A trail of blood marked the path from the rescuer’s car to our Melrose Small Animal Hospital.

Lucky Lady didn’t earn her name from good fortune at a craps table. Instead, she came by the moniker the hard way. She cheated death in early June 2007, escaping from an auction house and roaming the streets of the South Bronx for hours.

As Farm Sanctuary rescue workers entered the western New York property where Lila and dozens of others languished, they were nearly overwhelmed by the smell of death.

Our friend Nate is one powerful fellow — and our staff has the bruises to prove it. Nate was one of four goats recently dumped in a small town near our New York Shelter.

Late in the 2012 baseball season, New York Mets relief pitcher Tim Byrdak secretly brought a small feathered newcomer into the clubhouse — a chicken he claimed was sent by the Yankees to taunt Mets teammate Frank Francisco, who had been calling the Yankees “chickens” during a subway series run.

This June, a certain backyard bird feeder in a rural setting near Rochester, New York, attracted some unusual visitors.

An eight-year-old, 2,000-pound Simmental steer named Thunder boarded a trailer in Methuen, Massachusetts.

Nester was born on a commercial farm. Like the other piglets in his litter, he was to be used for pork.

The tag in his ear read, “MEAT.” Inserted before he was shipped from Pennsylvania into New York, it allowed the little goat to cross state lines without undergoing the usual tests.

Stella would have been dead by Christmas. In late December, a slaughterhouse owner bought her and several other “spent” dairy goats at a stockyard.