NORTHEAST OREGON
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
A7
A safe haven for horsewomen
Union County nonproﬁ t
provides shelter for victims of
domestic violence, their horses
By SHANNON GOLDEN
The Observer
LA GRANDE — In the
fall of 2021, Marjie Olson
received a call. For the ﬁ rst
few seconds after she picked
up, she heard nothing but a
woman’s sobs.
Olson, the founder of
Shotzy Sanctuary — a
nonproﬁ t
organization
that provides shelter for
horsewomen of domestic
violence — said she was
trying to listen for noises
in the background, and was
poised to call 911 with her
other phone.
“What’s going on?”
Olson remembered asking.
“I can’t help you unless you
talk to me.”
Maggie replied on the
other end of the line, say-
ing she was currently not in
danger — more than any-
thing, she was in shock.
“I didn’t believe that she
existed,” she recalled of
Olson.
Maggie, who asked to
be identiﬁ ed by only her
ﬁ rst name, was seeking help
after enduring more than
three decades of domestic
violence. But she couldn’t
bear to leave her animals
behind. She had reached
out to a Facebook support
group about her dilemma
and someone replied with
Olson’s number.
Less than a week later,
Olson drove 11 hours from
her home near Elgin to
Southeastern Oregon to pick
up Maggie, her daughter,
her 34-year-old horse, her
three dogs, two cats and her
belongings.
“She’s a remarkable
woman,” Maggie said,
emphasizing Olson’s “kind-
ness and her generosity to
care about people she didn’t
even know.”
Now, Maggie, her daugh-
ter and Olson are planning
to move to the East Coast
together. Maggie needs a
liver transplant and needs
to live closer to a hospital
with a donor program. For
Olson, the move means a
fresh start after a divorce —
and a chance to expand her
eﬀ orts.
Since starting Shotzy
Sanctuary in 2019, Olson
has helped provide a safe
haven for ﬁ ve women, four
of whom brought their
horses with them — Maggie
included. She’s hopeful that
in less than 10 years, horse-
women in every state will be
able to ﬁ nd a safe haven in a
Shotzy Sanctuary.
“My motto is, if I can, I
will,” Olson said. “If I can’t,
I’m still gonna try.”
Assessing need
According
to
the
National Domestic Violence
HOW TO SEEK
HELP
If you or someone you
know is experiencing
domestic abuse or
intimate partner violence,
help is available. For
the National Domestic
Violence Hotline, call 800-
799-7233.
For local support, call La
Grande’s Shelter From the
Storm at 541-963-7226.
If you need immediate
assistance, call the
shelter’s 24-hour crisis
line: 541-963-9261.
If you are an animal
owner seeking local
domestic violence
support, contact Shotzy
Sanctuary at 704-677-
3261 or 509-420-0300.
Hotline, more than one in
three women and one in four
men in the United States
have experienced some
form of intimate partner vio-
lence, including rape, physi-
cal violence and/or stalking.
Nearly half of all women
and men in the U.S. have
experienced psychological
aggression by an intimate
partner in their lifetime.
“Whether people realize
it or not, every single person
knows a woman who has
been battered and/or ver-
bally abused or emotionally
abused,” Olson said.
The Urban Resource
Institute and the National
Domestic Violence Hotline
released a survey in May
2021 that assessed the
impact pets can have on a
survivor’s ability to leave
a dangerous situation.
Over 97% of respondents
reported that being able to
keep their pets is an import-
ant factor in seeking shel-
ter. Half said they would
not consider shelter options
for themselves without their
pets.
Shelter From the Storm,
a La Grande-based organi-
zation that oﬀ ers services
for survivors of domes-
tic violence, sexual assault
and stalking, accepts mostly
dogs in their safe house —
and considers other small
animals on a case-by-case
basis. According to the shel-
ter’s advocacy support coor-
dinator, Candi Nielsen,
Shelter From the Storm is
one of the only pet-friendly
organizations in Eastern
Oregon.
“A lot of people feel like
their animals are also part of
their family,” she said. “It
would probably make me
think twice about actually
leaving, and that’s scary.”
From the emotional sup-
port that animals provide
Shannon Golden/The Observer
Marjie Olson spends time with two of her rescue horses in a corral on her Union County
property on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. Olson has plans to move to the East Coast this fall, but will
continue to rescue horse and run her nonproﬁ t, Shotzy Sanctuary, wherever she lands.
survivors to the fear that
their abusive partner may
harm or kill the pet, there
are many reasons those
experiencing abuse want to
stay close to their pets. But
as of 2021, only about 250
shelters in the U.S. — out of
approximately 2,000 shel-
ters and programs — are
pet friendly. Many others
have arrangements for pets
through animal shelters or
veterinary oﬃ ces.
Olson decided to address
the gap she saw in the sup-
port being oﬀ ered to vic-
tims of domestic violence.
She hadn’t found a shelter
anywhere else in the coun-
try that oﬀ ered services
for women, their children,
their horses and their other
animals.
“A horse is a big invest-
ment and to leave it behind
would just be devastating,
ﬁ nancially as well as emo-
tionally,” Nielsen said.
A vision for Shotzy
Sanctuary
Olson herself is a survi-
vor of domestic violence.
She said that people who
know her to be a self-suf-
ﬁ cient, outgoing and moti-
vated person are surprised
to learn about the abuse she
endured during her 20s.
“When you have that atti-
tude and you do go oﬀ and
do well for yourself, you
never expect that woman to
be the one that gets abused,”
she said.
Olson noted that she was
blessed to have been raised
in a loving family that
instilled in her a passion for
animals and people from an
early age — a passion that
helped her get through. She
endured what she did in part
because she had horses and
dogs that she didn’t want to
leave behind.
Many people see their
animals as their children
and protect them as any par-
ent would. Escaping domes-
tic violence can present an
impossible choice — seek
safety or stay, to protect the
animals who have helped
you through it all.
“That animal is who
you cry to,” Olson said.
“They’re also the one that
gives you the strength to
say, ‘I can do this.’”
While cleaning stalls on
her property, Olson had the
idea for the ﬁ rst-ever safe
haven where horsewomen
could seek refuge from
domestic violence with their
children — that would also
oﬀ er shelter for their ani-
mals. She also wanted to
provide support for victims
who did have a safe place to
go but didn’t have the means
to transport their animals.
By the fall of 2019,
Olson had registered Shotzy
Sanctuary as a nonproﬁ t
organization, with the long-
term goal of expanding safe
havens for horsewomen
across the country.
“We can start helping
hundreds of women to keep
their animals, whether it’s a
giraﬀ e or a horse or a don-
key,” she said of her hopes
for the organization.
Decades of devotion
Olson has spent most of
her life working with horses.
For more than 40 years, she
has owned and operated
Light Rein Farm and Far-
rier, through which she has
rescued and rehabilitated
horses, provided corrective
horseshoeing services and
oﬀ ered training and lessons
for students.
Her work has followed
her wherever she goes, from
Michigan to North Carolina
and beyond. Olson lived in
Belize for about six years,
rescuing horses and training
students for National Barrel
Horse Association events.
She currently lives in Union
County and provides shelter
and farrier services to horse
owners in Union County.
Throughout her 17 years
in Michigan, Olson trained
three dozen students, about
20 of whom stayed with her
from kindergarten until their
early 20s.
“They’re all married
with babies and master’s
degrees and doctorates and
all that,” she said.
Olson has rescued approx-
imately 15 horses since she
arrived in Eastern Oregon
seven years ago. She often
takes in horses that need
extra support and care that
their previous owners can-
not provide them — and ﬁ nds
them a new home or cares for
them herself. And although
she no longer trains, she
has no plans of stopping her
farrier services.
Read the complete story
at www.wallowa.com.
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