Meet the inspirational woman who works tirelessly to give neglected animals a better life

Interview

Alexis Fleming is an extraordinary woman. Vegetarian since birth and vegan for 15 years, she is driven by her sheer love of animals, and set up the Maggie Fleming Animal Hospice and The Karass Sanctuary for Farmed Animals in 2016. She provides compassionate end-of-life care to terminally-ill companion and farmed animals who would otherwise die in a pound or slaughterhouse.

How did you come to set up the sanctuaries?

After losing a few years to Crohn’s Disease, I started a new plant medication and began to get my life back. Around the same time, my dog Maggie, a bull mastiff, became unwell. Tests revealed lung cancer and I got a call to say she was in surgery but there was nothing they could do. I had to make the decision to end her life on the phone without being with her. I couldn’t be with her when she died, so I decided to set up the hospice in her memory, so that other animals didn’t have to die alone like Maggie had. A few months later, someone asked me if I could take a disabled lamb who was going to be killed because he had a twisted spine. I said yes. And you cannot have one sheep… That’s how The Karass Sanctuary started.