When Lisa Marie Sopko walks around her 20-acre property in South Beaver Township, she unwittingly becomes the grand marshal of a barnyard parade.

Goats, sheep and donkeys follow in her footsteps. Ducks and chickens waddle behind her, and a cow named Daisy pulls up the rear.

“She’s a real Dr. Doolittle,” says her husband, John Sopko. “It’s amazing how she can approach an animal, identify with it and find out what’s wrong.”

The Sopkos run Kindred Spirits Rescue Ranch, a nonprofit organization that helps abandoned, abused and neglected farm animals. Some are rehabilitated and re-homed, but most of the 70 residents are there to stay.

Caring for a veritable Noah’s Ark of animals is expensive. Kindred Spirits Rescue Ranch obtained its nonprofit status in May and has been collecting donations and hosting fundraisers ever since. Lisa Marie Sopko sells butterflies and flowers she makes out of feed bags.

She hopes to build another barn to serve as a temporary holding facility for the Humane Society to utilize for abused and neglected farm animals that need to be seized.

Beaver County Humane Officer Celina Kelly alerted the Sopkos to Daisy the cow, who was left alone in a brown field without access to fresh water. The shelter, which is already overwhelmed with critters in need, didn’t have the resources to handle a heifer.

Daisy, who once shied away from human touch, is now Lisa Marie Sopko’s BFF. She nuzzles the woman’s hand and moos.

“I love you, too,” Sopko replies.

Although John Sopko was raised in a rural area, his wife grew up in Monroeville and graduated from Gateway High School. Five years ago, the couple lived in Wilkinsburg. A love of horse riding prompted them to purchase a plot of land where their Haflinger horses, brothers named Calvin and Hobbes, could graze in the pasture. With so much space, they were able to take in a few dogs, then some chickens, a miniature zebu and a menagerie of other critters.

Four months after the move in fall 2014, John Sopko was injured in a car crash that left him a quadriplegic. Now he gets around the farm in a motorized wheelchair. The animals are not frightened by the sound of the machine. They rush to greet him at the barn door.

Their enthusiasm has a calming effect on him.

“Someone once said, ‘The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man.’ I think that’s true,” Lisa Marie Sopko says. “Animals are miraculous. They help people dealing with anxiety, depression and grief.”

Eventually, she wants to partner with local mental health organizations, giving other people access to a little equine therapy. Right now, however, she’s got her hands full.

Fueled by coffee and compassion, she is up at dawn each day to tend to the 70 creatures occupying the ranch.

Recently, she was called to catch an ornamental pheasant who was flapping his brightly colored feathers around the town of Beaver.

She wrangled the bird with her bare hands. Fancy now lives the high life in a coop with two bobwhite quails, Bob and Marsha.

Kelly, the county humane officer, sees the aftermath of animal cruelty on a daily basis. She comes to the ranch to restore her faith in humanity. She watches Umber, a ram who almost ended up as a trophy on a hunter’s wall, gently brush up against Lisa Marie Sopko’s side.

The love between beauty and the beast is evident.

“Farm animals have personalities just like a dog or a cat,” Lisa Marie Sopko says, stroking Umber’s head. “Even if they’ve been abused, they don’t have to be deemed as bad animals or lost causes. They can be rehabilitated. They go from living a life of despair to being the animals they were meant to be.”

Kristy Locklin is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.

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