The 1-Day Open Door Shelter for Horses is such a needed program and helping so many horses across throughout the United States. We have received an extremely generous grant of $156,000 to conduct 1-Day Open Door Shelters for Horses across the United States this year. We are so extremely thankful to The Right Horse Initiative for making this amazing opportunity possible. All of the equines surrendered at the 1-Day Open Door Shelter, with no cost to the owner, are evaluated by licensed veterinarians to determine their quality of life. There are many horses that are brought to our 1-Day Open Door Shelters that require humane euthanasia as they are suffering and their owners could not afford to have them humanely euthanized. Without this program many of these horses would continue suffering or would be sent to an auction where they could end up in the wrong hands. Adoptable horses are placed with adoption partners so they can find loving homes. At one point we were considering opening branch shelters across the United States, but this 1-Day Open Door Shelter program is so successful, our board has decided to focus on the 1-Day Shelters instead of operating and staffing branch shelters. Our corporate headquarter shelter in Tennessee is our permanent location, and our 1-Day Open Door Shelters will be helping horses throughout the United States. To see the schedule of our 1-Day Open Door Shelters, or if you are interested in hosting a shelter in your area, click here.
We held a 1-Day Open Door Shelter in Tennessee on April 23, the third 1-Day Open Door Shelter this year. 19 equines were surrendered that could have been in jeopardy of ending up in the wrong hands!
The weather a week before the event was warm and beautiful, but in the days prior to the event a storm came in and dropped over 4 inches of rain in a very short time. The animals whose owners could not bring them to the 1-Day Shelter were picked up by Darin in the pouring rain. Darin drove down several muddy roads picking up precious lives. Many of the locals were very concerned about the storm as 7 years ago a similar storm caused major flooding.
A group of 5 donkeys were surrendered to the 1-Day Open Door Shelter. Only one of them had been in a trailer before and she must have been pregnant with a colt when she arrived, as all of the donkeys in this photo are her babies and she had a baby at her side. It’s really sad that her first colt was not gelded as there was a lot of inbreeding happening.
The weather said that the storm would be most likely gone by Sunday, but on Sunday morning it was still rainy and drizzly and the tail of the storm had not left middle Tennessee. The fairgrounds did not have panels, so we set up our panels in the drizzly rain.
The 1-Day Shelter was supposed to start at 10, but before the event could even start we had our first horse surrendered, a 29 year old horse suffering from arthritis. He had to wait a little bit as the pens were still being set up.
Before long there were trailers lined up everywhere, the rain didn’t stop folks from coming to surrender their horses.
This horse has a very appropriate name: Legs. He reminds us of a giraffe. He is a big guy!
One by one the horses were led to the waiting paneled pens.
Over two hundred horses have been surrendered at our 1-Day Open Door Shelter events and we never know what type of horses are going to come. This beautiful palomino mare is a 16 year old Quarter horse, she and her mother were very well loved by a man who passed away. His two sons brought their dad’s two beloved horses to our 1-Day Open Door Shelter as they did not want to take them to an auction and have them end up in the wrong hands.
As you can see from the photo they gave us, the Palomino mare had been a Mounted Police horse. We are so thankful that 1-Day Open Door Shelter are available and the man’s sons made the right decision for their dad’s horses.
Kimberly did a great job making sure all the paperwork for the surrendered horses was in order and talking to the owners when they were surrendering their horses.
19 equines were surrendered, 4 required humane euthanasia as they had medical issues that cause them to have a poor quality of life. Adoptable horses and donkeys will be listed on our website soon. We had a 3 year old dwarf miniature horse surrendered that has locking stifle/joint problems. The veterinarian believes that she will have a good quality of life if she receives a surgery to help correct her issues. We will be doing a fundraiser for her surgery once we get an estimate of the cost.
Thank you all for your support, both financially and emotionally! We couldn’t do it without you.
