4-30-08

Today we had to take Cowboy, Copper (not Copper Hopper, the Copper in our retirement program) and Campeon to the vet. Pulling in it was great to see Dusty and Blaze munching hay with little pink bandages around their front leg. One leg on each has had surgery, the other leg will be done soon. The vet is giving them time to see if the other leg needs surgery or not, and to let them have a chance to at least have 1 leg that's almost mended, 3 legs you can stand on is hard enough, imagine trying to stand on 2!

Campeon got his Coggins and health certificate so he can be cleared to go to his new home.

Copper recently suddenly began losing weight, and his blind eye was becoming painful, so the kindest thing to do was allow him to die with love, affection and dignity. His life was deemed to poor and today was his time to go. He was such a sweet and beautiful guy, but I can assure you that his last hour was one of delight. We gave him a 5 gallon bucket full of sweet cob grain all sweet and yummy and he ate the whole thing, and then he ate another 2 gallons or so. He may have thought he'd died and went to heaven already! Copper we will miss you and we love you! We are so glad you didn't die in a mean slaughterhouse. When Cowboy first came to us back in 2006, he was lame. The barefoot trimmer who adopted him worked with him extensively getting his feet to perfect condition, but unfortunately he was still somewhat lame so his adopter donated him back. We had him x-rayed today, and he has some navicular due to damage to his navicular bone, it's not the disease, it is due to an old injury. Our vet believes with the surgery on that leg that he would be pain free and then should be shoed. Maybe if he wore Old Mac boots it would work out well too.

We brought Gregster, the giant humongous over sized donkey, back from the vet after his gelding. He was a stray near Bangor and Butte County Animal Control turned him over to us. He is huge! That is Ottoman Empire next to him, the 17.1 hand 1400 lb draft horse! This donkey is 14.3 hands, definitely the biggest donkey by far that has ever been in our rescue. Talk about the two huge blacks!

All you donkey fans that believe you want the big donkey, sorry, he's already been adopted. This potential adopter happened to be in the right place at the right time! He's a big donkey lover, but this is the biggest donkey he has ever been around.

Rosco was also adopted today, he'll be living with Gregster enjoying lots of love and attention. The wife has a tendency towards horses, while her husband enjoys donkey's. She really loves Rosco! Rosco had a waived adoption fee as he had a seizure recently that really concerned us.

A huge THANK YOU!!!! to everyone that has donated so generously the last couple days to make rescuing horses a reality. A coupe donations really touched our hearts. Kelly and Cindy donated extremely generously to the Last Act of Kindness fund! It takes someone that can really see the reality of unwanted horses plight in life, and be willing to step up and make a difference! They are the first 2 donors towards the Last Act of Kindness fund. Again, thank you, and I know the horses would thank you if they could!

Another donation that touched our hearts is going to feed a lot of hungry horses. Wendy decided she would rather feed some hungry rescued horses and forgo getting more jewelry this year for her birthday, so husband Craig bought 20 bales! Thank you so much Wendy and Craig! How extremely thoughtful of you both.

Thank you everyone so much for your thoughts and support, life is getting back to normal after having little Justin take off and scare us all mostly to death!