Cuban Woman in Nevada Gives New Life to Abandoned Animals
By Laura Roque Valero (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – Yaileny Selema Sánchez is 28 years old and weighs 110 pounds. “I don’t have a life outside of cleaning up after the animals.” On a little more than two acres of land in Nevada, United States, she has built from scratch a sanctuary for animals that have been on the brink of death due to illness, exploitation, or inadequate care.
Eight horses, eleven donkeys that were about to be turned into ground meat, four goats, three pigs, four prairie dogs, two little cows, a peacock that showed up one day and stayed in those arid lands, a dog found in a garbage bag, another found in the desert—along with other creatures Yaileny has picked up with the intention of giving them a second chance at life—make up a landscape that has a bit of everything, where harmony is also possible.
Each animal has a personality. Marta, a little pig who used to be taken for walks in the park, is the mischievous one at the ranch, while Alfredito is the baby donkey that everyone on social media adores. It is Ale, Yaileny’s partner, who takes charge of giving them these Latin names according to their looks, style, or behavior.
Ale and Yaileny went to school together in Cuba. Ten years later they met again in Las Vegas and never separated, despite hard times. “He is my right hand, and this is a project we’ve built together,” she acknowledges.
Paths Toward Fulfilling a Dream
When she lived in San Miguel del Padrón, the Havana neighborhood where she was born and raised, Yaileny dreamed of what she has today. She inherited her love of animals from her mother and was always surrounded by them—dogs, turtles, and chicks.
Around her, she witnessed abandonment and was struck by how Cuban rescuers helped however they could, despite scarce resources. She had the idea that in the United States animals were better protected, but that wasn’t what she found.
She arrived in the US with her father more than ten years ago. “When I lived with him, I always rescued kittens, even though he didn’t let me,” she recalls. Being separated from her mother was very hard, because they were so close. She feels that this pulled her away from her purpose: animal rescue.
Amid the upheaval of migration, she understood that the best way to reach her goal was to study veterinary nursing. “I told myself: ‘The only way to do this, to save a little more money and time, to not bother others, is if I study it.’ And that’s what I did.”
At 17, she moved alone to Las Vegas to work and study at the same time. She remembers, “I didn’t have a car, I took the bus. Those were hard times, I lost about ten pounds.”
She lived in an efficiency (a small, often low-cost apartment in the US), which was like living in a garage. Despite the cramped space, she rescued animals there too. She would buy them in pet stores and bring them to live with her. She met people connected with animal rescue. After finishing high school and college, she began working in a clinic. That was when she realized that unwanted animals needed a safe place.
“If I didn’t work in clinics, if I didn’t have contacts and help, it would be impossible, because most of the cases I take on are medical, they need monitoring and treatment,” she admits.
From the efficiency she moved to an apartment, where she continued her mission until she was able to settle on the property she now lives on. Having a larger space allowed her to fulfill another dream: caring for horses. She has been doing so for two years and says they are her weakness.
“A lot of people don’t know how painful the situation for horses is in this country—the abuse they suffer and the abandonment after being used for so long,” she laments. She says she has learned horses’ love language and feels an incredible connection with them.
Animals That Heal, Animals That Die
According to her experience, few rescuers take on sick and exploited animals. That’s because they require much care without an end date, in addition to the high costs of medical treatment, special diets, and the dedication they demand. No one knows when their bodies will stop responding.
“They’re in their final moments, and if I can give them a little love and care before the end, I feel a satisfaction that nothing else can give,” she says.
Among her many rescue stories, she recalls Paloma, a 30-year-old blind mare involved in a police case. The person in charge of her was letting her starve to death. When authorities arrived, they found the corpses of animals that couldn’t be saved. “When I saw her, I cried so much. It was a huge shock, and I decided to bring her here. I had to stay in contact with the police, it was a very difficult process.”
She has rescued animals from zoos exploited for public display without professional care. Other cases reach her through social media—people call and tell her so she can intervene. Or animals are left at the clinic where she works, and she finishes their recovery at home.
One of the cats she shows on her social networks was found on the street with a fractured jaw; not even the doctors wanted to help her. She sought another hospital where a specialist accepted the risk of performing surgery despite the cat’s deteriorated condition. During the procedure, the cat died; they performed CPR for three minutes until they brought him back to life.
Others, however, don’t survive, and those experiences have been documented and shared with Yaileny’s followers. She believes animals deserve a dignified end, and for her that means cremation. “The cost of cremation is quite high, between US $800 and 900, depending on the type of cremation,” she explains.
The emotional toll of losing an animal, she adds, is irreversible. As a veterinary nurse, she feels somewhat prepared for that experience. But her partner struggles with the pain and absence.
In some cases, like Rosita—a rescued pony with hormonal problems and a malformed leg—they performed a necropsy. “We request one when we simply need peace of mind and an answer for why the animal died. If it was something we did wrong here, if it was negligence at the hospital, or if their system just wasn’t working properly—and in her case, it was the latter.”
Thanks to that exam, they learned Rosita had died of a heart problem that hadn’t been detected because it presented the same symptoms as her hormonal issues.
Those who do manage to recover and develop a normal life are offered for adoption once they are healed. They are given to families that wish to have them, spayed or neutered and vaccinated.
Only those with behavioral issues, that are too old, or that need medical follow-up for some physical condition remain under Yaileny’s care.
How Does the Sanctuary Sustain Itself?
There are no volunteers at the sanctuary. Nor does the family’s economy allow them to hire workers. They live an hour away from Las Vegas, far from the Latino community and in a place where the heat is overwhelming, which makes it difficult to find support.
Only three people are responsible for caring for the animals and maintaining the place: Yaileny, her boyfriend, and her mother-in-law. Ale’s mother not only handles the household chores but also provides the emotional support they need when exhaustion and the burden become too much.
They have not been able to access government aid either. To obtain a grant, they would need to meet certain requirements and go through a selection and waiting process. She has no time to waste and has decided to do without that kind of help. The food and medical care required by the sanctuary’s animals come from the family’s work and the support of followers on social media.
Before opening her TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, Yaileny had to work more hours each week to earn extra money. “I had to work as a groomer (pet hairdresser) to make $50 a day and then spend it on grain for the horses.”
Today, her followers help her by covering medical treatments, especially for horse rescues, which are the most expensive. She makes each invoice public and tracks every donation.
To illustrate the costs, she explains that Alfredito, the donkey who wiggles his ears when she talks to him on social media and walks freely around her house as if it were his natural space. She had needed $13,000 in just ten days to treat a severe respiratory infection. He required two blood transfusions because his hemoglobin levels were dangerously low. He even had a catheter in his neck. His hospitalization was paid for with the money raised.
Feeding is another expense. Some horses require grain without sugar, older ones must eat a type of grain containing nutrients and proteins—and so each animal has its own diet.
The card Yaileny plays with her followers to cover these costs is honesty. “I always need to be honest with my audience because the only people who support me are the people who see me through their phones.”
Although she now has around 100,000 followers across her three accounts, she started knowing nothing. She has learned to record and edit videos, to tell apart the requirements of each platform, and she carefully analyzes which videos get the most views and why, trying to understand the phenomenon of virality.
Healing Begins with the Soul
Animals belong to the outdoors, to nature. Yaileny knows this, but she wants them to feel “extra loved.” They come to her after having endured painful experiences and abandonment. Her way of showing them love is letting them spend time with her in the spaces she inhabits.
Marta, the little pig, used to sleep at the foot of her bed and was often taken to the park for walks. Although at the sanctuary she adapted to living outdoors with the rest of the animals, whenever the kitchen doors are open, she sneaks back inside the house.
Alfredito, still a baby, arrived in her hands in critical condition and would not leave her side all day. He slept in a spare bathroom inside the house. He knew that when the lights went out, that was his place for the night. During the day, Yaileny put him in her car and took him to work. “Thanks to the clinic always allowing me to have my ‘little bundle’ with me, I’ve been able to do so much,” she says.
Alfredito has grown up inside the house. For him, his species is human. He knows how to move through the kitchen without bumping into the stove and how to walk without slipping on the wooden floor. On social media videos, he is seen drinking water from the kitchen faucet; in another shared with El Toque, he has a rag in his mouth pretending to clean a countertop.
Although these images may seem endearing, the mix of emotions involved in animal care is anything but soothing. “We’re happy, but at the same time we’re worried, also sad, and then happy again, and then worried shortly after. The change is constant,” she acknowledges.
Every day, she is up at 5:00 a.m. First thing in the morning, she feeds the animals with the food her boyfriend prepared the night before. It takes her an hour to feed them all. Then she drives another hour to the clinic where she works four days a week. She spends ten hours there, and when back home, together with her partner, she cleans the sanctuary daily. They finish exhausted in the early evening.
Weekends are spent building at the sanctuary or driving long distances to rescue animals wherever they may be.
“Maybe when I’m 50, I’ll look back and say I should have worried a little more about myself,” she reflects, “but at this moment in my life I’m so focused on my project that it’s hard for me to do things any other way.”
She admits that when she has a plan, nothing stops her. She focuses until she achieves it. In five or six years, she hopes to have a larger place where she can rescue more horses.
With the certainty that she will achieve what she wants—because if she doesn’t grow, she cannot help—she assures that those who follow and support her will be witnesses to how she makes her dreams come true.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.