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MASSARO: Fan of underdog could use some help herself

By Gary Massaro, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 2, 2007 at midnight

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BRIGHTON - Maxine Mager has a thing about the underdog, or any undercritter for that matter.

"I have a one-eyed horse and a one-eared sheep," she said.

That's just part of Maxine's menagerie at Creative Acres, a 44-acre shelter on the high plains east of Brighton that takes in almost any animal.

The idea for the sanctuary began when Mager was a little girl in Brooklyn. "I lined up my stuffed animals, making a zoo," said Mager, 46. "I made animals collages out of pictures I cut out of magazines."

She started working early and moved around a lot, but settled in Colorado in 1984. Twenty years ago, she moved to the prairie and opened Creative Acres, a nonprofit, no-kill, free-roam sanctuary.

"This is easy for me - to live out here, to do this," she said.

It hasn't been easy to make a living the past year, though.

She was on the verge of losing her place to foreclosure, but was able to renegotiate her loan. She said the blizzard of '06 hammered her, snowing her in, knocking down fences, rotting others in the melt, scouring the ground. It caused a five-month delay in her fundraising.

"It cost $4,000 to dig me out," she said.

She shoveled a lot herself.

"At first the phones were out," she said. "And then when they came back on, I couldn't call because I was too exhausted."

She said some of her animals have been abused, such as the sheep and horse, and an emu with stumps where his feet should be.

She cradled Emily, an iguana whose previous owner cut off most of the toes on its left foot, leaving only the middle one so it looks like Emily is flipping off people.

Some are no longer cute, so they're no longer wanted.

"People get animals at Easter," she said. "Then they get bigger."

Three turkeys strutted together, standing on one side of a fence and eyeing a couple other turkeys who were hanging around with squawking ducks.

"We separate by disposition, not by species," she said.

The cats have a room all to themselves, right next door to a guinea pig stall that they don't even mess with.

As Mager mucks pens or feeds animals, she pets and clucks to each of them, like Percy, the one-eyed miniature horse whose handlers darn near killed when they were pulling him out of his mom's womb.

"I call him Percy for perseverance," Mager said. "I was going to call the one-eared sheep Van Gogh, but she's a girl. So I call her Vannie."

She gives tours of her place at $30 a head.

Mager also raises funds by giving talks to practically anyone who invites her.

But the storms hurt.

"Every fundraiser I had got canceled or ruined," she said.

She said she's getting back on the talk circuit, but could still use some help.

Information: www.creative acres.org.

or 303-954-5271