COLTON AND BANKS

For Amy, and the Two Little Lives She Couldn’t Leave Behind

The parking lot smelled of oil and despair.
Rusting trucks leaned on oversized tires, their hoods hanging open like gaping mouths. A skull and crossbones was spray-painted across a trailer door. Two gaunt dogs slipped between shadows, their ribs sharp beneath patchy coats. It was not the kind of place where anyone expected to find tenderness.

And yet, behind a chain-link fence, there it was.

Two goats stood perfectly still—Colton and Banks. Their coats gleamed, their hooves were neatly trimmed, and their water bucket sparkled clean. In the middle of all that wreckage, they looked impossibly out of place—like tiny beacons of hope in a landscape of ruin.

Then she appeared.

Her hands trembled. Her face was pale with exhaustion, the kind that seeps into bone. But when she looked at those goats, something shifted. Her fear melted into fierce, unguarded love.

“Please,” she whispered. “Make sure they’re safe. I need to know they’ll be safe.”

Her name is Amy.*

After 12 years, she’d finally made the decision to flee an unsafe situation. But she could not bear to leave behind the two goats who had given her the courage to survive—the goats she had rescued from slaughter years before. In caring for them, she had found her own reason to press on–keep living.

Thanks to your support of Indraloka’s Emergency Rescue Fund, we were able to say yes when Amy called.

When we lifted the gate, Colton hesitated for only a moment before stepping forward, brushing his head gently against Amy’s shaking hand. Banks followed close behind, calm and steady—the quiet protector. They knew, somehow, that this was not an ending, but a beginning.

Amy stood by as we loaded them into the trailer. Her eyes never left them. When the doors closed, she whispered their names one last time. Then she climbed into her car and followed us for miles down the road until, finally, she turned off toward safety.

In the trailer behind us, the goats cried softly. But while they mourned, their voices carried something new: hope.

At Indraloka, Colton and Banks were met with gentle hands and soft voices. Though they are powerful, majestic animals, they move with an extraordinary gentleness—especially with one another. When one falters, the other steps forward. When one calls, the other answers. Their bond is unbreakable, born of shared survival and love.  Together, with Amy, they formed a family.

Knowing her companions are safe offers Amy a crucial step toward rebuilding her own life.

For us, it is a reminder of why we exist: because compassion cannot stop at the boundaries of species. Every being—human or animal—deserves safety, healing, and hope.

Because of you, Amy and her goats are safe.
Because of that love, two lives were saved—and one woman’s path to freedom became possible.