TIVERTON, R.I. — A tragic house fire on a mild winter day two decades ago took the lives of Wendy Taylor’s nine four-legged friends, including two dogs, six cats, and a goat named Mo.

While the death of her loving companions on Feb. 24, 2003 was and still is heartbreaking, the lives of countless other animals in the years since have been saved in their memory.

Taylor lived on the 8-acre Main Road farm nestled between Weetamoo Woods and Pardon Gray Preserve long before transforming the property into a sanctuary for neglected and abused animals, most of the farm variety. The tragedy, however, unlocked the attorney’s passion for animal rescue and rehabilitation.

The West Place Animal Sanctuary opened four years later, in 2007. Taylor left her career as an attorney in 2017 to focus more of her energy on the animals and the nonprofit she founded to help them.

Today, with the support of some 75 volunteers, private donors, grants, and a full-time staff of five, the West Place Animal Sanctuary is the forever home of about 300 animals, from cows and alpacas to pigs and peacocks to a variety of waterfowl, turtles, and koi swimming on and in the property’s rescue pond.

On Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 7-8, the sanctuary will be holding a Fall Visitors Weekend, to show off the facility’s interesting, funny, friendly, and charismatic cast of characters, including those who work and volunteer there, and to raise some money, as providing lifelong care to animals rescued from cruelty, abuse, and neglect isn’t cheap.

Taylor and Patrick Cole, the sanctuary’s director of development and communications, gave ecoRI News a recent tour. We were welcomed to the farmyard by two honking white Chinese geese named Bruce and Cybill and the wagging tail of Pickles, an American pot-bellied pig.

Later, we were escorted to a visit with four alpacas and a miniature horse named Gracie by two donkeys, Charles and Timothy. By the way, Charles, a miniature donkey, has a foot fetish, as he wouldn’t stop playfully biting at my sneakers.

We also met the sanctuary’s matriarch, a 17-and-a-half-year-old crested pekin duck who was rescued as a duckling. Her brother Burton was also rescued. He died in 2014. To help her deal with arthritis, Erna receives acupuncture treatments. She also enjoys aqua therapy.

During winter 2021-22, Erna started laying eggs again — rare for a duck of her age, according to Cole — and just a few weeks before Erna’s 15th birthday in March, Sesame was hatched and Erna became a mother for the first time. Sesame now spends nights with her mother in a heat lamp-warmed dwelling.

“You know, we don’t try to bring new animals into the world,” Taylor said. “We did decide to carry on her legacy as our oldest rescue and just an incredible duck who should make the ‘Guinness Book of World Records.’”

More recently, an emu named Clover and three dwarf goats — Daisy, Forsythia, and the unfortunately named Goob — were among seven animals rescued in the span of eight days last month, with Clover the first emu the sanctuary has rescued.

“She may look intimidating, but she is very sweet and social,” Cole said. “She loves people and splashing around in her bathtub.”

She allowed us to pat her. Her beautiful brown eyes are mesmerizing.

In 2019, two Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, Jack and Diane, were the first pigs ever rescued by the sanctuary. They came from a place of neglect, according to Cole.

They arrived in rough shape and weren’t expected to survive for long.

“They came to us from a really awful neglect case, and they’re very emblematic of the work that we do,” Cole said. “So Jack and Diane were living on a farm on the other side of the state. The farmer did not live on the property, so he would stop by once every two or three days or so to give them day-old donuts and junk food. They didn’t have any shelter. So when you would put water down in the winter, it would freeze over. They were really suffering.

“We were told, ‘They only need a few weeks of care, or a few months, if they’re lucky. They’re both in need of hospice care because they’re morbidly obese.’”

But both pigs, each now 15, found new life at West Place. They were given a diet of fruits and vegetables — the sanctuary grows much of its own produce, to keep food costs down and to provide the animals with fresh food — and put on exercise and skin-care routines.

(There is plenty of animal waste to help make nutrient-rich compost to grow more local food, albeit mostly for the sanctuary’s four pigs.)

“Jack has been suffering from arthritis in his old age and his mobility was severely limited this past winter,” Cole said. “He has been rejuvenated through acupuncture treatments, a custom-made orthotic device, nutrition, love, and encouragement. We’re calling this ‘The Summer of Jack’ and he is once again cruising the sanctuary and enjoying all of his favorite things.”

He was strutting around the place when we visited.

In summer 2016, three years before Jack and Diane arrived, the sanctuary took in 67 animals rescued from a Westport, Mass., farm — one of the worst cases of animal cruelty in New England history. (The attorney general’s office later dropped the charges and discontinued prosecuting 25 defendants charged with more than 150 counts of animal cruelty, because a key witness, a Westport Police lieutenant, was being investigated.)

Authorities found some 1,400 animals, including dogs, cats, cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, and rabbits, in overcrowded, overheated, and dangerous living conditions. Among the animals West Place took in were a few peacocks and some koi.

“We took in most of the exotics, because it’s harder for an individual to maintain exotics,” Taylor said. “We had to build a new building for [the peacocks] and then had to make sure our pond upkeep was appropriate, because we took in a lot of fish as well, but we also took in goats, sheep, some of the larger animals from that case as well. The sheep and one of the goats are still here.”

Also among the animals rescued by the sanctuary from the Westport tragedy was a duck named Saltine, Erna’s future mate and Sesame’s future father. Erna and Saltine were inseparable until he passed in late 2021, according to Taylor.

Note: Fall Visitors Weekend will feature 90-minute guided tours, leaving every half-hour between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Attendees will also learn about the historic property’s history and the sanctuary’s mission and get an up-close introduction to the animals. The West Place Gift Shop will be open and features handmade crafts, sustainably created items from upcycled farm materials, and “farmbucha” beverages brewed on site. Adult tickets can be bought online at a discounted price of $26 ($28 at the gate). Tickets for children 12 and younger cost $15.