For 27 years Katie Merwick has made a life of rescuing horses.
"They're absolutely everything to me," she says. "There is no life without horses."
Through her Second Chance Ranch (www.secondchanceranch.org) in Lewis County, Merwick has saved thousands of horses from the slaughter house, connecting them instead with loving families.
"They would've all ended up on a dinner plate somewhere," she says, nuzzling one retired racehorse.
But this seemingly endless recession has taken a toll on the ranch. Merwick's property fell into foreclosure and soon she and her horses may be forced to move. Merwick, however, may have found her salvation in the rescue of some wayward deer near Sitka, Alaska.
She recently saw a dozen pictures on-line of a herd of deer being pulled from the freezing waters of Taku Harbor by the captain of an eco-tourism boat, and posted them on the ranch's Facebook page. The pictures were a year and a half old, and had already been widely disseminated across Alaska. For some reason, though, they exploded on her Facebook page - almost 4 million views - with everyone thinking Merwick had taken the photos.
"I sat there and watched the numbers click. It was that fast," she says. "The next day I got a call from Good Morning America, a newspaper in New Mexico, e-mails from China. It was amazing."
When people learned the truth about Merwick, they also learned about her ranch's predicament. A few people started donating to her cause and the man who actually rescued the deer is now auctioning off an Alaskan boat tour of the site, with all of the money going to help save Second Chance Ranch.
Merwick is still at a loss to explain it all, saying, "I have no idea how this 'viral' thing works." Instead she's going with her "horse sense."
"I lost my brother in August. He was an avid Alaska fisherman. So, maybe he was doing a little magic from up above."
You can learn more about the eBay auction by clicking here
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