Meet D.C, he is 15.2 hands tall, 17-18 years old, and is a Quarter Horse gelding. And that’s all we know about him. The people who surrendered him at the SAFE Surrender Site didn’t leave a note with him. We’ll try to make contact to find out more about him.
He has a cute face and is friendly. He loves to come up to the panel to say “Hi” to people when they walk by.
The pigs at the shelter are keeping everyone extremely amused. Almost none of the staff have ever been around pigs, so they are currently a novelty.
Everyone thinks it is so funny that they will drink right out of a hose. They would also, no doubt, like to eat the hose if they had a chance.
The rescue rig was hooked up, Jason had a long drive to get two horses.
Thankfully the drive there was safe. One of the these horses was adopted almost 2 years ago from us, and the other is a BLM Mustang. Their owner could no longer keep them due to financial and health reasons.
Mocha was adopted in late 2009 with her foal, Emily. We were assured that the adopter knew how to wean foals, but then had the call that Emily was jumping fencing and causing all kinds of trouble. Despite all of our suggestions they gave up on her and we brought her back to the shelter. Emily was able to find a home with her half sister Emma about a month after coming back to the shelter. This is her second adoption photo.
Today, as seen in this photo taken a few weeks ago, Emily and Emma are doing great in their home. There have been no complaints about fences to us from her adopter.
Now, Mocha’s adopter tells us that she is horrible on fences, cribs, bites fences and pushes her way out of any kind of fencing.
Bella is a 6 year old BLM Mustang. We are told she was captured at 8 months old and was “never the same horse after being branded.” We were told she had a saddle put on her, and was then turned out into a field, where she promptly rolled and ruined the saddle. The written note that came with her says “Still completely wild, BLM, came to us as a foreclosure, had been abused, can’t catch her.”
Mocha was a very good girl and hopped right into the trailer.
Bella, on the other hand, has no doubt had bad experiences with trailers and was really not interested in stepping into the trailer. After some work she decided it was better to get into the trailer than to play around outside the trailer.
Meanwhile at the shelter everyone was hard at work. The pigs were working hard at staying cool and getting some sleep.
Lakota was getting ready to be evaluated. She has been gaining weight nicely and we felt it was time to see if she was trained to ride. It is always so frustrating when people ride horses that are emaciated. Their body is just trying to stay alive, and people feel free to ride them. So sad! Wait until they gain their weight and are feeling better, then a true evaluation can take place.
As you can see, Lakota is doing great and is really filling out. She is so gorgeous!
This is how Lakota looked when she came to us exactly 3 weeks ago. It’s amazing what food can do in such a short time isn’t it?
She accepted the saddle with no complaints. She didn’t like her ears being touched too much when being bridled, but she did her best to be a good girl through it all.
With no bucking or kicking during the saddling and lunging, it was time to see if she would accept a rider.
She did great! Tawnee did detect some lameness, so that will have to be figured out. She does have some thrush so hopefully when she gets through that she will be sound. She is so cute!
Next it was Maggie’s turn to be evaluated. She is obese. She has fat pads all over her body. It’s very rare for a rescue horse to be called ‘obese.’ She is obese. We like being able to use that word when it comes to describing a horse. As obese as she is, she does need exercise to get her weight down as it can lead to founder and other medical complications. But it is nice to be able to say we have an obese horse. The pictures don’t do her obesity justice, white horses are always hard to get true weight pictures. Skinny horses look normal, and come to find out, obese white horses look normal too. White is the hardest color to get an accurate weight picture of.
She is, as you may remember, a German Holsteiner. She is such a beautiful girl, even though she is obese. She is 15 years old, around 15.2 hands.
Come to find out, horses that are obese are lazy just like some obese humans. She took the saddle and bridle like an old pro, and walking was OK with her. A few trots around the round pen and she was heaving and sweating. She is obese and out of shape. At least she’s not skinny. Hopefully she doesn’t read the blog and get insulted. We do have an exercise plan for her, so her obesity should be a thing of the past soon.
Jason arrived safely back at the shelter with Bella and Mocha.
Bella was happy to get out of the trailer and into her pen. She was a little unsure of her new surroundings but was soon settling in. She needs to gain some weight. Tawnee was surprised by her write-up after putting her away. “Still completely wild” is what is says on her surrender note.
Next Mocha hopped out.
She’s a very beautiful girl. We are told she is trained to ride, but will be evaluating her for ourselves soon. She was only halter trained when she was adopted in 2009.
The Wood Duck gang has found their home. One of Cathy’s teenage girls absolutely fell in love with Woody and Cathy has been falling in love with Ducky. Today was the day that Brianna asked ever so sweetly if she could adopt Woody. She has been saving her money. We informed her that she could, but her mom would have to adopt Ducky so the Wood Duck gang could stay together.
It’s a perfect match and a kiss was made to seal the deal.
Many thanks to Jennifer C., Cindy M., Randy K., Natalie K., Laurel K., Brooke P. and Indira R. for their generous donations. We really appreciate it! You can see your name here, just click here. We couldn’t do it without you!