THE
What are “pets,” anyway?
Humans have kept animals around for just about as long as we’ve
been human. Dogs helped us hunt. Cats guarded the granaries.
But the notion of having animals strictly as companions, as
opposed to four-legged workers, wasn’t too common until an
economic middle class — that stratum between the 1 percent and
the serfs — came into its own in the 19th century. That meant a lot
of people had the resources to own and take care of animals that
weren’t, strictly speaking, useful.
And with the middle class came the idea of pets: Animals with
names and individual personalities. Animals we care about for other
than utilitarian reasons.
In this year’s Pets issue we look at two unusual animal shelters.
We visit with a sweet, “unadoptable” pit bull who lives in yet another
animal shelter, and we check in on a loose organization of husky
owners in Eugene.
Oh, yes, and of course we have the best readers’ pet photos!
Enjoy. — Bob Keefer
ISSUE
OUT TO
PASTURE
Oregon Horse Rescue strives to give
unwanted horses a forever home
BY BOB KEEFER
H
umans, if we’re very lucky, get to
retire in some comfort. Horses — some
of humankind’s closest companions
for thousands of years — have to be
extremely fortunate to be cared for past
their productive years.
On 70 rolling acres a little west of
Eugene, a former Eugene city councilor
and his wife have spent the past five
years, with the help of a small army
of paid staffers, volunteers and donors,
providing what amounts to a retirement home for dozens
of lucky horses who might otherwise have been put down.
We’re talking blind horses, horses with cancer, horses
who limp, horses whose age is so advanced that it’s
become a chore to care for them. Oregon Horse Rescue
takes them in and literally puts them out to pasture.
“What it comes down to is, what’s the horse’s quality of
life?” explains David Kelly, who founded Oregon Horse
Rescue with his wife, Jane, five years ago. “If the horse
can continue to roam the pasture and enjoy life for another
year or two, they can do that here.”
Kelly, who served on the City Council for eight years,
has always been “an animal guy,” he explains during an
afternoon visit to OHR’s facility, which consists largely
of rolling pastureland, all neatly fenced and cross-fenced,
with four well-tended barns.
We strolled down a long gravel road that runs along the
spine of OHR’s pastureland. Every 100 feet or so Kelly
would stop and talk to another horse. In a barn we checked
in on Honeybun, a blind miniature appaloosa mare who
came to the fence to be petted. She lives with Bella, a
blind Arabian mare.
He and his wife, Jane Kelly, had talked since they met
three decades ago about “doing something” for animals.
They picked horses because Jane had ridden competitively
and knows the animals, and because there was a strong
local need, he says.
“There is a huge problem in this area of horses who are
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July 27, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
DAVID KELLY AND A
ONE-EYED HORSE
neglected, flat-out abandoned or in some cases abused,”
he says.
“People don’t realize it’s a lot more to take care of than
a big dog. The horse gets an injury, or the horse is too old
to ride. Owners age, and they can no longer live on rural
property. Or owners die. There is a huge need for folks who
can and will care responsibly for horses that others won’t.”
The word “rescue” suggests an intervention site that
provides temporary housing on the way to adoption. But
most — as many of two-thirds — of the horses at OHR
won’t be going to other homes. “They are elderly or blind
or have a chronic medical condition that needs treatment,”
David Kelly says.
The Kellys set up Oregon Horse Rescue as a nonprofit
corporation. It rents the land from them — the Kellys
bought the property themselves and live there.
Taking care of all those horses requires money. OHR
expenses for a year added up to $273,000, according to
the corporation’s 2015 tax filing. Last year, Kelly said,
expenses included about $65,000 for feed and more than
$70,000 in veterinarian bills.
Fundraising being the challenge that it is, Kelly says
he and his wife have contributed nearly $1 million of their
own money to the organization in the past five years.
The rewards, though, are simple. “A horse that comes
to us skin and bones and afraid of his own shadow, several
months down the line seems to have a smile on his face,
strolling around the pasture,” Kelly says. “Life is good!” ■