The Pet Issue 2019: The Gentle Barn

Meet Lolli. This sweet miniature goat lost her rear legs and the tips of her ears to frostbite. Her owners didn’t know how to treat her, so she dragged herself around their land by her front legs, unable to keep up with the rest of the herd. Animal-rescue organization The Gentle Barn outfitted her with a pair of prosthetic legs, and now she frolics around this Tennessee barnyard with her mama, Minnie Mae. If you’re lucky, you might catch her doing a handstand. 

Meet Rick Springfield, a handsome white rooster who was abandoned in a parking garage at the Nashville International Airport. Now he looks after a flock of seven hens: Mildred, Poppy and the rest of the flock came from a loving family who moved to a location that was no longer safe for them. The Gentle Barn was happy to give them a home. 

Then there’s Adeline, a turkey who was rescued from slaughter in 2015. Adeline is what The Gentle Barn founder Ellie Laks calls an “ambassador animal.” She loves belly rubs, and if you’re patient, she’ll curl up in your lap and fall asleep. 

“When we’re with animals,” says Laks, “when we’re loving them, brushing them, hugging them, holding them, nurturing them, we tend to find the good in ourselves.”

Laks founded The Gentle Barn in Southern California in 1999. As a child, she struggled with feelings of isolation, and animals always made her feel nurtured. She envisioned a place where struggling people could get to know damaged animals who have left their pain behind. She fell in love with a volunteer named Jay Weiner, and now they run the organization together. 

“Eventually there comes a time in any animal’s life where they take the trauma, they set it down and they walk away from it,” says Laks. “I think that’s true for people as well, and that’s one reason why the animals are so therapeutic for the people that we work with.”

Laks founded the Tennessee outpost when she got word that a cow was gravely injured. She arranged for the cow — whom she named Dudley — to get treated at the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s large animal hospital. Laks and Weiner set up a Knoxville chapter of The Gentle Barn, and last year, it moved to 40 gorgeous acres in Christiana, Tenn., just outside of Murfreesboro. It’s home to Lolli, Adeline and 30-some pigs, cows, chickens, turkeys, goats and horses — including a miniature horse named Princess Pebble. 

The Gentle Barn in Southern California hosts children of all ages and abilities, and the Tennessee outpost will soon do the same. 

“At first glance,” says Laks, “[our animals] are so different that the impulse is to reject them or be afraid of them. … They speak a different language, they look different, they act different. … But through a closer look and a deeper experience with them, you start realizing the similarities, that they have best friends and love their families just like we do. They feel scared for the same reasons. No matter what we look like or act like, we all just want a happy life.”

Laks believes that the experience fosters empathy and helps kids be more accepting of one another’s differences. 

“When someone’s from a different country, speaks a different language, or even looks or acts different, maybe [kids will] search to find the similarities and common ground instead of the differences,” says Laks. 

The Gentle Barn is open on Sundays, when visitors can meet the animals and hear their stories. The animals are also available for private tours, classroom visits and birthday parties, and The Gentle Barn hosts a vegan Thanksgiving dinner each November. 

“We’re trying to foster connections from people to animals, from people to other people and, most importantly, from people to themselves,” says Laks. “People can come out and meet our animals — [of] different shapes and sizes, with different backgrounds, different stories — but in meeting them and seeing their affection, their intelligence, their personalities, and hearing their stories of resilience, the one thing that shines through … is that we really are all the same, even though we look different. Through those connections, hopefully we can create a closer-knit community of kinder people for all of us.” 

If that sounds too hippie-dippie, I dare you to sit on the grass outside the barn and wait for Adeline to approach you. She will stand very still, and wait patiently for you to put down your troubles and show her some affection.