05/27/2024
It seems as though the time has come to end this decade long legacy of mercy and justice. I have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that no amount of 7 day work weeks with 12-16 hour days can support it. I cannot seem to locate traction on donations and support, or even have a well paid dedicated support team that is reliable to care for the animals some while I perform those work weeks. Counting on volunteers is out of the question. 80% of the time they don’t show up when offered or planned, and constantly training new volunteers is out of the question schedule wise. It’s been a good run. I can’t keep killing myself mentally, physically and financially, alone in all of this. I’ve spent over 5k in the last two months alone with less than a thousand in donations. I’ve made a couple fundraiser posts with less response than ever. Daily calls for response, support and solutions to suffering still come, but I cannot continue to respond without any kind of support. The county I worked a decade in has somehow not handled a single animal welfare or abuse case through prosecution in almost two years because of their sheriff, the ole Pied Piper of Incompetence. It seems the most valuable thing I could do is attack this widespread lack of enforcement and use of our adequate animal welfare laws head on, but that is a political undertaking I cannot legally perform with a 501c3. I’m tired, broke, and a bit hopeless any of it will ever change. I’d like to assure those in positions of law enforcement and politics that this in no way means I will be calling YOU out less. You did not “win,” you redirected my focus clearly onto yourselves and your lack of willingness to enforce the law to stop suffering and punish cruelty and abuse. I see you. My muzzle is being removed post haste. We need homes for four horses, ten goats, four potbelly pigs and funding to get to the point I can “close the doors” with just our remaining animals that are not likely to locate successful adoption. If in the future there is an inability for any reason to care for those undesirable adoptees, I may have to consider the most painful (for me) option and send them over the rainbow bridge with the help of our vet team. Responding to so many cases in which people just needed to do their own euthanasia for their neglected elderly animals has broken my soul. I don’t even have feelings left to hurt. Poor horsemanship, mental and emotional weakness, poverty, ignorance and just plain insanity about the responsibility to provide a clean death at home to animals that have been used and neglected cannot be resolved. Recently, the Pima county sheriffs department responded to a complaint from one such ignorant horse owner about me getting a surrender document signed for a willing surrender of a suffering horse and taking it and putting it to sleep on my dime as my surrender document clearly explains I will do if the animal cannot be rendered free of suffering any other way, but did not respond to numerous reports from Neighbors about the condition of this animal before I became aware of it. This level of absolute nonsense is not tolerable or sustainable. I have done my time, but in my heart I know I will not stop pursuing justice and mercy for the suffering horses and animals that so desperately need our good laws to be enforced. It won’t drain thousands upon thousands of dollars from my bank account from my own blood sweat and labor, leaving me without groceries, medical care or credit to pursue those who refuse to enforce the animal welfare laws. It’s definitely going to p**s a lot of powerful and less than moral people off. I will not be able to mitigate that against the tremendous burden of animal care here. In some alternate utopia, I wouldn’t have to exploit injured and suffering animals with traumatic and dramatic imagery on the internet to beg for support for the very valid and constant work I am doing. I would not have to expose good people who just needed our help and sacrifice morals about helping people quietly to preserve their dignity to get support. If I cannot simply state the need for the support we require and why without graphic pictures and shorting others of dignity in their time of need, I just won’t do it. I won’t go on the news anymore because their ethics are garbage. I won’t throw public events anymore because they are time consuming and exhausting with little results. I WILL be calling out law enforcement who refuse to do their job where animals are concerned and abusers who should be shamed and exposed until I’ve successfully forced their hand or ruined their lives. I’m not cleaning up everyone else’s mess in this giant societal issue, alone, anymore. When the final adoptable animal leaves this property I will absolve the 501c3, and set about a different kind of animal welfare service. The forcing of hands to perform basic human decency, other than my own. Rescue isn’t heroic. Rescue isn’t martyrdom. It’s literally what ANYONE witnessing suffering should be doing anything within their power to correct. It’s been said that a society can be judged by how its weakest members are treated and protected, human or animal. We aren’t doing so good.
There is hardly a field of work with more su***de in it than rescue and vet med. We are dropping like flies. I get it. I do… the only reason I have stayed on this planet was the animals I knew had no hope without me and the people I know it would hurt. My heart and hope have finally been broken to the point I’m just angry and numb. A pile of horse tails and few hundred happy, safe survivors isn’t enough to show for a decade of work. The debt and stress doesn’t help either. It may be the coming end of a long legacy of rescue, but I will not let the pursuit of justice, human decency and proper law enforcement end. We could have done so much more if I could have ever figure out how to be seen and valued in this critical nonstop work. If the truth is not enough, it’s not doable. Donations are needed to see this through to the end. They probably won’t come since it’s been established by now that I will ruin my own life and body to provide so it just doesn’t seem important, I suppose. It is what it is. Such is my response to every pain and disappointment that comes with this endeavor.
THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR WILD HEARTS!
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Wild Hearts Rescue Ranch
10940 E Calle Venado
Hereford Arizona 85615
EIN 46-4375052
