About Us

Our Family

The Sanctuary Site

How It All Began

Contact Us

 

Silver Creek
Animal Sanctuary
Silverton, OR

Winter on the hilltop







Back to the SCAS Home Page

How It All Began

The following information is drawn from stories written by Brenna Wiegand for Our Town, a community newspaper in Silverton, Mt. Angel, and Scotts Mills; and by Bethany Monroe for The Mollala Pioneer. These and additional articles can be found in The Newsroom....

Dateline: September 2004

Dr. Sophie Dojacques came out west to join Dr. Denis Dalisky’s obstetrics and gynecology practice, lending a valuable hand in the busy practice.

The Harvard Medical School graduate also wasted no time plunging into another of her passions – caring for animals and helping them find good homes. In fact, when she traveled to Oregon from Michigan in September of 2004 she did so in a recreational vehicle filled with 10 feline friends. Each had some sort of malady – a missing eye, a bum leg, an immune deficiency – that made it an unlikely candidate for adoption at the “no-kill” shelter at which she’d been volunteering. But they were riding in style now…

When Dr. Dojacques first purchased her picturesque property in rural Silverton, she took in goats from a neighboring farmer to help clear the Scotch broom and blackberries attempting to overtake the 22 acres. But she ended up with way more on her hands than weed-eaters.

She saw immediately that they had some serious health needs the owner had been too busy to address – so she offered to adopt the entire herd. And he generously agreed, said Dojacques.

None too soon: The herd of 46, all female, somehow started bearing young at an alarming rate. Six weeks after taking in the herd, there were 40 babies – “a lot of twins; some triplets” and because of some of the health problems many needed urgent care.

“As far as he knew they’d never been with a male,” Dojacques said with a grin. “We now know better.”

Unfortunately, there were a few undiagnosed chronic and contagious illnesses among both the mothers and the young, and Dojacques soon set up a portion of her barn as a triage unit.

“There was malnutrition, parasites, and very contagious infection they kept passing back and forth that needed diagnosis,” Dojacques said. “What made it harder is they wouldn’t come near me…”

She took it as a challenge, and despite what the veterinarian had predicted, she only lost one mother and had two sets of stillborn twins. Their tasty and regular diet has warmed them up to their new owner considerably; now she says one of her problems is overly-affectionate baby goats.

“It’s hard to love on a baby with horns,” she said.In fact, “now the vet says they’re obese.”

Coming home from a day at the medical clinic, Dojacques dons her grubbies and hops into her RTV, filling it with filtered water, alfalfa and bags of goat feed. Up the hill she goes to the place the Dojacques flock has chosen for its own.

“This is my ‘other life,’” she said. “It’s a lot, but I just love animals. They’re just so gentle and never try to hurt anybody – and they’re great company. They’re so needy…"

"It fills a void,” she said. “I don’t have children; these are my children.”

 Three newborn kids Sophie feeding black baby Sophie and her three bottle babies Sophie and the adolescent kids

Who is that Lovely Goat on the SCAS Logo?

Among the initial desperately ill flock of females was “Roicin,” a brown and white Boer who arrived weighing one third what she ought. Two nights after her arrival she was found lifeless.

Taking her from the 29 degree night into a heated RTV, Dojacques was seeking a place to bury her when she heard something. She rushed Roicin to emergency care where the doe was given little hope of survival – but after 6 months of round-the-clock care, Dojacques brought her back to the land of the living.

“Roicin began it all,” she said. “That’s why she’s on our logo.”

Back to the Top