HARTVILLE – Nestled in between the rolling hills of Manville and Hartville, right off of Wyoming State Highway 270 sits a patch of grasslands and beautiful rock formations. The 1,200 acers are the new home of a handsome, four-month-old colt, Solemn and his mom, Ziggy. The pair came to the Kindness Ranch, an animal sanctuary, not long ago, but they aren’t alone. Ziggy was brought to the ranch from hormone production at a factory in Canada. She was one of a handful of horses in a program where she bred repetitively for her hormones.  The duo shares their patch of land with over 100 different animals who have spent the majority of their lives in laboratories or testing centers around the world and a handful of passionate caretakers.

John Ramer, executive director of the ranch, provided the Telegram a tour this fall of the sanctuary.

“I started work here six years ago, took over as director about six months after I started,” Ramer said. “And as with a lot of sanctuaries, they were struggling to really get a foothold in the local community.”

Ramer grew up in a small town on the Oregon coast and he brought a different point of view on animal husbandry and how to work with the community to better the sanctuary along with him to the plains of Wyoming.

“It’s been my philosophy that if you’re not able to go to your local grocery store and ask them to donate vegetables to your farm animals, that you have no right to reach out to people thousands of miles away and ask them to support you,” Ramer explained. “I spent a couple of years trying really hard to educate people of the community about what we do and have them come out because, you know, a vegan animal sanctuary in Wyoming,” Ramer chuckled.

According to Ramer, when he took over the care of the sanctuary, the community didn’t have the most positive perception of the ranch.

“There were a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation about a bunch of vegan hippies out here going our little cult thing and all of that,” Ramer said. “So, I started doing open houses. I hired local people to come work and fast forward a few years…it’s been really nice.”

In the October interview, Ramer mentioned he was taking a trip to Washington, D.C. to advocate, once more, about animal research. The sanctuary houses farm animals and domesticated animals, which Ramer, knows by name.

“This is Kevin,” Ramer said introducing a male goat who came to seek attention. “He comes from EWC (Eastern Wyoming College). He was part of the vet tech training program there in Torrington. We have a great relationship with the college there,” Ramer said. “When they’re done going through whatever training and whatnot that they’re being used for, we take them. Kevin came here five years ago or so.”

Wondering around the farm, Ramer stopped at a pen full of goats and sheep.

“That’s Acorn McSquashy and then we’ve got James Earl Jones, Han Solo, Carrie Fisher. Obliviously, a Star Wars theme,” Ramer said, pointing to each animal. “We’ve got Spring, Summer, Grace, Georgina and Huck and all of them came from various veterinary training facilities or actual lab research.”

“You’ve come at a good time of year where things are actually kind of calm now,” Ramer said. “You get a decent experience in the summer where it is typically really packed.”

Ramer explained, the sanctuary also has guest accommodations, which are typically booked all summer long.

“Our guest facility is up on the hillside there. The people can rent and come,” Ramer said. “We work with a bunch of youth camps. Basically, July through August, this place is overrun by a bunch of 12- to 13-year-olds,” Ramer said with a chuckle. “They come out with an organization call the ‘Road less traveled’ and a lot of the kids are coming from big cities. They’ve never seen a cow before so, it’s a fantastic experience.”

As Ramer wondered from pen to pen, he brought attention to the large grassy pasture the farm animals called home.

“All of the cows and llamas, they have, you can see the open gate,” Ramer pointed. “This pasture goes all the way back to the bottom of the tree line and in the next pasture over, we’ve got 16 horses. They do go back to the tree line as well.”

Each species of animal has its own winter enclosure and inside the sheep and goat barn, Ramer opened a standard size refrigerator, full of fresh produce.

“We spend about $2,000 a month ordering fresh produce and vegetables from a restaurant supply company to chop up for all of our pigs,” Ramer explained. “They get a better diet than most of the people that work here.”

“Regardless of your faith or history, most people would agree that we’re here to be stewards of our environment and that’s exactly what I preach, which I don’t think very many people understand,” Ramer said.

As the truck began to climb up the mountainside, Ramer explained a recent federal decision had put their sanctuary at risk for losing valuable connections to receive research animals.

“[Senator] Lummus actually wrote a letter to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) about their recent decision to prevent or stop entirely the import of animals from high-risk environments,” Ramer explained. “That put a stop to us receiving potentially hundreds of animals from American-owned research facilities in China. Lummus, unbeknownst to us, wrote a letter and in the letter, she mentions how the CDC’s decision was shortsighted and directly impacts Wyoming organizations, which she supports. I thought it was kind of cool.”

“We’re in a very privilege spot in our development as a sanctuary out here,” Ramer said as the truck passed through groves of evergreens. “We have a mailing list. Our quarterly newsletter that’s a direct mail newsletter goes out to anywhere from 220 – 280,000 people every six to eight weeks. We have a direct mail list from combined between our newsletter and all of our online outlets, our social media and we reach about 600,000 people,” Ramer explained.

According to Ramer, there are a lot of organizations and worthy causes to support however all of the people who support the Kindness Ranch are zealous.

“All of those people are very passionate. If you give money to an animal organization, by definition, you’re pretty passionate because there’s a lot of organizations that you can give money to,” Ramer said. “You never know if they’re actually putting it to good use. If you make a donation to Goodwill, how do you know that $1,000 donation is going to be utilized the way that you like to see it?”

Ramer believes in transparency.

“We’re 100% transparent where all of our money goes and we put out our animal impact report showing everything from how much we spend in our admin costs to direct animal care,” Ramer explained. “Everybody that works in the office also works in direct animal care.”

“There are two roles that don’t involve direct animal care and that’s our bookkeeper, who lives in Guernsey, and our director of development that lives in Los Angeles,” Ramer said. “Everybody else, busy, hands on with animals throughout the day. Our supporters are really passionate about that.”

According to Ramer, supporters of the Kindness Ranch don’t just help pay for the feed and care of prior research animals, they also aid in intercepting Beagles from China.

“When we got connection in China for intercepting dogs that were bred and used in research and then being smuggled to the meat markets, we formed a good relationship with a couple of people over there that actually physically intercepted the Beagles before they go to the meat market,” Ramer said. “They house them until I can bring them here.”

A mission of such volume requires measurable funding, according to Ramer.

“It costs an average of between the flight, the veterinary costs, the mandatory quarantine prior to and on arrival, all of the CDC and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) paperwork and licenses, it runs about $6,000 per dog to get them here,” Ramer said. “Then once they get here, by definition, we’re a non-profit, we adopt them out for 200 bucks.”

“When the CDC put that into effect in August, it crippled us on bringing those dogs in and a lot of our supporters are really upset about it and asking why we’re not doing more,” Ramer explained.

Ramer houses all 17 of the employees who work at the sanctuary on portions of the ranch and the opportunity exists for the community to enjoy the experience in multiple ways.

“This here is our campground that we put in when we started working with the summer camps and all of the kids,” Ramer said as he drove by another hillside of the ranch. “We just opened it to the public this year. We move the campground every year to give the ground underneath the chance to regenerate and that way it also gives people a reason to come back every year because they get to camp in a different part of the property.”

“It’s obviously just primitive camping, but we’ve got the frost-free spigot and we put the outhouses everywhere,” Ramer explained.

The sanctuary also has space for volunteers to stay for extended periods of time.

“Then, for our long-term, volunteers, they get the nicest house on the property,” Ramer said. “That’s one of the perks. I guess if you are going to work for free, I want you to at least have a good view.”

The ranch houses cats and dogs for adoption to the general public.

“Our dog yurts and our companion animal department, these people live with the dogs in their care. We’re basically paying them to foster a whole bunch of animals,” Ramer said. “The back of this yurt here is a two-bedroom apartment with a private fenced yard for their personal animals and then on the front side, they get to take care of the Beagles like this. The new adoptees here can socialize and kind of almost get that family.”

According to Ramer, the Beagles at the ranch come from a controlled environment and living in the backyard of a yurt, where they have access to gravel and grass, can be a difficult change for the dogs.

“IF you think about it, laboratory research is one of the most controlled environments that you could possibly work in. These dogs, before coming here, they’ve never been outside. They’ve never used steps, seen a TV or music, smelled coffee, none of that,” Ramer explained. “They’re like three-year-old puppies with a mental development of an eight-week-old.”

Inside the year, there is a system to make sure none of the adoptees accidently slip out the door.

“Everything’s on a two-door system so they won’t blast out,” Ramer said. “They each have their own individual dog runs at night, so they can decompress and have some quiet time. They still have outdoor access.”

Ramer explained the employees living in the yurt walk into their kitchen and see the dogs in their indoor runs.

“The guy that works here and lives here, when he wakes up in the morning and comes out to make breakfast, this is his kitchen and his beauty every morning when he’s making breakfast, just the morning cup of coffee,” Ramer said as he pointed at the view.

“If you look, they’re all tattooed in their ears,” Ramer said as he snuggled a Beagle. “That’s the only way that they were identified when they were in the lab.”

Ramer noted most of the animals who had come to the ranch had tattoos on their ears or inner thighs. He also mentioned during the interview the ranch would be bringing a few more dogs to the sanctuary the next day.

“They’ve never been outside of the building they’re in in Colorado. Imagine being a dog in Colorado and not being able to go outside,” Ramer explained.

Ramer explained, the ranch has a special job to help the animals at the sanctuary.

“Basically, we’re doing behavior conditioning and just getting them used to what humans think. But even that doesn’t sound deep enough,” Ramer said.

According to Ramer, in 2007-2018 the ranch adopted out 400 dogs which were given to the sanctuary from research facilities and in 2019 until January 2024, 1,033 dogs found their forever homes through the work of Ramer and his staff.

“I am pretty proud of that,” Ramer said.

For more information on pets available for adoption, to make a donation or to check out rental spaces, visit the kindnessranch.org or visit their Facebook page.