What started as a rescue call about a lamb near the end of her life turned into something very different.
Kiki was born at a hobby meat farm in Massachusetts with deformed legs and could not walk or stand. Her mother rejected her and would not let her nurse. A caretaker at the farm “fell in love” with her, started bottle-feeding her and looked for a rescue that could help.
He found Don’t Forget Us Pet Us, a farm animal sanctuary in North Dartmouth, about an hour south of Boston, when Kiki was 11 days old.
“What stuck out to me the most from that call was the sheer emotion that this gentleman presented with,” said Deb Devlin Fox 5, 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.”
Devlin brought Kiki to the sanctuary and stabilized her. When she was healthy enough, Kiki began physical therapy to try to help her walk, but it did not work.
“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.”
Doctors then tried surgery to straighten Kiki’s front legs so they could fit into a modified wheelchair like the kind used for dogs. But once surgery began, the veterinarian found her legs could not be straightened.
That was when Devlin said she 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.
“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.”
Devlin said Kiki explored with her head and would press or touch anything placed near it.
“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 liked to dance, but was picky about music. Devlin said she once gave Kiki a boom box, then heard the stations changing while she was cleaning stalls in the barn.
“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.”
Devlin spent the next two years trying to build Kiki a motorized vehicle that she could steer with her head. Devlin, who also works full-time as a respiratory therapist, joined an e-bike support group online, which led her to the idea of using a wheelchair with a custom bed and joystick for Kiki. She later connected with an equipment recycler in Rhode Island who wanted 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.”
Videos of Kiki driving herself, and sometimes other sanctuary animals, spread widely on social media. Devlin said Kiki’s independent mobility also changed her personality.
“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 Kiki is also highly expressive and can show when something is wrong.
“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.”
Devlin said Kiki’s story has inspired other rescues to build adaptive vehicles for special needs animals, and one was also built for an orphaned child in Ukraine. Kiki is also the inspiration for “Kikis Lambo,” a meme coin that the crypto community says will raise money for Kiki and other animals at Don’t Forget Us Pet Us.
“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.”
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