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Meet Kiki
Kiki the sheep is a social media star who drives her own vehicle, dances to Taylor Swift, and inspires people across the globe. She’s also certified sassy. Here’s her incredible story, as told by Deb Devlin, the sanctuary owner who took Kiki in and gave her an extraordinary life.
When Deb Devlin got a call about a severely deformed lamb who’d been rejected by her mother, the sanctuary owner never imagined that shivering, emaciated baby would end up a social media star who drives her own vehicle and has her own meme coin.
Years later, Kiki's unlikely journey from a meat farm to stardom is inspiring people and helping others around the world. Here's her incredible story:
Kiki posing on her motorized wheelchair (Don't Forget Us Pet Us sanctuary)
Kiki’s journey
Kiki was born at a hobby meat farm in Massachusetts, unable to walk or stand because her legs were deformed. Her mother rejected her and wouldn’t allow Kiki to nurse.
A caretaker on the farm "fell in love" and began bottle-feeding her while searching for rescue organizations that could help. She was 11 days old when he found Don’t Forget Us Pet Us, a sanctuary for farm animals in North Dartmouth, about an hour south of Boston.
Kiki (Don't Forget Us Pet Us sanctuary)
"What stuck out to me the most from that call was the sheer emotion that this gentleman presented with," said Devlin, who co-founded the sanctuary in 2010. "You could just hear his tears over the phone. It was really unbelievable how desperate he was. He knew that he was getting to a point where he couldn't help her anymore. He was very worried for her.
"He said that the other farmers were encouraging him to beat Kiki with a bat to be able to put her out of her misery," she continued. "So right there that got me and I said, you know what, I'm gonna come get her tonight, cause in my mind, at the very least we could offer her a kind of a more humane euthanasia if that's what she needed. I went and I picked her up that night and he was still very emotional. It was almost like he was handing me over his firstborn child."
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Devlin brought the lamb to the sanctuary and stabilized her. Once she was healthy enough, Kiki started physical therapy to help her walk. It didn’t work.
Kiki (Don't Forget Us Pet Us Sanctuary)
"We tried ultrasound physical therapy. They tried laser. They were doing range-of-motion and stretches and everything," Devlin said. "We were doing that for about six weeks and there was absolutely no gains, none whatsoever."
Kiki ‘wasn’t meant to be fixed’
From there, doctors wanted to try surgery to straighten her front legs so they could fit in a modified wheelchair, like the ones used for dogs. Once Kiki was under the knife, the veterinarian found her legs couldn’t be straightened. That’s when Devlin realized "she just wasn’t meant to be fixed."
"Instead of trying to continue to fix her and have her fit into our world, it was time to build a world for her that she could be successful in," Devlin said. "She wasn't broken, and she was perfect just the way that she was. And once I accepted that, this little lamb, she just blossomed and there wasn't anything she couldn't do.
Kiki (Don't Forget Us Pet Us sanctuary)
"You could see her brilliance early on," Devlin recalled. "She loved interactive toys. She loved pressing the buttons. She loved certain songs. Her favorite was ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ She was really so expressive. We knew what she liked, what she didn't like."
Kiki loves to dance
As Kiki grew, so did the need for more enrichment, Devlin said, because "there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t explore."
"Kiki explored her world through her head. That was always the way that she was," Devlin explained. "I could place anything to her head and I knew she was gonna touch it. I knew she was gonna press. She wanted to know what it would do because something always did something."
Kiki also loved to dance, Devlin learned, but she was particular about her music. At one point, Devlin gave Kiki a boom box to play with. A few minutes later, while Devlin was cleaning stalls in the barn, she heard the radio stations changing.
"There's Kiki, and she's exploring the radio dials," Devlin said. "She's learning to turn them with her teeth. It was really then where I'm like, if I could figure out a joystick, I know you're going to press it."
Kiki changes the radio station (Don't Forget Us Pet Us sanctuary)
Kiki loves to drive
For the next two years, Devlin was on a mission to build Kiki a motorized vehicle she could steer with her head. Devlin, who also works full-time as a respiratory therapist, eventually joined an e-bike support group online, which led her to the idea of a wheelchair with a custom bed and joystick for Kiki. She then connected with an equipment recycler in Rhode Island who was eager to help.
"Within like 24 hours I was there," Devlin remembered. "I picked it up, I brought it back … then I mounted her on it after I secured it … I'm trying to zip-tie the joystick to the frame. And Kiki is already trying to press it.
"It took me two years to build it. It took her two seconds to drive it."
Now that Kiki had wheels, she was unstoppable. Videos of Kiki driving herself – and sometimes her fellow sanctuary animals – quickly spread far and wide on social media. Devlin said as her online presence flourished, her personality did, too.
"I always felt Kiki was just the sweetest, most mild, and she is, but having independent mobility has definitely given her a sassy side. And I love it," she said.
Devlin said another one of Kiki’s many gifts is her ability to communicate.
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"She can communicate discomfort," Devlin said. "People have the assumption that she could be in pain and we don't know … Kiki's very expressive."
Kiki inspires others
Kiki’s extraordinary story has inspired other rescues to build adaptive vehicles for their own special needs animals, and also one for an orphaned child in Ukraine.
She’s also the muse behind the "Kikis Lambo," a meme coin that the crypto community says will be used to raise money for Kiki and other animals at Don’t Forget Us Pet Us.
Kiki (Don't Forget Us Pet Us sanctuary)
"Probably one of the most amazing parts of this journey here is to see her impact on others," Devlin said. "I get so many beautiful messages from all over the world from occupational therapists and rehabs, and they're using her videos to motivate pediatric patients, adult patients to learn and to use their adaptive equipment.
"I hope that her story can inspire so many things, and I hope people can take her story and maybe take what they think is their weakness and turn it into their superpower," Devlin continued. "And I hope that people can take this and realize that it really takes one person … that man believed in her, and look at what she's done."
The Source: This article includes information and comments from Deb Devlin, co-founder of the Don’t Forget Us Pet Us farm animal sanctuary in Massachusetts.