Upper Bucks' Last Chance Ranch has saved more than 2,000 horses, and many other animals

Growing up in North Jersey, Lori McCutcheon loved animals, but on a far more ambitious scale than most children do.

Knowing every dog in the neighborhood by name? Kiddie stuff. By 14, Lori had rescued a horse, a black beauty that had foundered and could not be ridden.

Sinner's owner was sending him to auction - and an almost-certain end at the slaughterhouse - when McCutcheon persuaded her parents to buy him for her.

And so it began.

Sinner was the first of more than 2,000 horses saved by McCutcheon, who opened the Last Chance Ranch 22 years ago in upper Bucks County. The 35-acre sanctuary has grown into a haven for not only abused and neglected steeds but also goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, the occasional iguana, and a turkey and a guinea hen that she swears are madly, inseparably in love.

It was there, in the tranquil fields of Richland Township, that a brawny chestnut gelding named Ranger got a couple of months of TLC and the equine equivalent of counseling - all in preparation for his new life with the Philadelphia Police Department's resurrected mounted patrol unit.

Last week, he joined four other Last Chance grads already accepted into the unit. Three - Guinness, Aiden, and Darby - are on the streets. Ranger and Hunter will spend three months in training, learning to take in their stride anything from road flares and the sound of gunshots to Occupy Philadelphia crowds.

The horses are "doing perfect," said Officer Marquise Robinson, an assistant trainer. As for Ranger, he added, "so far, so good."

In addition to the Philadelphia force, the Baltimore Police Department has adopted a horse from Last Chance. Inquiries have come in from mounted units in Washington and New Jersey.

"It has opened up a whole new realm of using rescue horses," McCutcheon said.

About four dozen horses live at the ranch; 18 more that require long-term care are kept in a pasture at Graterford State Prison, where inmates care for them.

They are only a fraction, though, of the Last Chance stragglers.

McCutcheon's ever-changing brood numbers about 300, including Priscilla, a black-and-white pot-bellied pig; Goliath the goat; and Jake, a lovable American bulldog mix.

The grim economy is swelling the ranks, as owners find themselves hard-pressed to keep their pets.

Caring for the abandoned is "a labor of love," said McCutcheon, 45, a mother of three. "I enjoy going to work. I don't consider it a job."