Dotty: Injured, Neglected Goat Gets a New Home, and Soon a New Knee

Recently, we received a call from the Cattaraugus County SPCA, a no-kill animal shelter about 90 minutes south of Buffalo, New York.

After a nine-hour journey from Ohio to New York, "Freedom" the cow, who captured national media attention when she escaped from a Cincinnati slaughterhouse, finally arrived at her new home.

Scribbles thinks he’s a lap goat. This curious youngster loves people, and if he isn’t climbing or exploring, he is probably snuggling in a caregiver’s embrace.

Nobody knows how long they stood inside the transport trailer, or what condition they were in when they entered. What we do know is how they looked when they emerged.

On February 24, Farm Sanctuary, Animal Place, and Harvest Home joined together to rescue hens at a factory farm in Modesto, CA, where 50,000 hens used for egg production had been abandoned and left to starve for two weeks.

Somewhere in California, a mother cow is mourning the loss of her newborn baby as a machine attached to her udders drains the milk that was to nourish him. And somewhere that baby is being auctioned for veal or some other sad end.

All of the baby turkeys were underweight and partially bald. Several were afflicted with enlarged joints and curled toes — signs of malnourishment.

One morning in November, staff at our New York Shelter arrived at the office to discover a number of large plastic containers near the door.

When this little piglet was rescued, he was suffering from a joint infection that followed a leg injury he received in the overcrowded conditions he lived in at a local farmer’s petting zoo and pumpkin patch.