Angels with Misplaced Wings, an animal sanctuary that started in Vancouver, has expanded its services to a location in Amboy.
Co-founder Jeffrey Evans started the sanctuary because of his love of animals.
“We are a home-based sanctuary for differently-abled, senior, medically challenged, and behaviorally challenged dogs,” Evans said. “That’s what we’ve been doing for the last 12 years.”
Evans and his husband, Michael Allen, who is also a co-founder, moved the sanctuary to its Amboy location so they could expand their care to farm animals.
Evans said the organization focuses on animals that have been rescued, or those who have been at a rescue for an extended period of time.
“We consider them to come and live out the rest of their lives with us,” he said. “So typically, the dogs that come to us have been available for adoption for six months, 12 months, (or) two years, and nobody has adopted them.”
Evans said the name of the sanctuary comes from a memory in his childhood. When he was young, his mother referred to dogs’ ears that were flipped backwards as their “misplaced wings,” he said. Although Evans and Allen created the nonprofit, he said his parents are active in the operation as well.
Evans and Allen also follow a specific philosophy in how they run the sanctuary.
“We’re very focused not on quantity of who we save, we’re focused on the quality of life and care that we provide,” Evans said. “Over the last 12 years, we’ve made it our priority to learn everything that we can, and so a lot of the dogs that we have are physically challenged in some ways, so paralyzed or two-legged, three-legged, whatever that might be.”
In the process, they learned how to take care of the animals through treatments like physical therapy, hands-on manual therapy, water treadmills, and holistic medicine, he said.
“Our focus has always been to provide (the animals) with the best life that we can and provide them with the longest life possible, while not sacrificing their quality of life,” Evans said.
The duo cooks all of the meals for the animals with the guidance of a nutritionist and medical team, as they aim to make food that’s sustainable for the environment. Part of that is providing meat that’s humanely sourced, Evans said.
One dog at the sanctuary Evans emphasized was Holly, who is 12 years old, partially blind, and came from Thailand. He calls her the “resident diva” and “Miss Hollywood” because her water has to be filtered in a glass and the animal refuses to drink out of a dog bowl. There’s also Iris, who is a deaf dalmatian. The dog isn’t able to understand social and behavioral cues, Evans said. He noted how she loves walking on top of the kitchen countertop and refrigerator, even at 9 years old.
Then there’s Santo, a two-legged dog that came from Tijuana after he was hit by a car. The sanctuary also has a paralyzed dog that’s also from Mexico named Dora, who was featured on the cover of Dogster Magazine.
“She’s a supermodel now,” Evans said with a laugh.
The sanctuary held an open house on July 16 so the public could come meet the animals and learn about the nonprofit’s mission. It was their first event in two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve had a lot of people that have been on this journey with us for 10 years and a lot of them showed up,” Evans said. “I was grateful.”
Evans noted people he hasn’t met showed up to learn more about their mission.
Evans said the sanctuary wants to connect with the community more and provide them with an understanding of what they do.
The sanctuary is located at 40610 NE 127th Ave. in Amboy.
People can contact Evans at ohana@angelswithmisplaced
wings.com. Visits to the sanctuary must be scheduled, as they do not have set operating hours.
To learn more, visit the nonprofit’s Facebook page at facebook.com/angelswithmisplacedwings.
