Burger Family Bursary

My husband, Howard was born and raised on a farm southwest of Stony Plain, AB. He started his own farm around 1960. He was a 4H leader for several years.

I was raised in Edmonton. I always had a cat and we had a dog until he was 14 years old, I was 12 or 13 then. I was always interested and curious to learn about all nonhuman life forms, so later in life living on a farm became a good life for me. Both Howard and I were dedicated to the care of the domestic animals we had. It was an honor and pleasure to see and help (yearly bird feeders) the wild ones.

We were foster parents and then adopted 2 children. Scott was 8 years old, Heather was 7 years old. Heather was in 4H when she was older. Scott was in Boy Scouts.

When we first married, Howard had a few pigs and a cattle herd. We sold the pigs and I bought 10 sheep. We had a few chickens, 2 horses (my horse lived until he was 29 years old), 3 or 4 cats, mostly dropped-off ones, and several dogs, usually, Yellow Labrador and Labrador crossed, several from Rescue Societies. All cats and dogs were neutered and were allowed in the house. Over the years the dogs and cats changed of course, but most of the dogs lived their natural lifespan.

We still had the occasional stray come by that we let stay. Howard was extremely tolerant as to what I thought would be interesting to own so we got 2 Brown Chinese geese and 2 Ducks also.

I looked after all the miscellaneous animals and after 10 years we sold the sheep. At this time llamas were just showing up at auctions so we started a new adventure. We bought 2 llamas 1 male and 1 female. Fifteen to twenty years later we had 55 in the pasture in front of our house. We enjoyed the llamas and showed in many Llama Shows. We had llamas for 29 years. Eventually, we sold the last of the cattle so just had 2 dogs and a couple of cats left.

Now, I would like to help people with the same ideals as I have to help all non-human species survive and be respected and treated humanely, as I feel they have just as much right to live on planet Earth as we do.