Dun Dreaming Ranch Provides Safe Haven for Rescued Farm Animals

animal rescue
Penelope enjoys the companionship of Frick and Frack, two rescue goats Joyce got at an auction.
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By Heidi Smith

volkswagenJoyce was one of those kids that was always picking up animals. “From day one, I would bring home everything,” she says. Unfortunately at the time, many of them turned out to belong to her New Jersey neighbors, so she had to give them back. Today, she doesn’t have that problem. Her 40 acre farm animal rescue, Dun Dreaming Ranch in Roy, is home to 28 rescue animals including horses, goats, cows and her first rescue, a potbellied pig named – what else? – Pig Pig. “They know that they’re safe here and that they’re loved,” she says.

animal rescue
Penelope enjoys the companionship of Frick and Frack, two rescue goats Joyce got at an auction.

The animals come from a variety of situations. Chance the cow belongs to a young couple who bought him at a fundraiser. “He was a really sickly little bottle calf and they insisted on buying him, and got him straight to the vet,” says Joyce. “He was dehydrated and in really bad shape.” The pair raised him for almost two years but their living situation changed and they had to move into downtown Yelm.  “They didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, so they brought him here,” says Joyce, who asked that only her first name be used for privacy reasons.

Then there’s Penelope the pygmy goat. “She was a hoarding case,” Joyce explains. Concerned neighbors told her that two of the goat’s babies had frozen to death due to neglect and the traumatized mother was running loose in the neighborhood. “The owner let me ‘have’ her for $25.” She shakes her head. “She was scared to death of people.”

Pig Pig was a sadly typical case of “someone thinking pot-bellied pigs are cute, but once they start to grow up, they don’t know what to do with them,” according to Joyce. “I brought her here.” Now she hangs out with Frick and Frack, two other rescue goats, as well as Penelope.

Thirty yards from the goats, several horses graze contentedly. “They were all in pretty bad shape when they came here,” says Joyce. “One of them was 100 pounds underweight.” Another has a bone deformity and can never be ridden, while a third is 32 years old. In a nearby pasture, a former race horse is enjoying a new sense of freedom. “It’s the first time he’s been able to just be outside in the pasture running and rolling and playing,” she says, adding that he is working through issues related to his years on the track.

animal rescue
Coco and 32-year old Val have become good friends after a year together at Dun Dreaming Ranch.

Although humans are often the culprits in neglectful scenarios, Joyce even protects animals from other animals. Seven, a cow that has some mental and physical disabilities, was being beaten up by other cows. “This is a no bullying farm,” she declares, “so when he first came here and they were in the cow barn, he had his own stall. He gets his own food and water. This is his own little special area. Now everybody gets along just fine. There’s no pushing. There’s no bullying.”

While Joyce grew up around horses and was married to a cattle rancher, farm animals are a new chapter for her so she’s had to learn a lot as she went along. At the same time, she’s been a vet tech and learned about Emergency Animal Relief through an American Humane Association course. In Texas, she even started her own non-profit animal rescue. “The first year, with five volunteers, we rescued and adopted out over 700 animals – all spayed, neutered, heart wormed, microchipped, and started on crate training,” she says.  “I had mainly foster homes so when we had adopted animals out there, they were socialized.”

animal rescue
The aptly named ‘Pig Pig’ spends most of his time hanging out with his goat pals.

Although she already has a board of directors in place and has started the paperwork to turn Dun Dreaming into a non-profit, she has reservations. “I want to keep it at a level I can manage because it’s only me here,” she says. “I want to have enough grass for all of the animals. The 40 acres is not all grazeable. Over half of my land is heavy woods and hillside. Taking care of the animals I already have is a 24/7 job.” She’s open to having more animals on the property, and the land can certainly support more, but at the same time, “I don’t want twenty animals in a pen,” she says.

What she could use is support with clearing the land and donations of hay.  “I need hands on for clearing brush, cutting limbs, that kind of stuff,” she says. “It’s another 25 acres up there where trees are down. Believe it or not, one of the biggest things is picking up rocks. These pastures were death traps with all the rocks. I also need help with plumbing stuff that I don’t know how to do. There are valves all over the farm that need to be capped off. So those tasks and hay donations are really the biggest needs.” At $12 a bale, hay is one of the biggest expenses she currently incurs.

Although the work can seem unending, to Joyce it’s all worth it. Knowing that every single animal here knows they’re loved, they’re taken care of, they will always have full bellies – that’s how I sleep at night,” she says.  “So when I get up at 1:00 a.m. and it’s freezing cold, that’s why I do it. If I can only control this forty acres in my lifetime, that’s what I will do.”

For more information, contact Joyce at dundreamingranch@hotmail.com.

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