We had the opportunity recently to see a movie in the theatre, a pleasure infrequently available due to the distance we live from the city where first-run films are showing. It was one of those multiplexes where a number of movies are being shown and we chose “True Grit.” It was a good and entertaining movie, notable primarily for the portrayal of Rooster Cogburn by Jeff Bridges. But of all the action and the various scenes depicted, the one that remained in my mind most predominantly afterward was the one, toward the end, where a good horse was run into the ground and then shot to end his suffering.

After seeing a fair number of human beings killed and their violent ends graphically depicted on the screen, as is done these days, it was only the poor horse’s untimely demise that saddened me and caused me psychological discomfort. Why was that? I found myself wondering. Was there something wrong with me that I would blithely perceive the deaths of humans with no emotional response, but blanch at the killing of a horse?

I decided, on reflection, that it was because the horse was a poor, innocent animal who had no say in what led up to his fate. The humans, with the power of thought and choice, had participated in the circumstances of their lives. The horse was incapable of evil, lived only to serve whatever human master rode him, thrived or suffered only according to the foibles of that master, who may be himself good or evil, kind or inhumane, according to his upbringing.

Animals are pure beings; humans are soiled, even the relatively good ones, by their ability to think and make selfish choices. Animals lack the capacity to be bad; humans, even the better ones, are often bad. Animals act according to their instincts; humans, though blessed with instincts themselves, often bring to bear upon these instincts their purely human weaknesses.

So I was shaken by the depiction of the horse’s demise. Perhaps, had there been “good” people murdered on screen rather than miscreants, I would have shuddered. But I don’t think so. The young heroine was snake bit and lost her arm, yet I never batted an eye at that. She chose, after all, to give chase, unlike the poor horse.

This is a lesson that I must learn to apply in my own life as I am forced to deal with my dog’s inability, when accomplishing his bathroom functions, to distinguish inside space from outside space. He lacks, I must remind myself, the benefit of a human’s high intellectual capacity. So I cannot just shoot him to end my suffering.