In April we awarded Pony Tales Refuge and Rehab a $10,000 Full Circle of Life Grant. They transitioned their rescue to a Full Circle of Life shelter, opening their doors to any horse in need. Our team went to Wisconsin last weekend for the end of the grant to visit Pony Tales and to see first hand a 1 Day Open Door Shelter they hosted at their facility. One of their major hesitations to becoming an open admission shelter was they were afraid they would be inundated with horses and be unable to care for them all. Thankfully, during the last 6 months of mentoring, this has not been an issue, and with the increase of donations, they have been able to help a lot more horses during than the year before.
It was quite chilly in Wisconsin, and a snow storm blew through the night before the event, but despite the inclement weather, 53 horses were surrendered! This is the 3rd 1 Day Open Door shelter that has been held in Wisconsin, and every time we are amazed at the response from the community. The community responded by not only bringing horses that needed help, but also by volunteering their time to help, a local company donated the use of dozens of horse panels, and overall the community just came together to make it a huge success.
The burning question on all of our minds when we came to the end of the grant and mentoring was “Will Pony Tales continue being an open admission, Full Circle of Life Shelter, or will they go back to a managed/limited admission shelter?” We asked Cindy, Pony Tales President, if they were going to continue being a Full Circle of Life shelter, and her confused look and prompt reply of “Of course!” was all the answer we needed. Any horse rescue can transition into being a Full Circle of Life shelter, and we are so proud of Pony Tales forg taking the steps of applying for the grant, winning the grant, applying our mentoring and putting forth the effort to be an extremely successful Full Circle of Life Horse Shelter in Colfax, Wisconsin. We are looking forward to hopefully working with them in the future, but we won’t plan any visits in the winter.
The entire process was filmed and it will be released as a Reality TV show, Horse Rescue Heroes, on both the EQUUS Network and Amazon Prime in early 2020. We will be going to the EQUUS Film Festival were 1 episode of Horse Rescue Heroes will be premiering on the big screen! For more information: EQUUS Film Festival
