Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and the Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary in Caledonia, Miss., recently signed a memorandum of understanding which will give MSU students a chance to work on exotic animals at the sanctuary once every six to 10 weeks.
Karen Templeton, director of outreach at the College of Veterinary Medicine, said the partnership worked out well because students get a chance to work with exotic animals, which they do not get in the veterinary hospital. 
“A small number of students will be taken out one to two times every six to 10 weeks, and we won’t be providing free medications. We aren’t providing equipment or any sort of commodity, but the students get to observe the animals. They get to learn more about animal husbandry, handling the animals. They could also help trim the nails and things like that. This is the only agreement we have with the sanctuary,” Templeton said. 
Nancy Gschwendtner, administrative assistant at the sanctuary, said the only thing that has been negotiated between MSU and Cedarhill is that MSU students will work on the exotic animals for training purposes. 
“We would love to have a partnership in a sense that this veterinary college has got a sanctuary which is so close and how many people going to veterinary school get a chance to work with lions, tigers and cougars and things like that. So if there is a way that we can benefit MSU’s students by having a more complete training or getting some training that they wouldn’t otherwise have had, certainly we would love to do that,” Gschwendtner said.  
Templeton said the students are involved in a lot of clinical rotations and have to go work at different places.
“The Caledonia sanctuary is pretty close, so we can fit that into their schedule, but traveling out of state would be more difficult, and the veterinarians, our faculty who are overseeing that, will have to be licensed in those states,” Templeton said. 
The animal sanctuary houses over 300 animals including birds, wolves, tigers, horses, cougars and house cats. Most animals in the sanctuary have been abused or neglected.
The Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary came into existence in 1987 when Kay McElroyxecutive, director and founder of the sanctuary, said she saw a classified ad in a newspaper saying, “Six-month-old cougar cub for sale, $1,000.”
McElroy said out of curiosity she went to see the cub and what she found broke her heart. The cougar cub was in a small dog pen and very thin with badly infected paws from a botched declaw job. 
“Although he was so despondent, he already had proved to be too much for his owners to handle. I had just moved to Mississippi, and I didn’t have a job yet nor much money. I told the guy that I had a 1947 Farmall D tractor that I would trade for the cub, but he said no, he wants the money. I told him that if he should change his mind, I lived about a mile down the road,” McElroy said in a news release. “Two weeks later he arrived with a trailer for the tractor and the cougar chained in the front seat of the guy’s truck. After days of phone calls trying to find Zack, the cougar, a home at a zoo, I came to the realization that I either had to build an enclosure for him or have him euthanized. Zack was the beginning of Cedarhill Sanctuary, which has since become my life’s work and greatest challenge.”
Gschwendtner said the monthly operating budget for taking care of the animals at Cedarhill ranges from $45,000 to $50,000. The sanctuary is not open to the public. 
“We would be making a lot more money if we were to open to the public, but the thing is, most of the animals on this property have been severely abused or neglected or abandoned by people, and most of these animals don’t even like people because of the traumas they have faced, Gschwendtner said. “So, we want the animals to live up their lives to be happy and to be as content as they can be without the stress of people poking and stuff like that.”
Gschwendtner said Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary does not have any state or government source of funding and manages the expenses only through donations.
Ceci Land, Starkville resident who visited the sanctuary on a weekend recently, said the sanctuary was much larger than she expected. 
“I was also amazed that they basically were full. That meant that lots of people and places had tried (and failed) to house and care for these animals properly,” Land said. “Despite having so many animals in their care, I was impressed that they knew all of their names and interacted with each of them in a unique way because they knew their personalities.” 
For more information on the Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary, visit cedarhillanimalsanctuary.org.