'Incurable' horse thrives at Survivors Rescue

Dawn Dempsey dedicates many of her days to answering calls about horses who need rescuing, cleaning out stalls and rehabilitating animals others consider hopeless.

Since 2012, the Sandpoint area horse rescuer, along with the support and help of her husband, Scott, has been devoting her everyday life to rescuing horses from certain death and giving them vibrant lives on her farm. Dempsey now runs a nonprofit shelter in Sandpoint that she named Survivors Rescue Inc.

While the rescue is a source of positive impact and healing, it was originally inspired by tragic circumstances. When Dempsey was in her 20s, she moved next to a feedlot where horses would be brought after auction, fattened and then shipped for slaughter.

“I remember hundreds of horses coming in on the trucks,” Dempsey said. “I would go look at them. After they were there for a while, at night I would lay in bed and I would hear the hoofbeats on the double decker aluminum trailers. They would be loading them in the night next door. The next day they would all be gone and it was just kind of an eerie emptiness because they had all been shipped to slaughter.”

Dempsey said that through those experiences, she gained a passion for rescuing horses and the knowledge that one day she would make a difference for animals with similar fates.

“I worked really hard, and then one day, was able to retire and that’s when I started putting my efforts into rescuing,” Dempsey said.

Now, she runs a farm where she rescues horses who are being abused, neglected or scheduled to be euthanized. One Freisian, named Wredemption, is one of Dempsey’s “miracle” stories.

Wredemption came to Survivors Rescue as a baby with “no hope,” according to everyone with whom the horse rescuer had spoken. The Freisian had an infection in her bones that was considered incurable because antibiotics can’t penetrate bone, Dempsey said.

“We were told by every specialist and every vet that her injury was untreatable by science and she needed to be euthanized because that’s how you treat that," she said. "Me and my posse, what I call my volunteers, worked with her for over two years.”

Dempsey said the Freisian showed signs of a strong will to live. She said she can tell when an animal has hope for survival. When the desire to survive is there, she knows it’s worth every effort.

“When I look in their eyes and they tell me they want to live I do everything I can do,” she said. “You can usually tell when an animal is giving up or if they want to live — so we fought for her.”

Because of the horse's progress, Dempsey was finally able to get some professionals on board with surgery for the filly. She described a conversation with one vet who had seen Wredemption prior to her progress.

“One day, the vet came over to look at another horse and she looked at this filly and was like, ‘wow, is that her?’ She spent time following (the horse) around in amazement,” Dempsey said.

At that point, Wredemption was considered for surgery that would offer her a chance at a full recovery.

Now Wredemption is “at 100%” and is thriving at Survivors Rescue, Dempsey said.

“They told me what I did wasn’t medically possible, and now they actually teach the procedures,” Dempsey said. “It's saving a lot of lives because normally those horses end up euthanized.”

Dempsey said her only consistent method is dedication. For the animal to have a chance at survival, she has to believe they can survive.

“I’m not trained. I’m not like a vet,” Dempsey said. “I communicate with the animal, and I’m able to look outside the box. I give them all my best shot.”

Dempsey doesn’t stop with horses. She has many other animals, including a zebra and a buffalo named “Buffy,” who has a unique connection to Sandpoint. She said part of her routine is being a “secretary” for Buffy, because she has become so loved by the community that Dempsey receives texts and calls daily asking about her. Now Dempsey considers her the “community’s buffalo.”

The buffalo was a baby when it was originally purchased by Dr. Forrest M. Bird, inventor of the medical respirator, as a Valentine’s Day present for his wife. In 2015, after he and his wife passed away, Dempsey was asked to give Buffy a home.

Recently, Dempsey has realized that her mission can be about more than just the animals. She has many volunteers who visit her farm because it’s therapeutic for them. People who are struggling with health issues or mental hardships have found their own healing as they help heal the horses.

Dempsey said this is sometimes difficult because the help she really needs, like mucking stalls and hauling hay, isn’t always the work volunteers realize they are signing up for. But she is happy her efforts are helping the community in more than one way.

Larger rescues and shelters bring in more money and volunteers, but often they have staff to pay and advertisements to run, Dempsey said. But for her organization, she chooses to use every donation strictly to enrich the lives of the animals.

“My focus is on the animals, it's not on the money,” Dempsey said. “When I get a dollar, the whole dollar goes to the animal. I don’t keep a penny … A lot of my own money goes into what we do because we don’t get the support we need.”

While Dempsey pours her own time, money and resources into what she does, she has confidence that she is exactly where she is supposed to be.

“A lot of people spend their whole life searching for their calling," she said. "I’m fortunate enough to have found that. I know that this is what I was put here to do.”

Information: survivorsrescue.com