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The Great Spirit Animal Sanctuary of Taylor is a nonprofit organization that rescues dogs, horses and other small animals. The sanctuary’s mission is to save dogs and horses from euthanasia and to provide a permanent home to animals who cannot be adopted. Those who run the sanctuary rescue animals who have been in shelters for too long or are unable to find a suitable, permanent home.
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“I used to rescue and foster dogs, that’s how I started this,” said owner and founder Tom Ziebell. “We would work with people to find homes for dogs then in 2018, people started approaching me for horse rescues.
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“So, we started doing those in fosters throughout the state and then, of course, it was goats and pigs and everything else and I realized that the bigger problem was that there were really no homes for the animals that we were attempting to foster because the animals that we specialize in, that we provide sanctuary to, are animals that are abused, neglected, emaciated, or (have) medical issues.”
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The horse sanctuary takes in wild horses after they have been rounded up. They also rescue horses who are found to be emaciated or injured. The sanctuary provides food, water and medical attention if necessary and a permanent, long-term home.
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“We have a horse named Fred that’s our worst-case scenario that we’ve ever rescued. The foster found him in Apache Junction at a home, basically starving, which is sad to begin with. The horse, at the time, only weighed about 700 pounds and it’s a 2,000-pound horse. So, that tells you how much he was underweight. They called every rescue around trying to find help and no one could, either they were full, or they didn’t see the benefit in saving him.
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“Sometimes that’s also the problem. Some rescues also have to look at marketability, you know, what they’re going to do with the animal afterwards. That’s the nice thing about us, all our animals receive a home for life. We don’t adopt out. Even if the animal becomes healthy, the animal just becomes a part of the pack for its entire life. We feel that’s also part of their healing, the consistent changes can also affect their behavior.”
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According to Ziebell, the dog sanctuary provides social interaction, medical attention and food for dogs that were put up for euthanasia due to a lack of space in other shelters and dogs rejected from shelters because they are an overpopulated breed or need social training.
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“I decided that the sanctuary was an option to give a place that is permanent to the animals where they don’t have to stress, because that was one thing that I was noticing was that they adopt them out and they already have so many behavior problems, either at the rescue they’re at or at the county facility and no one is really working to address those issues.”
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Ziebell believes that what happens a lot of the times that people either take the wrong type of a dog or they take a dog that has a severe issue that is more than the owner can deal with. “Then what happens is the dog ends up coming back, and this happens with almost every animal, but then the dog ends up coming back with even more issues because they probably received another issue while they were short-term where they were at.”
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A third section of the sanctuary houses small animals such as goats and chickens.
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Ziebell says that one way that people can help out is by signing up for monthly sponsorships, which pays for food, shelter and veterinarian care for the animals.
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The sanctuary is currently working to acquire additional land within the next two years to reach out to a larger part of the community. “We’re small, we have 17 animals. We have plans on growing to over 280 acres. That’s our big vision and we’re hoping, within two years that begins and then we can save a few hundred animals in a sanctuary environment.
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Ziebell noted that the Great Spirit Animal Sanctuary is one of very few dog sanctuaries. “There is one in California and that was where we got our inspiration. How they keep the dogs and socialize the dogs at the same time. We are trying to compound that even further by socializing all the animals together to make it a kind of commune-type sanctuary.”
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The Great Spirit Animal Sanctuary is a non-profit organization that relies entirely on donations, monthly sponsors of animals, and volunteers. “We are always looking for donors. We could also use donations for feed, we also offer monthly sponsors, if anybody wants to sponsor an animal monthly.”
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For example, sponsoring a horse for $20 a month would go towards their feed bill, their care, farrier, things of that nature. “We can use donated supplies. We’ve been very fortunate, people of the community have been very nice, that’s one thing I love about the Snowflake-Taylor area. They have donated us blankets, towels, sheets. We do conduct two sales a year, we just had our first sale at the beginning of the year, kind of a yard sale, so we do accept any kind of working electronics, appliances, things of that nature, that we can re-sell.
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“We’re looking for range equipment, we have people who have donated us wheelbarrows, rakes, things of that nature, we could always use more of that. We’re trying to raise money now to build a goat enclosure, so we need lumber and things like that. Our old enclosure blew down with monsoon, so we need to build a new one before winter for the goats and the pig.”
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Ziebell said they also welcome volunteers to help assemble, build, clean, groom, or even just socialize with the animals. “We do allow families to bring children. Anything and everything is always appreciated but right now we’re trying to raise funds for a goat enclosure and after that we’ll be trying to raise money for horse shades. The horses are not penned but they do have pens and we like to put shades over those pens,” state Ziebell, adding that donations are always welcome, but volunteers are by appointment.
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Although none of the animals that go to Great Spirit Animal Sanctuary are up for adoption, those wishing to help or learn more about the animals that the sanctuary rescues can sponsor a rescue, donate online on the website spiritanimalsanctuary.org, or schedule an appointment to become a volunteer.
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