GOSHEN COUNTY – Linda York stands amid tables of merchandise, books and other items friends and admirers have donated to her over the years. 

“We’ve had close to 1,300 animals through here. And I’ve taken care of most of them with braces holding my spine together,” she says.

She pushes over an X-ray dated 2011 showing a metal brace hugging each side of a spinal column.

The donations will be for a yard sale. Or perhaps sold on eBay. The reason York needs the money is evident from the half dozen dogs barking in kennels 20 feet away. And the shiny white van with a bumper sticker reading “It takes balls to neuter your pet.” And the baby bat sitting in a plastic tub under a heat lamp.

“I’ve been giving it some goat’s milk,” York says. “He’ll be returned to the wild. They don’t get attached to people like other wild animals.”

For nearly 20 years, York and her husband have operated Pet Pals, Inc., a compact, no-kill animal rescue situated on her grandparents’ homestead south of Torrington.

The cruelty inflicted on animals outside of the rescue’s walls is a pall that hangs over the compound.

“Every dog has a story,” she says, walking from stall to stall in the high-ceilinged main building.

“This one was brought here a little after five at night. He hates everybody.”

Next stall.

“She was dumped out on a county road with wire around her mouth with two puppies.”

Next stall.

“I went to school with the person that brought Lila here. She went into her garage and found her son. He hung himself. And he was training Lila to be a fighting pit bull. She said, ‘I already have enough dogs. Is there any way you could take her?’”

York drops her voice. “Well, how am I going to say no?”

York lived in Michigan for a time, where she worked with the Humane Society. She says her job was to take the animals to the city shelter, where they were sometimes killed.

She and her husband moved back to Torrington. When they decided to start the rescue, he returned to work delivering mail, until his health gave out. All of his wages went to the rescue.

York, who gives her age only as “elderly,” says it takes $70,000 to run Pet Pals every year. She takes in $25,000 from donations. The rest comes from the couple’s savings, and a reliance on volunteers.

All about caring

Opening the door, she stops immediately in front of two wired-in coops, one for roosters and one for cats.

“The guy that was helping me with this one ended up on meth,” she says disapprovingly. “He’s wasted. Really sad. I finished all this myself.”

Pushing past the coop into another building, the smell of cats is overwhelming. York estimates that 20 of them live here. They swarm her as she enters. Being here beats living in a barn, she contends.

She scoops up a large, gray shorthair cat. 

“She wanted to name him Mouse,” York recalls of the woman who brought him in. “I says, ‘I don’t think he’s gonna make it.’ He was so tiny and skinny and shivering from the cold. I put him in an aquarium with heat lamps. She says, ‘name him Love so at least he will know love before he dies.”

The cat survived. His name is Love-a-Mouse. York puts down Love-a-Mouse and points to another in the corner.

“I had to give him shots. Upper respiratory. So he doesn’t like me.”

What kind of medical care does York give to the animals on her own?

“Everything,” she whispers in a low voice.

Back in the main building, York needs to sink into a chair because of her back. She is open about the fact that many people in Goshen County don’t care for her. She feels much of it is based on rumors. 

She shrugs it off. There are some people she doesn’t care for, either. She has changed her opinion of people – acquaintances, public figures – based on how they treat their animals.

“I used to think a lot of a gal,” York recalls. “We used to chit chat all the time. She called me up.”

The woman explained that her husband had shot a kitten off a telephone pole. He didn’t realize their children were watching.

“I don’t know what to tell the kids. What should I tell the kids?” the woman asked York.

She pauses for effect.

“Uh, tell them their dad’s an a******.”

She laughed out of disbelief. “That totally changed my view. You can’t even value the life of a little kitten? I just don’t get it.”

York remembers the early days of the rescue. There was backlash, she says. Accusations about her and her husband putting dogs on chains. About them hunting out of season. About them being hoarders. About them stealing dogs.

To that last charge, there was merit. On Feb. 24, 2003, York was found guilty of larceny in Goshen County. She paid a $130 fine.

“Yep, I was trying to save two stray dogs that were in terrible condition and brought in and relinquished to us,” she says. “I’m still heartbroken. Both dogs were dead within weeks of being torn from a loving home and returned to their abusive owner.”

She remembers talking with some friends in Utah online. They told her “you can either fight the B.S. going around or you can save lives.”

“Oh, okay,” she says cheerily. “I’m gonna save lives.”

Background checks

York senses that some of the animosity comes when she turns people down for adoptions.

On a good day, it will take her four hours to determine if someone is the right fit for an animal. She searches the Internet, looking for any animal cruelty charges. She calls the person’s veterinarian, asking if the prospect will be a good pet owner. She calls references, then checks with animal control to see if they’ve had problems with the person in the past. Finally, she interviews the person.

“She checks to make sure you have a fence. She’s real firm,” remembers Mari Collis of Cheyenne, who adopted from York twice. “That the dog food is placed in proper locations, where they can’t get into all kinds of stuff. She really does thorough checks.”

York looks for even more detail than that.

“Having them in a seatbelt is one of our rules,” she adds. “You have to have them in a seatbelt. Otherwise they’re going to break their neck when they crash – going to go through a windshield. No different from a baby. Why wouldn’t you protect them?”

The rules she refers to include paying a fine if the owner ever turns their adopted pet over to a kill shelter. The animals are microchipped in her name, so she finds out about it when it happens.

“Pick up your phone. We’ve got supporters all over. There’s no reason to dump them at a kill facility,” she says indignantly. “Ridiculous.”

Turning an animal over to a shelter is a clear enough flag. But for the other rules – not having a dog in a seatbelt, for instance – how does she know when people violate them?

“We don’t,” she says softly.

Only about half a dozen people come through the doors of Pet Pals each week. Not all of them will adopt. York is not afraid to say no to people who she feels have more to learn about being pet owners.

One woman missed her adoption appointment and York called her to inquire why.

“My dog fell out of the back of the pickup a couple of days ago and it killed her,” the woman said.

“Oh, you’d be a good advocate for not putting dogs in the back of pickup, wouldn’t you?” York replied.

“Oh no, she really liked it!” the woman exclaimed obliviously.

“I said, ‘oh, really?’” York recalls. “‘She’s dead! What part of that don’t you understand?’”

The calls she makes to veterinarians or animal control can sometimes unearth serious problems about an owner. Sometimes, the vets don’t know the full story about how many dogs are in a person’s home or what condition they are in.

Outside sources, supporters

She says people phone her to tell her about animals they see – which ones need help, which ones are being mistreated.

“They want me to do something about it. They think I am the Humane Society and they think I have the authority to confiscate animals and all this stuff,” she says.

York has her supporters – people who donate to her and adopt from far away. A woman in Cheyenne, now deceased, told York she would send a donation. York thought it would be small, less than $100.

It ended up being $100,000.

“Who do you know that you like well enough that you would give up $100,000?” York asks incredulously.

She estimates that 90 percent of her adoptions take place to owners in Colorado. She recognizes that her philosophy toward animals doesn’t always neatly fit into Goshen County.

“Maybe because we’re in a rural ranching area,” she says. “We had some puppies brought to us where the guy had taken all the female puppies and hit them against a fence post and killed them – but then brought us little boy puppies. I mean, what was your thinking?”

York says the man’s wife stepped in and said, “we’ll take them to Linda.” York saw no reason for the killing.

“To try to understand people, there’s times it gets depressing,” she shakes her head. “One gal says, ‘I so admire you. You have changed the thinking around here. You have no idea.’”

She looks off into the distance. “Well, I hope so.”

Still has issues

Even though Pet Pals is a no-kill rescue, it isn’t devoid of ethical dilemmas. York has had to grapple with “mean” dogs. She had to turn down a carful of cats that needed the vet, not her rescue. She has had to ask herself whether some medical procedures were worth it. 

She recalls a dog that needed both back legs amputated. To do so would have cost $1,000. The money would have come from donors. 

“People who want to save lives, not just a life,” she describes them. “I’m really torn.”

Fortunately, one member of her board of directors paid the vet bill. That kept the dog alive – and happy – for two more years.

By letting animals into her life, York has necessarily had to allow people. Irresponsible owners, sometimes. Adopters, to be sure. But sometimes it’s people who are the ones seeking refuge with her, not dogs.

“We’ve taken in several homeless people,” she recalls. “We had one gal recovering from meth. It was either prison or us, and we took her in with her five animals. Really sad. Very sad.”

Another woman stopped by and hooked up her camping trailer. She left without paying $2,000 in utilities to York. (“Born-again Christian. She needs to be born again,” York describes her.)

Word of mouth is how she says they find her. She since has said “no more” to people.

But people are inevitable because Pet Pals needs volunteers. Even they can disappoint her.

“We’ve had so much stuff stolen here,” she sighs.

York recalls one volunteer as her “right arm. We really were good together. Then she got taken to opioids. I did not know the effects of opioids until we had to split ways. Just so screwed up.”

She isn’t quite sure why Pet Pals attracts wayward people at the same time it attracts wayward animals. Are people trying to take advantage? Have they been rejected everyplace else? Are they looking to be taken care of, too?

“Maybe they’re trying to relate to the animals or something. Or maybe they know that we care and have tried to help a lot of people as well as animals.”

She shrugs. “Oh, well. It’s been an adventure, what can I say?”