MIKE MORROW - Founder of Desert Animal Refuge

Look here he is, where he has always been. With the Animals.

Mike Morrow was born on August 6th 19--. Yes his birthday is comming soon. He founded Desert Animal Refuge a few years back and has become, at least to every one I know part man, part miricle, both fact and fiction. Do the Webmaster a favor and flood Mike with Birthday wishes to cheer him up or at least take his mind off his problems by having to empty his mailbox!!!! desert_animal_refuge@yahoo.com

Fact: Mike is Real and without him, the animals in Chaves County would face state run Animal Shelters where they have no choice excpt to put down animals to make room for the overpopulation that we humans created. Desert Animal Refuge is 100% spay/neuter Facility. Mike Personally spends time with EACH Animal at Desert Animal Refuge. TWICE a day or more. Even when he has sufficent workers and voulenteers he still has to check each animal twice a day to make sure that they were fed and watered correctly. He comes about 28 miles round trip to take care of his Animals 2 or 3 times 7 days a week. He spends no less than 5 hours a day at the Refuge's Holding facility even on the weekends when he has to stay at the fund drives for 8-10 hours. He usually works with the Animals and building better structures and just loving them for 10-14 hours each and every day. He is The Most single-mindedly blinded by love of Dogs, that I have ever had the chance to meet personally. He is the second biggest lover of Cats (and for Mike any other animals) that I know. Of course I think I love Cats more : p He has kept this Refuge up and running through such adversity that I can't imagine. Many times a month he is rolling pennies for gas to get out here or food for the animals. But TRUST me the Animals are ALWAYS FED TWICE A DAY AND VERY VERY WELL. MIKE ON HIS OWN had a vision of Saving Healthy (along with the sick that can be treated) Animals of Chaves County, and providing them with not only shelter food, medical care but more love than seems humanly possible. Saturday July 29th he sat at his Wal-Mart fund drive for around 8 hours. (The weekly fund drives for now are our only regular funding, except for a FEW EBayers that always donate what they can, and Wal-Mart of Roswell which provides us with their broken bags of food) At the fund drive Mike Made $70.00, and this is not unusual, our local funding is almost non-existant when you consider each week he is providing Veteraniran Care, Spay/Neuter, and Home Health Care for over 60 animals at the refuge at full price, feeding around 100lbs of dog food EVERY day. And trying to cover other ETC costs. Now it is getting winter and he is trying to get dozens of weaterized dog houses constructed. But yet he pulls it off. We have come close, he had to stop taking in Cats, But no worries my Cat Lover Friends, I have adopted them all. And working on the facility where Desert Animal Refuge can accept them again. He is tolerant of a community where the PR is outwardly Bad, and Donations and Funding are Scarce, YET the Amount of people who bring their unwanted pets to our facility, where they KNOW they will not be put to death is overwhelming. If we had a donation of $5.00 for every animal that comes through Desert Animal Refuge we might actually come out of the Red.

Man: He is half blind and can't hardly even see the website even on my big monitor. I believe he never eats and is going to keel over dead of malnutrition, exaustion, and fustration at any minute. He couldn't weigh more than 110lbs. I beleive that he loves ANY animal more than ANY human, and although he is tolerant of the public as a whole, he is TOTALY INTOLERANT of ANYONE MESSING WITH HIS ANIMALS in a way that he does not approve of 100%. That even includes me, and I live here! His Animals MUST be fed the right amount, it must be put in it's prespecified place, the waterbowls are cleaned twice daily and if a worker fails to do it right woe is the worker. For his Animals he tolerates things that I beleive he would snip in the bud if he was in a position to do it without losing ANYTHING for his Animals. The main thing I think he BARELY tolerates is me. I don't ask before I do. The Website is basicly mine to express what I see and feel. I know that is not exactly right, but I spend 24/7 at the Facility and I think that gives me the sight and the right to say what I see. Plus I take advantage of the fact that Mike is not computer freindly, even after showing him how to access the admistration tools of the sight there is no way he could figure out how to fix anything he would say I did wrong, plus I work practicaly free, and he would have to hire another webmaster to even take DOWN THE SITE if he just HATED IT entirely. And the webmasters he has spoken with he said looked at him like he was talking a foreign language because I told him to make sure that if he did get another, they knew meta tags and html. Neither acted as if they had ever heard of it. But for his animals, he puts up with my B.S. and strong veiws that I don't mind stating.

Fiction: I know that SuperHero's with unhuman abilities are not real, that they are only fiction. Yet that This Refuge still continues to care for and take in animal after animal is somthing no other human I know of, besides Mike could have EVER done. Desert Animal Refuge does not provide the best care possible for the animals here. Mike I KNOW would sell the shirt off his back before even ONE of his animals even had time to think they were hungry before they were fed again. FICTION Desert Animal Refuge does not spay and neuter. (FACT we provide the service to all the animals that come through the facility at full cost to us.) No-Kill Refuge's doom an animal to a life of horror by seclustion in small pens and cages, no real personal love, even negelect. To anyone who thinks any of those things of Desert Animal Refuge I challange you to come (make an apointment first) we are taking no chances since the Exorcutioners exposed our healthy animals to the ones in quarinteen and broke and entered our propery and tried to steal animalls. But Come and watch Mike with ANY of his dogs and tell me you do not see complete LOVE and DEVOTION from Mike and his Dogs. True some No-Kill Refuges are overrun, understaffed, underfunded, as we are, but Mike finds the time and every thing else that his haimals need some way some how. And he is not the only one, when the Exocutioners infiltrated and perpertrated their crimes against us, Mike told me to be prepared because Animal Control could find the lose cats in non-compliance and come and take every single cat he had and put them down. Let me tell you that would NEVER HAPPEN! Me and 30 plus Cats would be locked in my bathroom and they would put what I use to think of and now are MY CAts Down over my dead body. We have all the funding we need and are dragging our feet and not upgrading to what we want to acheive because of procrastionation. REMEMBER WE ARE UNDER THE FICTION SECTION> IF anyone would give us a deceint grant or any state federal or private foundation would donate, loan, or qualify us for grant money, full disclosure of the pittiful financial history would be given in it's intirety. We are doing all we can as fast as we can in a community who does not want to have their animals put down so they bring them here, but is failing in supporting an organization that is providing a VERY IMPORTANT SERVICE FOR the Community. Mike didn't breed these dogs. Mike spays and nueters all the animals that come through the facility. We have a  Veterainarian who provides services at reduced or lowered cost. NOT we pay full price.

Myth:   The biggest Myth is that Desert Animal Refuge is not anything more than a myth itself. It has been said by many that Mike would never be able to start Desert Aniaml Refuge.  After he did they said he would not be able to keep it going. Years later Desert Animal Refuge is still here rescueing as many animals in need as possible. They tried to stop him again and again with false accusations, even rezoning him from his homestead facility. Yet Desert Animal Refuge and Mike still remain.MYTH All no kill animal shelters have no long term plans for their unadoptable animals except for them to spend years with no purpose.   FACT I KNOW AT LEAST PART OF MIKE'S 'BIG PICTURE' he has already reached out to the community by offering to train, and supply pets for vicitms of Aids and other terminal illnesses so that the person could have a constant companion untill they were too sick to have the animal anymore, at which time we would take them back into our facility to hopefully be placed with another paitent in need of love. And as always I push for my ideas, I want a Pet Library where Children who can not own an animal for any number of reasons could 'Check out one of our preaproved and trained animals for a week at a time, even for the weekend. We want to have the time funds and not spend all our time and money on JUST MAINTAINING to train seeing eye dogs, dogs to visit nursing homes and hospitals. The litter of golden retreiver pups you might have seen on EBay would have been perfect for some of the formentioned programs. But there is JUST NOT ENOUGH COMMUNITY SUPORT OR ENTHUSIASUM, to give us a break to persue any of those goals. But I think if you asked a terminaly ill person who was lonely, a child who couldn't own a pet, a blind person, people with extended stays in the hospital, or any person in a nursing facility if they would like those services provided, I KNOW THEIR ANSWER WOULD BE YES.