Latest News
These are the stories told on the front page of our new leaflet.
Emma (our beautiful blind highland cow)
A loving family returned home from holiday to find Emma (which they named her) living in their back garden! They believed that she had been dumped there and were very concerned about her welfare. They realised she had sight problems (Emma is in fact completely blind) and sought to find her a new home at a sanctuary. This they found impossible with not one of those approached being prepared to take her on (some places said that the only option was to have her killed). Emma's future looked bleak. Luckily they found the Retreat and we knew immediately that we were all a team, one that cared that Emma lived.
The Retreat's volunteers set off to collect Emma and bring her back to her new home at the Retreat. Upon arrival she was placed in a stable so that she could recuperate. After a week she was let out into the field where our family of bovines live. It took a while for Emma to get used to her new home and to be accepted into the herd, but she is now settled and one of the family. Emma will now live safely at the Retreat for the rest of her life.
Mighty Joe (part of our outreach work; The Flair Foundation)
One day some people approached us asking us to take a look at their injured foal. A number of Retreat volunteers immediately rushed off to the scene, where they were greeted by a little bay boy, about a year old, obviously ill-treated. He was on the ground and tethered with steel rope which had tangled around him, cutting and slicing his poor body! His neck was completely displaced and he could not lift his head from the ground. We rolled him into our trailer, took him back to the Retreat and called the vet. It was then that we decided to name him Joe.
The vet gave us two choices, either put Joe to sleep or perform a costly operation to try and save his life. We chose the latter! After three failed attempts at correcting his displaced neck there was nothing else we could do apart from put the poor soul to sleep. Having to let Joe go, knowing that until we rescued him he had been unloved for all of his short life, was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make. Our only consolation was the knowledge that he had escaped his torment and was loved by us at the end.