How animal rescue star Lee Asher lives his best pack life, and why he eyes Florida sanctuary
The reality TV series profiling Asher and the now estimated 200 animals at three privately-run Asher House sanctuaries is but one chapter in a unique life lived with rescue dogs.
As he longs to expand his reach to Florida, renowned animal rescuer Lee Asher preaches kindness, spotlights the animals he knows inspire good people to aspire to be better and, maybe, even revolutionizes the concept of an animal sanctuary.
“We should have respect and compassion for all living things. All living things have a soul and a personality,” said Asher, who grew up in South Florida and gained fame as the human star of Animal Planet’s “My Pack Life” show that he parlayed into millions of followers on social media. “Hate, aggression, is never the answer, not toward animals, not toward people. There is no success reached that way.”
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The reality TV series profiling Asher and the (now) estimated 200 dogs, cats, horses, llamas and other animals at three privately-run Asher House sanctuaries is but one chapter. His narrative is a quilt of vignettes from Asher’s own past told in evocative, emotion-packed videos accessed by 6.3 million people on Facebook, 1.6 million followers each on Instagram and TikTok plus 593,000 subscribers on YouTube.
The story is rooted in a Broward County animal shelter where Asher, as a troubled youth, found solace. It includes five years’ worth of road trips in a recreational vehicle from which he launched his campaign to rescue animals from unnecessary euthanasia. And now it plays out in three Pacific Northwest sanctuaries where a land-based Noah’s Ark’s worth of domestic but discarded pets live their lives in peace with freedom to roam — and provide rescuers and others a potential blueprint on how to do the same.
That’s how, perhaps, the world sees it. Asher, 35, looks at it in simpler terms: He lives a life accompanied by the animals he loves.
“Most people that run a sanctuary, or a rescue, do it for similar reasons,” he said. “The difference is that I live with all the animals. I spend every single day with them. Even when I am out of town I bring them along. There’s nowhere that I go where it’s just me.”