I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found: Daisy and the Olympic Animal Sanctuary Rescue
By: Laura Koerber / Narrated By: Kelly Libatique
Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins
When the rescuer becomes the perpetrator of cruelty
After listening to this book, and before writing the review, I hit YouTube to see if there was anything on Steve Markwell and the Olympic Animal Sanctuary.
Yup. There’s an old vid, many years old, that paints a glowing portrait of life at the Sanctuary for difficult dogs that shows happy canines playing and running and barking with joy. Did I mention that it was several, SEVERAL years old?
Cuz newer vids come with Viewer Discretion advisements. What you see in those videos, and what you hear in the book I Once Was Lost, But Now I’m Found shows anything BUT happy dogs. You’ll see and hear about 120-170 dogs being kept in a dark, unheated/uncooled warehouse, in cramped confinement with feces and urine collected on floors and walls. No food. Green, slimy, hay-choked water, and little of it. Dogs circling in crates, going insane. No human companionship. And sometimes the only interaction that comes with other canines is through dog fights that prove to be injurious or even fatal.
The book is mostly about Daisy, a rescue who was once fostered by a couple who chose her because they were up for a true fostering challenge and wanted to be there for a desperately troubled dog. Enter Daisy: A dog immobilized by fear who flinched and contracted and balled up when touched. She spent her early time with the couple hunkered down in their shower stall but who slooowly came around by initially socializing with the couple’s two dogs.
Her story is engaging, but it’s not the only one going on in the book. The man, Steve Markwell, who ran the OAS, was thought of as a town hero, a savior of hard-case dogs, a Dog Whisperer. But maybe he was overwhelmed, maybe he was a sociopath, maybe, maybe, maybe… Whatever the reason, the dogs he took in were subjected to hell. And Daisy, after a questionable act of “unprovoked” dog aggression is sent to the OAS and stayed there for three years. The couple was heartsick, but they’d heard so much good about Markwell and the OAS, that they had to stuff their feelings (They were not, after all, her owners) and let her go. It wasn’t until abuse and cruelty allegations were made that they came to realize what had happened to her and fought desperately to get her back.
There’s plenty about cruelty and neglect here, rather stomach-turning, and if you’re sensitive, this is a book you might wanna skip out on. It isn’t, however, inCREDibly graphic, so if you’ve the stomach, you’re in for a few hours of an education of what a town will do when it doesn't have the resources to take over, when one of “its own” is accused, when willful ignorance rules the day. It’s a difficult listen, but it’s sweetened by the aaaalmost total success that advocates eventually, well, after a few YEARS, had. It’s certainly sweetened by the Epilogue stories of some of the other dogs that we come to know through this emotional journey.
From the get-go, however, the narration proves to be questionable. Kelly Libatique has low-key, low-voiced tones that’ll put ya to sleep. And here’s the doozy: Kelly Libatique is… a DUDE. No, really! Listen and you’ll hear! It’s not just me, I tell you! A man!
So when Kelly Libatique starts Laura Koerber’s story… LAURA… and we hear a male voice speaking of having a husband (NOT that men can’t have husbands!), we’re immediately in a: Huh? Whazza?!?-Mode. So I guess it’s a good thing that the book is about more than Laura’s journey and is instead about legal battles and dog stories on the side. But unfortunately, that’s where his smoooooth, barely-inflected voice lulls the listener into a doze, only to wake up when extreme neglect and abuse rear their ugly heads. Huzzah for… neglect and abuse…?!?
Still, the book is a good education, and while there are moments of abject horror, it’s not tooo terribly graphic (Tho’ it IS heartbreaking). And Daisy’s story is heartrending but ultimately triumphant. …thank GOD… I don’t think I woulda been able to handle the whole despicable journey were there not a few… like, 120, Happily Ever Afters…!
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