A Message From Rowdy Girl Sanctuary’s Founder

It all started with Rowdy Girl, a little 2 month old baby calf that my husband wanted me to care for, hoping I would start wanting to be a “good” ranchers wife. I bought her for $300 having no idea that she would take me down the rabbit hole where I would come out on the other side of compassion for all sentient beings – even the ones that used to end up on my plate. The rest they say is her-story.

Becoming vegan for me has been a result of living on the Sonnen Ranch, now Rowdy Girl Sanctuary with my multi-generational cattle rancher husband – I couldn’t take the red trailer leaving with the babies anymore – As a result I started watching documentaries and slaughterhouse videos and when I made the corner, I’ve never looked back. Forever Vegan!

I live on a 96 acre ranch with him. I was transplanted from suburbia to the ranch in 2009 – I fell in love with all the critters….kinda like Elly Mae Clampett – I named them all and loved them everyone – I’d go out and spend time with them, dance around them – sing to them and talk to them.

Then they started being trailered up to go to the sale barn, and the experience of watching them leave, the mamas wailing for a week and the absence of their souls in the pasture haunted me. As a result of watching a Melanie Joy documentary on Carnism, I was set up on Halloween 2014, while at my mother in laws. She was serving Beef Stew and instead of seeing meat, I saw floating dead animal parts. I’d been vegetarian in the past and even tried a raw diet for several months, but never had the compassion connection until I LIVED IT! I love these animals – I see their souls, and they see mine – I can tell they are looking at me out of the corner of their eye. They can feel our motives.

I soon realized I could not stand to watch the babies leave their mamas even one more time to go to the sale barn FOR SLAUGHTER…and that I had to do something to prevent that from ever happening again. My husband had come to the end of his rope. He was ready to sell the entire herd and get out of the business altogether because of my revulsion to the ordeal. The idea to create my own Sanctuary to rescue all of the cows was born from this realization and I convinced my Rancher husband to work with me to make this dream a reality. Since he was at the jumping off place and was going to sell them all anyway, I asked him if I could buy them and if he’d give me a discount. He thought I had lost my mind, and frankly I had, but it was my only hope and because of compassionate vegans across the world, my project on indiegogo was funded early May 2015.