I often find people amazed by my extensive experience with animal rescue and street vet work, particularly when I share some of the most challenging and occasionally amusing stories. My journey into animal rescue began when I was just a toddler, following in my mother’s footsteps. She had been rescuing animals since she was a young adult, passing her compassion for animals onto me.

Our veterinarian, Dr. Mark Hohne at East Valley Veterinary, has records of over 500 animals we’ve rescued, thanks to old files that were digitized. This count doesn’t even include horses and other animals that weren’t recorded for various reasons.

When my mother and I lived in Sun Valley, our home was famously known as the “rescue house.” We often found lost animals and reunited them with their owners after seeing missing pet signs or being contacted by people who knew we could help. There’s nothing like the joy of seeing a lost pet reunited with its family.

There were also many times when we came home to find boxes of feral kittens, often infested with fleas, left at our front door. People knew they could safely leave animals with us. Thanks to my mother’s connections from her time as a retired LAPD officer, we always found homes for these animals.

On rare occasions, I found myself in rescue situations on my own. One memorable instance occurred when I was 11 years old. Returning from a trip to Coarsegold, near Yosemite, my family friend’s sister, who was driving me home, stopped on the side of the 5 Freeway. She returned with two puppies abandoned on the center divider. These puppies were suffering from a rare genetic blood disease, and my mother ended up spending around $5,000 out of pocket trying to save them. During these trips, I also had extensive training with horses. A family friend who owned 40 acres there, suffering from ovarian cancer and bone disease from chemotherapy, allowed me to train and break in horses, including project horses that I helped sell for much more than their purchase price.

Animal rescue is a mix of heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. When my mother bought me my first horse at age 9, she was a rescue herself. The horse had been severely abused and neglected, with injuries so severe that her legs were fused, preventing her from bending her front legs properly. Despite the abuse, she was sold to us after a 20-mile trail ride, a thoughtless act given her condition.

This is the reality of rescue work: taking in animals, even if it’s just to give them the best possible end of their days. It’s rewarding but also deeply frustrating when faced with the cruelty that some people inflict on innocent animals.