History
In 2003 Steve Markwell received an email from a wolf sanctuary in Colorado about a group of wolves in Idaho that needed help. Steve had been involved in wildlife rescue for a few years and was familiar with stories of animals in trouble, but for some reason this story impacted him more than the others he had heard. He decided it was time to create a sanctuary of his own and try to help them.
Steve left Colorado and went to California to raise money and find property. Things looked promising: pledges of funding began to come in, and the free use of a ten acre property was donated, but it quickly became clear that the permits needed for the sanctuary would not be awarded, so Steve packed up and moved to Washington with Spencer, his adopted feral dog.
Washington state was the place that Steve had wanted his eventual sanctuary to be located, and the only reason he hadn't gone there directly was that he had more connections in California where he had grown up. But with no reasonable options for getting the project off the ground in California, there was no reason to wait. Steve and Spencer moved into a tiny cabin on the beach near Neah Bay, where he completed his master's degree and continued to develop his wildlife sanctuary concept.
As Steve worked on the project, still planning to work with wild carnivores, another, pressing problem was becoming apparent to him, which was the large number of dogs that were not considered adoptable due to various behavior issues. Spencer, as a wild-born dog, had presented a number of problems as a young puppy, but shortly after arriving in Washington, Steve took in Precious, a dog that killed small animals. Then he found Abbie, a trained fighting dog, who shortly thereafter gave birth to a litter of puppies from a fighting dog bloodline. There simply was no place in shelters for these dogs, and Steve felt he had no choice but to keep them himself.
With eight dogs, Steve purchased a home in Forks, realizing that he needed to consider incorporating non-adoptable dogs into his sanctuary vision. When dog number nine arrived, a "vicious pit bull," he sold his home and bought a commercial property on the other side of town, where he quickly captured dogs ten and eleven, a couple of marauding dogs that were terrorizing the town's cats and poultry. In September, 2007 Steve incorporated Olympic Animal Sanctuary and obtained federal tax exemption for the organization a month later -- quite a feat considering that most applications were taking over a year to process at the time.
Steve's plan remained to work primarily with wild animals, and to only work with dogs on the side, but as his reputation grew as a rehabilitator and care provider, the demand for his services exploded. When he took the five most difficult dogs from a group of 144 left by a deceased hoarder in the tiny town of Gabbs, Nevada, the national rescue community became aware of his work and willingness to deal with dogs that no one else would.
Dog rescue became the principle work of Olympic Animal Sanctuary, and as Steve developed his skills, began to train volunteers, and rescued a number of dogs that most thought no one would ever be able to help, the organization became increasingly known around the world.
Today Olympic Animal Sanctuary is home to over 100 dogs, some of which truly require expert care, but many of which are simply not adoptable due to politics, for example, dogs that have been declared dangerous as a result of something as normal as killing a smaller animal, and as a result cannot be kept without a costly license and a large liability insurance policy.
In a step in the direction of Steve's original vision, the Sanctuary is also home to several wolf hybrids and coyote hybrids, and the organization continues to specialize increasingly in the care of feral dogs. In addition, the Sanctuary houses a small group of aquatic turtles and a large python.