The trip to Pennsylvania was a whirlwind of happenings. We will be blogging about the 1-Day Open Door Shelter soon, but there were other events we want to catch you up on first.
In the email I sent out about rescuing horses from the New Holland auction, I want to make sure people don’t think I was trying to make a blanket statement about all Amish and how they treat their horses. I have met many different Amish who treat their animals extremely well, even vegan Amish. Their are all kinds of people, and some truly care about their animals, and others that do not, in every race and culture. In PA, I did see another side of the Amish that I don’t see in TN, and that is the overworking and over driving of horses.
While the 1-Day Shelter was happening, all of a sudden buggies started pouring through the backside of the fairgrounds. I didn’t realize what was happening, but I was shocked to see horses literally foamed in a lathery sweat moving at a high rate of speed. I have nothing against a horse that is working being sweaty, but being lathered in sweat on a hot day and being forced to continue at a high rate of speed for hours is wrong in my book. The buggies were being re-routed because there was a buggy accident that happened right in front of the fair grounds. I jumped in the truck with the vet and headed down to see if we could help. When we got there, I saw people laying on the ground with blood over their faces, it was truly a horrible scene. The horse was no where to be seen, we were told he took off running down the street. To read the newspaper article about the accident, click here.
The vet and I went looking for the horse. The horse ran down the road, and ran into the side of a building. The horse was delirious and going into shock. After hitting the building, it crashed into a parked vehicle, and then went into a grassy area. Some bystanders managed to catch the horse and started walking it to the fire station.
Once at the fire station, we started hosing off the poor horse and the vet started treating it. The horse had multiple scrapes and injuries, and who knows what was going on internally. As we were trying to help the horse, an Amish man came and pulled the hose out of the bystanders hand who had caught the horse. Then he pushed the vet out of the way and said “This is an Amish horse,” and didn’t appreciate the vet trying to help the horse. The fire department had planned to move the horse to our 1-Day Open Door Shelter, and that was agreed upon, but the Amish man had other ideas. I did two live video feeds while everything was happening, to watch them click here: 1st live video Click Here – 2nd live video Click Here.
The Amish man stood with the horse and I could tell that he was not happy about the lady vet, I was hoping once the horse arrived at the 1-Day Shelter we could continue its treatment, it was clearly in shock.
The trailer arrived that the fire department had sent for and the Amish man loaded the horse. I confirmed with the driver that he knew he was taking the horse to the fairgrounds in building 4, and he said he knew how to get there. We went back to the fairgrounds and waited, but the horse never came. Apparently the Amish man told the driver to take the horse somewhere else, and the vet was never compensated for her work and drugs either. We really hope this horse got the help she needed. It was a very sad situation for everyone involved.
The next day I sent out the email about the New Holland auction. Melissa and Kristen stayed at the fairgrounds and I headed over to New Holland. They do not allow photos or video taken on New Holland property, but there is a public street that runs right in front of it. I did two live video feeds from the public street after the auction: 1st video click here , 2nd video click here.
We were able to rescue 11 precious lives at the auction. We took them back to the fairgrounds, and one of the foals was so weak she couldn’t stand when she came off the trailer. No doubt they had been on a slaughter truck and taken off at the sale so they could be replaced with bigger, fatter horses. This poor baby was so weak and malnourished it was heart wrenching. After some time she was able to stand and got some much needed food, water and vet care.
We rescued two mini mules, they were completely unhandled and untrusting of people.
Two minis were also rescued! They are so adorably cute.
This little guy was obviously a little malnourished and needed some TLC. He is very cute too.
This pony was middle aged and is a very sweet guy.
The 6 babies were very hungry. They were all malnourished and it was so sad seeing them in this condition. We would like to thank everyone who donated to make rescuing them possible. Without your support, we would not have outbid the kill buyers and saved them from shipping to slaughter! They were adopted locally, transferred to adoption partners, and sadly 2 had to be euthanized as they were unadoptable. We are so thankful we were able to touch these lives, and pull them from the slaughter pipeline, giving them love and compassion.
We will be getting the 1-Day Open Door shelter blog together soon! It was a huge event and we can’t wait to tell you all about it!
Please consider making a donation to help our rescue efforts. Thank you so much for your support! Tawnee Preisner – President
