There’s rarely a dull day for Lori Dawson.

She may play foster parent to a group of orphaned babies in the morning, bottle-feeding them and making sure they’re safe and healthy.

She may follow that up with an afternoon spent dispensing medicine and soothing an injured youngster.

Her evening? It might consist of fielding an emergency call or two and deciding how she’s going to deal with the latest crisis.

Such is life for Dawson, founder and usually lone staff member of the Wild 4 Life nonprofit organization and Warren County’s first and only permitted wildlife rehabilitator.

These days, Dawson seems as comfortable tending to deer, foxes, squirrels, beavers and groundhogs as she once was teaching adolescents at Bowling Green Junior High School.

She has found her calling. Or maybe it found her.

“I have always loved animals,” Dawson said during a bone-chilling late-November day at the home and 50 acres she shares with husband Jeremy Dawson, their two boys and an ever-fluctuating passel of critters.

Indeed she does. So much so that she allowed her experience nursing an injured squirrel back to health to lead her into an avocation that pays nothing and costs a lot.

“Several years ago my dog caught a squirrel but didn’t kill it,” she recalled. “I tried to find someone to take care of it, but there was no one within two hours to take it to.

“I didn’t want to just let it die, so I went online and figured out what to feed it. We had it three or four weeks, it seemed healthy, so we released it.”

That led to a friend calling Dawson to ask about caring for three baby squirrels that were left orphaned when their mother was killed. She nursed those animals until they were big enough to be released into the wild.

Her reward for those good deeds?

“I found out that it was actually illegal to do it,” she said. “You can’t take in wildlife, even if you’re nurturing it back to health.”

Unless you’re permitted by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife.

So Dawson pursued that permit three years ago, taking classes to learn how to administer fluids intravenously, give shots and feed wild animals the correct food.

A former special education teacher and professional photographer, Dawson formed the Wild 4 Life nonprofit and became one of Kentucky’s 81 permitted wildlife rehabilitators in order to pursue her love of helping animals.

Although it was an expensive undertaking, Dawson’s husband supported her dream.

“Lori is a very giving person,” said Jeremy Dawson, a Bowling Green Realtor. “Everything she has ever done is about helping others, whether she was teaching, coaching or doing photography. For her to see this need and then try to address it is not surprising.”

What has been surprising is Wild 4 Life’s explosive growth. From a handful of cute squirrels and cuddly groundhogs, Dawson’s endeavor has morphed into a full-time job that involves dealing with foxes, deer, beavers and even an occasional bobcat.

“When I started, I thought I’d get 20 to 30 animals per year,” Lori Dawson recalled. “Last year, we had 217. This year, we’re over 500.”

Dawson, as the only wildlife rehabilitator in Warren and several contiguous counties, has a monopoly on the animal-repair business in southcentral Kentucky. Through social media, word of mouth and the Department of Fish and Wildlife website, local folks have learned where to go when they find an animal in need.

“People will drive an hour and a half to bring an injured animal to me because they don’t want to watch it die,” said Lori Dawson, who also works part time as a biblical counselor at Living Hope Baptist Church. “I do what I can. I can’t save all of them.”

To handle the unexpected volume, Dawson has responded the only way she knows: by pouring herself and her own money into helping injured or orphaned animals. She and her husband added on a room for animal care to a garage they built recently, and she has rigged up pens to contain the many deer and foxes people bring to her.

The Dawson property overlooking Drakes Creek near the Alvaton community can take on a Dr. Dolittle character during the busy season, with a menagerie that included 15 deer and nine foxes this summer. Many are released into the woods on the Dawson property, and many come back to visit long after they’ve been nursed back to health.

Jan Trabue, a neighbor of the Dawsons and a sometime volunteer at Wild 4 Life, has seen firsthand how much of herself Lori Dawson gives to the nonprofit.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Trabue said. “She’s doing something animal-related just about all the time. She can hardly get through a meal without getting a call from someone who has hit a deer or a raccoon.

“What’s most surprising is the round-the-clock care she has to give. Some of the animals have to be fed every two to three hours. It takes a lot of dedication.”

It also takes a lot of money, most of which is currently coming out of the Dawsons’ pockets. The food, medicine and enclosures aren’t cheap, and that doesn’t even take into account the $15,000 or so the Dawsons spent to build onto their garage.

Lori Dawson accepts donations from some of those who bring animals to her and finds sponsors for some others. She estimates she has raised close to $4,000 this year, but that’s a long way from breaking even.

It’s a common problem for those in the animal-rehab game, according to an Owensboro rehabber who has been at it for nine years.

“You have to be incredibly selfless to do this,” Kristin Allen of Owensboro’s Nurture to Nature nonprofit said. “I probably get more donations than I used to, but the number of animals is increasing as well. I’m still in the hole.”

Even as they lament the lack of funding, the Dawsons are trying to figure out how they can better meet the growing needs of orphaned and injured wildlife.

“As people find out about us, it’s increasing awareness and we’re getting more animals,” Jeremy Dawson said. “We desperately need a few more acres fenced in for deer. It has to have a solid fence that they can’t see through or they will try to run through it. And we need a fox cage that has wire underneath to keep them from digging out of it.”

Jeremy Dawson estimates that an adequate deer enclosure will cost around $10,000 and a fox cage around $4,000. Such improvements will have to wait until Lori Dawson can raise the funds, she said.

“We both find this very rewarding,” Jeremy Dawson said. “And it has been great for our kids. But we didn’t realize how expensive it would be.

“I think we’ll have to raise some significant money or we’ll have to scale back.”

More information about Wild 4 Life can be found at the wild4lifeky.org website.