Crazy Critter Crick Farm and Sanctuary

CCC is the lifelong dream of Air Force veteran and founder Shannan Donivan. As a Disabled veteran herself, Shannan holds a special place in her heart for animals with problems who may never be adopted out. She wanted to provide a place for them to be loved, cared for, and live out their lives at. Over the last 20 years of rescue work, even during active duty, she has helped more than 1,000 critters find their way home and is now stepping back from “rescue” and embracing the sanctuary aspect of animal welfare work . She has, and has had, dozens of critters in her care at her small Glen Rock farm to include cats, chickens, ducks, peacocks, an angry pony, and even a resident skunk.

A majority of the animals are not adoptable , simply in that our world seems to only adopt the flawless cute kittens and has little interest in adopting a critter with long term medical needs or senior pets. There are still a few adoptable critters remaining at the farm, but Covid halted the ability to safely adopt out and now, those few have joined the ranks of the “sanctuary” residents. Home Owners Insurance would also require a pricey rider to allow strangers in and out of the house to “adopt”, so sanctuary it is. 

While our goal is $1,500, that barely scratches our bills. Many of our cats suffer from a disease called Stomatitis, an often debilitating dental/ auto immune issue that can require lifelong medications and full mouth extractions. Many times second and third surgeries are needed with each surgery ranging from $400-$500 each.

We also have a kitty  in active heart failure who requires extra love and snuggles and monitoring. She also demands Fancy Feast and we give in to those adorable demands. 

We have super seniors , several unknown but up there in age seniors, and five untouchable semi feral cats . We have an asthma kitty, returned after an adoption of 4 years, for litterbox issues who , as it turned out, was never once seen by the vet for any issues, has asthma now, and was returned encapsulated in a hard shell of long hair mats and dirt. She requires pricey grooming to keep her knot free. We also have one cat that is a meningitis survivor, one cat that survived days of being in a coma after eating tainted food and now suffers slight neurological issues and yet another that came from an International rescue in Qatar, and is a blind, seizure kitty.

Then there are the kitties with behavioral issues. Those range from liter box issues to extreme fear of humans...to simply being….jerks. 

It is important to note that we are a no suffer sanctuary. We will never euthanize to make room, but we will also never allow an animal to suffer simply so we can tote the label of “no kill”. These animals are monitored and we have a healthy and open relationship with the vet who won’t hesitate to tell us if decisions need to be made.

Covid had limited our ability to attend vendor events and we don’t do adoptions. As with every non profit, it did seriously impact our ability to fundraise, but this year it seems we can be back on track! Any money raised goes to vet bills first, supplies second, and hopefully could offset some renovation to the sanctuary itself- catios!

Our goal is to continue to focus on these critters, and spend the next decade or more making sure they have a pretty good life. While it may not be an individual home, they will always have clean beds, full bellies, and get poked and prodded by the vet when needed.

And of course, lots of love!

We also assist local rescues in TNR work, assist the community when possible through providing a low cost or no cost pet food pantry and help keep the network of crazy cat feeders well stocked on food for their colonies. We simply help where we can because someone has to! We are in the process of having a room built on the porch to hopefully be able to network even more supplies on and then out to those pets and people in need. 

So we do what needs done . We do what we can and hope it makes a difference somewhere!