Image above: Sarah-Jane with her beloved corgi, Ferris Fox

Sarah-Jane West, a tireless animal advocate, has dedicated years to improving the lives of voiceless creatures. We are pleased to share her memories of personal struggle, her love of animals, and her work to save and make life better for all living beings in the article she has written below. Thank you Sarah-Jane!

We are also saddened to report that she is now facing cancer. For over three months, she’s been unable to work – both in her volunteer efforts and her paid work. Despite selling personal items and receiving one-time gifts from friends and family, she’s struggling to cover basic living expenses. We’ve created a GoFundMe page for her. To read more and to donate go to: https://gofund.me/1a62d65b

How Precious Animals Have Saved My Life and Protected Me

by Sarah-Jane West

I remember lying beside Danny my pony at night on our farm in the UK, sometimes listening to him snore – his large warm body next to mine Shafts of moonlight would come into his stable and I would watch the specs of hay dance in the light. It was the only place I ever felt safe as a child and a young teen.

I would take long slow deep breaths knowing and feeling I was safe from my paternal parent, my abuser, because he would not come in.

My Mum would ask in the morning where I had been, and my quick glib reply was “ Oh nothing to worry about, I thought Danny might have had a touch of colic.” Nothing more was ever said.

Once my father went into Danny’s stable to check his hoof, but before he could, Danny gave him a hard kick! I laughed under my breath. My father was limping for days. My pony Danny  knew my father was not a good person.

I loved my beloved pony with all my heart. He was with me from when he was five years old until he was twenty-six years old. He passed in his sleep, under a lovely apple tree on the Black Beauty Retirement Home.Danny was buried on our farm.

I promised Danny I would spend the rest of my life speaking out for, and protecting, all animals as he had protected me. I was fourteen years old when I made that promise. I’ve kept it ever since.

My beloved cat Copper, (Copernicus), would often sleep on my bed at night. He hated my father. If my father came into my room at night Copper would go for him.

The nights that my father tried to come into my room he would see my Copper curled up beside me and he would leave.

I also told my what was happening to me to my precious dog, Andrew, AKA Ferris Fox, our Corgi, as well as my two beloved bunnies and five kitties. I shared the stories of the pain and fear I felt growing up.

Back then, in the 1950s and 1960s in the UK, the kinds of things that were happening to me were never discussed. It was a taboo. I had no one to go to. I was on a huge 400 acre farm in Kent, England in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve rescued an Artic Fox on the Beaufort Sea. I also rescued a deer that was almost drowning in the Juan De Fuca straits. A grey whale came up to help. The Times Colonist wrote a story about my rescue titled “ Was it a whale of a Tail or Just a Fluke?” Another of my rescues was a baby seal from a beach on Bowen Island who eventually got back to the Vancouver Marine Rehabilitation Centre. He made it back to sea several months later. Another rescue was an eaglet that I got back into its nest with the help of a tree climber. I have so very many stories of rescues. They even include worms on the road, spiders and wasps!

I also founded Bowen Island Animal Watch in the early 1990s which later became Coast Animal Welfare & Education Society (CAWES).

LIFE FRIENDS on their Pet Friends series did a thirty minute segment on my efforts with Bowen Island Animal Watch. It was about how I found other wonderful volunteers to help, and got donated materials to build three transportable feral cat shelters which I designed after the old 17^th century “litters”.

We set up three locations and eventually trapped and neutered/spayed thirty-seven kitties. All the cats lived on happily on Bowen Island with us to watch over them. We ultimately eradicated feline aids which was rampant when we started.

I have done and do all this because all my beloved animals protected me growing up, when I had no voice, nowhere to seek shelter and comfort, and no one to “tell”.

Now I am their voice and always will be, with all my communications and research skills and personal voice.

On a lighter note, do not ever harm, taunt, abandon or hurt an animal as you will have Sarah-Jane to reckon with. That is a serious promise!

Notes about the cat shelters:

Shelters were based on a design with slanted roof for rain and an overhang protected area to keep food dry. Other features:

• Flip up roof
•  6’ by 5’
• double insulated walls
• extended carrying handles as for the “ litter”
• structure was on stilts made of wood
• with carpets inside and a couple of sleeping shelves and an entry and exit openings

They were highly successful and people did not mind having them on their property because they were not permanent fixtures. Cats bonded to structure so it was easily moved if it had to be. The cats just connected with the movable shelter. We built three of them over three weekends with a team of about nine volunteer carpenters and reno folks  I got EVERTHING – all materials – donated. It was so much fun!

NOTE: Sarah-Jane West is now facing cancer. For over three months, she’s been unable to work – both in her volunteer efforts and her paid work. Despite selling personal items and receiving one-time gifts from friends and family, she’s struggling to cover basic living expenses. We’ve created a GoFundMe page for her. To read more and to donate go to: https://gofund.me/1a62d65b