Kindness Ranch, located on 1,000 acres in the Hartville area of Southeastern Wyoming, is the only sanctuary in the U.S. that takes in all kinds of former research animals including dogs, cats, horses, sheep and pigs. Ground was broke in 2006. After building four guests yurts, a dog yurt, a cat yurt, and a managers’ yurt, construction was finished in the summer of 2007.
Kindness Ranch has room for up to 600 animals, but it needs more human hands to tailor care to these animals’ unique medical, emotional and social needs.

Humans can get involved with Kindness Ranch in several ways:

* Volunteer: Help with mailings. Shovel snow. Mend fences. Walk dogs. Feed pigs. Live in the cat yurt and rub Mamma Kitty’s belly. Kindness Ranch welcomes volunteers to come and work for a day or a week. Interested people who pass a screening process are even welcome to live in the dog or cat yurts with the animals.

* Intern: Kindness Ranch is unique in its educational approach to animal rescue, said founder David Groobman. College interns can earn credit while working at the ranch and helping with animal rehabilitation. Karen Straight, the outreach director, is a former sociology professor who has designed a course about the interaction of society and animals. Interns live in the dog and cat yurts and help with the daily operations of the ranch while taking the course.

* Vacation: Kindness Ranch wants to share the love of its animals with the rest of the world. It offers four guest yurts for families and groups of friends to rent for vacation. The yurts, which sleep four to 10 people, offer one or two bedrooms, a full kitchen, a loft, one or two bathrooms, laundry facilities, television, floor to ceiling windows and a private deck overlooking the ranch grounds. Guests are invited to bring their pets and kids and visit the variety of animals while relaxing. Profits from the guest yurts support the ranch and its operations.

* Adopt: Kindness Ranch doesn’t want to keep all its animals to itself. Once the dogs, cats and other animals are rehabilitated and ready for a home environment, the ranch will accept applications from people who would like to adopt. Adoptees are screened and expected to give the animals the same high quality care offered at the ranch.

* Information: For more information on Kindness Ranch and volunteer, internship, vacation and adoption opportunities, call Karen Straight, outreach director, at (307) 735-4177 or go online to www.kindnessranch.org.