Dibble woman fights to keep her Oklahoma ranch for abused animals afloat

She found a 30-acre plot of land close to her current location, but needs about $180,000 to buy the property and equip it for her animals.

“A new location would mean we could continue,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’m 24, every penny I have has gone straight into the rescue and my savings don’t exist.”

She opened the five-acre animal rescue about a year ago and, by working long days, has somehow been able to stay afloat.

She nursed back to health and trained nine horses and about 24 dogs. Once the animals become healthy enough and well-trained she adopts them out.

“I’m the crazy horse and dog lady,” she said. “I’ve always had a weird connection with animals and it’s always the ones in the worst situations that tend to kind of just find me, even if I’m not looking for them.”

Animal lover

Hadley has always been an animal lover. She has ridden horses since she was 5 years old and rescued her first neglected dog just a few years later.

So when a friend offered her the chance to move into a house she had never seen in a town she had never been to, she enthusiastically accepted because it meant she could have a chance to open an animal rescue.

“I didn’t even realize how needed it was to have someone there to take care of the animals, until I moved there,” Hadley said.

Dibble has a large animal abandonment problem, she said. People often drop their unwanted and abused animals in the small town.

The first abused horse to come to the ranch was Jessie. Jessie was beaten and starved. She had zero percent body fat when Hadley took her in.

Jessie also was hit so hard she was blinded in one eye because her eye socket was broken, Hadley said.

After about 146 days, Jessie was brought back to near perfect health from a slim chance of survival, Hadley said. Now Hadley is training the horse.