early fall lighting. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Jon Stewart gives one of the farm pigs a good belly rub and jokes that he was "so angry at animals" until he met Tracey.

"I'm 48," Tracey says, "and I feel like this last year I've been happy for a long time." She likes to go out and lie with the pigs. Her hair is a mess and her skin is a mess, and she has stopped caring. "I'm so happy."

A woman in a denim shirt sits in a chair and gestures with both hands as she talks. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Tracey says time lying out with the pigs makes her so happy that messy hair no longer bothers her.

Her book is meant for kids most of all, because she believes every animal has something good about it. There's a section called "Be nice to the bugs." There's also a line that will make sense to anyone who has spent a summer night outside: "Mosquitoes love me, so I love bats."

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