QUILCENE – The guests arrived in trailers and trucks in April. All were in poor shape – their bodies emaciated, their coats riddled with parasites.
Some were pregnant. Some had babies.
But Sara Penhallegon was glad to see them.
“I had been working with the county for quite a while to get them out of that place,” she said.
“I used to go horse-back riding past that place six years ago. They’ve had starving and dying animals there for a long time.”
Penhallegon is the owner of Second Chance Ranch, a no-kill shelter for domestic animals north of Quilcene that she founded five years ago.
She has been caring for farm animals seized from a Port Hadlock property in April.
Jefferson County authorities seized 76 animals from the property – 38 chickens, four geese, four rabbits, seven cats, two horses, 20 dogs and a sheep.
In a deal struck on June 29, Michael Miller of Port Hadlock was charged with animal cruelty, with the stipulation that the charge will be dropped in two years if he and his wife Mary adhere to certain conditions – forfeiting the animals and not owning any animals for at least the next two years.
The 20 dogs and seven cats seized from the property have been adopted, according to Jefferson County Animal Services – although a neighbor rounded up four more cats this week and brought them in.
But of the farm animals that came to Second Chance, only a few have found permanent homes.
Now it’s time for the ranch guests to move on – especially the teenage roosters.
“They fight with each other,” Penhallegon said.
Jefferson County Animal Services paid for initial veterinary care and medicine, and continues to cover those costs as well as food, which made it feasible for the ranch to take the animals in, Penhallegon said.
But housing has become strained, especially for the roosters, and the additional work has curtailed fundraising activities to pay for her other animal guests.
