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The Horse rescuer who puts her time& money into healing abused horses

Molly with Janet Hein, who takes in emaciated or abused horses and nurses them back to health on her farm in Loxley, Ala. >>

Hein checks on her horses while doing her late afternoon rounds with the help of volunteers.(Press-Register/John David Mercer)Romeo, a quarterhorse, arrived at Willow Farms Rescue near Loxley last summer suffering from malnourishment and neglect. Romeo has regained his health under Janet's care.

When Romeo, a quarterhorse, arrived at Willow Farms Rescue near Loxley last summer, he was underfed, emaciated, abused through neglect. His hipbones were protruding. He was losing his hair and could barely stand.

Janet Hein, owner of Willow Farms Rescue, said that Romeo sank to one knee when she got him off the truck. "We had to lift him up," she said.

Now Romeo, full-bodied, shiny-coated, romps across the 11 acres of Hein's rescue farm off Baldwin County 49. Numerous other horses graze and whinny, all of them healthier than when they arrived.

"Patience, nutrition, and love," Hein says. "That's what they need."

By profession, Hein, 56, is an animal control officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health. On her own time, though, she devotes her waking hours -- and much of her personal funds -- to nurturing horses, along with dogs, at the farm where she resides. She even has an abused donkey named Boo.

She had long cared for dogs, but began her mission to help horses, too, at a time when she was sunk down in grief. She lost her husband, Philip, also an animal lover, to cancer when they were both in their 40s.

"He'd be so proud to see what I've done," she says.

After obtaining her first neglected horse, Bootsy, and nursing him back to health, she felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.

Every horse arrives with a sad story.

Mushy, a mixed breed quarterhorse, has partial paralysis in her face.

The "blunt force trauma," Hein says, could have come from Mushy having been clobbered by an object like a 2 by 4, or perhaps from her running into a tree.

On a bright spring day, Hein walks slowly toward Mushy, explaining that the horse is still afraid of people. "She'll rare up," says Hein.

Hein spotted undernourished Molly in a junkyard in Pensacola, tied by her throat to a concrete slab. Hein bought Molly, a draft mix, from the indifferent owner and brought her to Willow Farms.

Scars from the rope are still visible on the horse's neck.

Sky and Shade, American saddlebreds, came to Willow Farms in a way many horses do -- the owners called Hein, she recalls, and said "they did not have the time to care for them anymore."

King, a thoroughbred, had an owner, Hein says, who did not properly know how to sustain the animal.

When King arrived at Willow Farms, she says, he was "an emaciated bag of bones" -- 400 pounds underweight.

King is now back up to a strapping 1,400 pounds, a gleaming creature that frolics about when let out of the stable. He lies down, rolls on his back in the dirt, gets back onto all fours and gallops away.

King's best friend, Rembrandt, an elegant Friesian, is not an abused horse. Rembrandt is one of the horses, loved and cared for by its owner, that is boarded at Willow Farms -- a paying customer.

Revenues from the boarders, along with contributions to Willow Farms, help keep the nonprofit organization afloat. Hein says that she also makes small fees from adopting the horses back out.

Bills do mount up. Feed alone runs as high as $1,600 a month. Hein praises Brian Johnson and the Robertsdale Feed Store for giving Willow Farms a break when needed.

But veterinarians also have to be called in, as do farriers -- specialists in caring for horse hooves.

"We need a vet fund," she says. "We need a general feed fund."

She shakes her head.

"Humans domesticated these animals," she says. "They need to be responsible for them."

Horses, she says, return the love. King sidles up to Hein and nuzzles her. She strokes his face.

"They're innocent," she says.