Tuesday morning found most of the yearlings sprawled out in the nice soft sand of the round pen. You could see that they were finally relaxed and didn’t need to worry. They are so cute!
All of them had been wormed except 3 yesterday. Those 3 were caught and wormed as well. It turns out that the two palaminos, Simba and Frosty (seen below) are trained to lead.
Once all the worming and intake evaluation was done, they were able to be moved into a nice pen that had yummy green grass. They were so excited and just couldn’t get enough of it.
Merrylegs loaded up in the trailer along with the 3 senior horses, who were going to be evaluated by the vet.
We decided to give Look Ahead Vet their Christmas present early: a photo from the very first veterinarian job they did for us back in January 2006. This was right before we moved the shelter to the Oroville area and started using them as our full time vet. We had already been rescuing horses for a few years.
Merrylegs was unloaded and put into a stall. You could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew something was up.
Soon Merrylegs will be a very happy pony gelding.
The three senior horses were examined by our vet, and as we suspected, were given a poor quality of life diagnosis and were experiencing a lot of chronic pain. We had to say “Goodbye” to them. It is always so hard rescuing horses and having to say goodbye so soon, but we are comforted that they never knew the horrors of the slaughter trip.
The vet told us that she was really concerned about Mater. He has been in intensive care since right after he was rescued on October 6th, over 2 months of vet care! He had multiple surgeries in an attempt to relieve his suffering. Despite all of the vets best efforts he was still experiencing pain in his leg, and now his other leg was starting to give out from having to support all his weight. It was a very tearful goodbye, everyone became attached to him, but we knew we could not force him to continue enduring chronic, never ending pain that modern medicine failed to find a cure for. Rest in peace sweet Mater, we tried our very best for you!
Meet Wilton, he was surrendered at the SAFE Surrender Site. He is a 22 year old 16.2 hand Standardbred. He has done a lot in his time, he was a carriage horse for many years, then he went on to do the Rose Parade, and a whole lot of other things.
He loaded right up into the trailer and was ready to head back to the shelter. He is one big horse!
Dot was out evaluating the ponies today. This is Hazel, the 3 year old pony mare.
She doesn’t mind someone getting on her back while being led around, but she doesn’t know anything about riding. She will be easy to train and will be an awesome little pony!
This is Nutmeg being evaluated. She was a very good girl and let Dot sit on her, but again she knows nothing about riding, but is very mellow and should be very easy to train.
We had some visitors out who enjoyed meeting the horses. The horses enjoyed meeting them too!
By this time Tawnee had arrived back at the shelter with Wilton. As Dot was evaluating it was a good time to see what he knew too.
He saddled up like a dream and is such an amazing horse. He would be an awesome ‘husband’ horse because he is very laid back but is willing to do whatever you ask. He is blind in one eye, but it doesn’t affect him at all. His owner says “Loves people, plow reigns with very light touch, no bite kick or spook. Loads, stands, clips. Typical Standardbred, very mellow. ”
Some other folks were out looking at Junebug. She was in adoption pending but then they decided not to adopt her. We had other previously approved folks in line waiting and no time was wasted as they came right out to meet her.
The adoption papers were signed and the trailer hit the road. Junebug was going to be an early Christmas gift for a little girl. When the trailer door opened, she crawled up and looked inside with such excitement. Her very own pony!
Just look at the size of that smile! She is one happy little girl. We are so thankful that we were able to rescue Junebug from the livestock auction in November, keeping her from going to slaughter. Now she has a great home, and that’s what auction rescues are all about.
Many thanks to: Gail G., Omar S., Kathleen S., Kim L., Melissa M. and Jenette S. for their very generous donations! We couldn’t do it without you!