06-30-08

The last day of June has come and is almost gone. Wow, the year is just flying by. So far this year we have rescued 146 equines! That's a lot of wonderful horses that would probably be dead or in horrible situations if it wasn't for us.

The Auction Rescue Fund is now at $2,772! A big thank you goes to Jeanne M. for sending a $1,250 check from her horses Dutch, Mack & Rienzi. Please give them a big hug and kisses from all of us here at the rescue. This donation will help save a lot of horses. Any other horses willing to donate out there?

Cathy and her girls came out to volunteer today. They had become approved to adopt earlier, and were waiting for the perfect match. Today they all fell in love with Dakota Boy and Sierra and have adopted them. What a wonderful match all the way around. We'll be delivering them to their new home hopefully tomorrow. These two horses are definitely going to be spoiled rotten, and they deserve every bit of it.

Makayla finally got taken to her new home today. She was adopted awhile ago, but transportation arrangements were finally completed. This pretty girl is definitely going to be missed, but she's gone to an awesome home.

Lori, owner of Main Street Salon in Taylorsville, where NorCal was started, has been doing a fundraising for us. She came down today to deliver the donations, and absolutely fell in love with Alex. They both were so happy with each other, and it is truly a match made in heaven. The local newspaper near Taylorvsille has ran a little article about her fundraiser. "SAVE THE HORSES Lori Cannizzaro, owner of Main Street Salon in Taylorsville, is offering a nice discount through the month of June for any nail service to those who donate $10 or more to NorCal Equine, a nonprofit rescue organization run by former Taylorsville residents Jason and Tawnee Preisner. The Preisners, who now operate an expanded rescue center in Oroville, will be here to participate in the Fourth of July Parade this summer." Since the newspaper said we're going to the parade sure enough, we're going. If any of you want to take a road trip on the 4th, you can watch us go through the parade! Main street Taylorsville, starts about 9:00 am.

That pile of "trash" is actually a bunch of wormers that came in from Country Supply today. They were running a great discount, and the pile (100) wormers only cost right about $200. What a great savings!

We also received a long needed item: a short range tranquilizer gun. Per our vet's recommendation, we got the perfect one that will sedate wild and dangerous horses from a distance without stress or trauma for medical procedures like gelding. It can also vaccinate wild horses from a distance if they are too traumatized of needles or are unhandleable.

We really needed the tranquiler gun when we chased Campeon and Luna around an almond orchard for 6 hours. We are very fortunate that in the end we were able to keep getting them into smaller and smaller pens until they felt like hopping in our stock trailer. We almost had to give up on them and let the authorities shoot them dead. They were running loose in a 15 acre pasture almond orchard, and then about 50 acres of rolling hills. Persistence paid off, but all parties were extremely exhausted by days end.

A big thank you goes to everyone who volunteered to do the adoption application approvals! We are extremely grateful for the outflowing of support. Tawnee chose the person who is going to be doing them, and she didn't even have to call everyone on the list. Again, thank you to each and every one that volunteered to help! We are still looking for Pony Girl club ideas. Send them in!

06-29-08

Today started off with a flurry of activity . There were early phone calls, potential adopters viewing horses, the large pens got harrowed, and then all of the excitement was over by 9:30. The cancellations came in for horses being picked up today, no volunteers chose to come out today, and it was, unbelievably enough, a quiet Sunday. This gave Tawnee and Jason a chance to do office work.

Jason got our brochure updated today, it should be more family friendly now. No more mention of horse slaughter, but it has a lot more about NER on it. The fact is, it's hard on a lot of people to see the reality of what is happening to horses and the urgency that they need to be saved.

The next auction is about 2 weeks away. We have $1512 raised so far, with All Road Communications matching gift, that is $3,024. We currently have 29 available horses, so it would be really great to get some horses placed before the next auction!

Our hay pile continues to get transformed into horse manner. We have more hay lined up to get, we're just having a hard time getting a transporter. We'll find one though, and then another bunch of hay will be here!

We were actually able to see the sun today. The smoke has been thick enough where it's been hard to see the sun. Last night the stars shone for the first time in quite awhile. This evening was the first time we have been able to see a sunset like this in over a week. Sure was pretty!

Dusty, Blaze and Mac were supposed to go to their new home today, but some plans changed and we'll be delivering them on Wednesday. They've waited a long time to go home, and that should definitely be the day. We really appreciate their adopter adopting Mac as well. He has had a lot of abuse in his past, but we're confident they have the knowledge to take good care of him. We really appreciate Cathy stepping forward and wanting to give him a forever home no matter if he ever learns to love people or not. It would be great if there were more people willing to adopt troubled horses. These horses need homes badly!

6-27-08

Jason cleaned out the stock trailer this morning in preparation for the days events. After cleaning it out, Hershey and Virgo were loaded up. Virgo is such a sweet girl, she loaded right up, but Hershey wasn't so anxious. He did get in without a huge fuss and off they went. They are going to be spoiled almost rotten, and we know they are going to be really loved and cared for.

Jason took the stock trailer to Lattitudes in Oroville to have some graphics and text put on. We've been savign some money, setting it aside, and we finally had it. Here they are installing a picture...

"As Seen on Animal Planet" on our truck with the picture above. The picture is of Robert and Louis Krume. Click Here for Robert Krume's filmography. The Robert and Louis Krume estate made a significant contribution to NorCal Equine Rescue back in 2005, and we are eternally grateful. It really made the rescue get off to a great start.

Tawnee kept busy today with phone calls, adoption applications (Tawnee has gone through the applications but hasn't yet finalized her decision) and other office work.

Have a great weekend, check back for our regularly scheduled update Sunday evening!

06-26-08

Tawnee showed horses again today, it's great she is able to be up and about and doing such a great job again. Hershey and Virgo's adopting mommy's came out today to visit them. They love them so much! Hershey however, didn't want to visit people as he was distracted by Phoebe. Phoebe came in heat today, so she is not pregnant thankfully, and Hershey was really twitter pated. We finally managed to catch him and once he was separated from her he was fine, he just did not want to leave her side. Just so there is no confusion, he is definitely a gelding, so there will be no baby Phoebe's. Tawnee also showed other horses to other prospective adopters today.

Jason worked for many hours on fencing, it seems that fencing is never a "build it and forget it" project. But that is the horses jobs, trying to escape, and it's Jason's job to keep them in. The grass is always greener, or in this case, a nicer shade of brown, on the other side of the fence. Other than the other hundreds things that got done today it was fairly quiet.

And now for a great rescue story that is close to our hearts. Manny was rescued by Lassen County Animal Control back in the fall of 2005. He was severely under weight along with 2 other horses that all came into our organization. Below is a picture of Manny when he was initially rescued. It's hard to tell how thin he was, pictures tend to add weight to horses, especially white horses, but he was really emaciated. Unbelievably enough, he was the fattest of the three.

On top of that he has pink skin, and with no shade or protection he was sun burned multiple times, leaving raw sores around his eyes.

And crusty sunburned lips and nose. Poor guy, it really had to hurt so bad. It is terrible that people can stand by and let their animals suffer in so many horrible ways and do nothing about it. Early in the spring of 2006 Manny and the two other horses made their way to our rescue, then located in snow country near Quincy, CA. Usually we had a lot more snow during the winter, that was just a little snow flurry that passed through. It's so much easier on the rescued horses not having to deal with snow on top of any other problems they may have. Manny was adopted shortly after the picture below.

Today we got an update on Manny, now named Doc. "I'd send you guys a pic of What's Up Doc (Manny). He is coloring out wonderfully. Loves massages, and just being loved on. He really is a laid back kind of guy."

It is always so great getting updates years later. It is nice seeing a horse that has been through so many bad things in a home where he receives love, care, and will never suffer through starvation and deprivation, with bones sticking out through his taunt skin, again.

06-25-08

Today was as always a busy day, Tawnee and Jason were both up and around, not quite 100% yet but close. It's nice to be able to feed and care for the horses without a 101 degree fever, nausia, etc.

The auction fund is currently at $1307, every donation helps out a lot! Horses lives are on the line, we can all do our part.

We've received a lot of people volunteering to do applications, as soon as Tawnee's voice is back up to speaking quality she will be calling you all and selecting the most qualified. Thank you for your great response, we really appreciate it!

Ann - Mari came out today and brought a couple little helpers with her. She did a great job watering, cleaning and generally helping out. Thanks so much for your help! It is so great to have a wonderful volunteer like Ann that we can count on every week to help out.

No, Jason isn't spinning the tires, we purchased a much needed drag harrow today to scrape the grounds and make it safer and cleaner for the horses. It works absolutely great and makes the large pens look wonderful! It's a dirty, dusty job but it is so much nicer once it is done. It also cleans and conditions the round pen too.

Tawnee evaluated a couple horses today. There are so many horses that need evaluation, it is taking some time catching up. We have so many horses that are just halter broke and need training, if you know of anyone that is qualified to train horses who could be persuaded to spend some time out here training, or even better could adopt one or two and give it a great chance at life, please send them our contact information! Sierra is trained to ride, here's Tawnee riding her.

"Tina's Feeder" is finally here! Jason put it all together himself, moved it to the perfect spot and filled it up with yummy hay. The horses absolutely love it, thanks for donating it Tina! In the picture below, the horses look bewildered, they really didn't want to eat Jason but he was hanging out in the feeder for what seemed like long past supper time...

North Coast "The Journal" ran a very interesting article and it included parts of an interview with Tawnee. You can read the article by clicking here. It says we claim to be California's largest non-profit horse rescue, a correction, we believe we are northern California's largest (largest being defined by how many horses are rescued in the last 12 months.) They interviewed awhile ago, click here.

One of these days the sun will be bright enough to cause shadows, but we are counting our blessings and enjoying the relief from the heat. The smoke is pretty intense, our thoughts and prayers are for the people who's homes and business' are being destroyed by these raging fires everywhere.

06-24-08

Today was another e-news day. Tawnee worked hard on it pretty much all day, and by this evening it was on its way. We are hoping with this e-news to generate interest in volunteering and raising funds for the next auction. If you did not get the e-news and you feel that you should have, please sign up again on our website. It's a fully automated process now, so you could sign up 100 times with the same email address and it wouldn't bother us at all. You can also click here to view the e-news.

We are looking for some dependable volunteers. You do not need to live near the rescue for this volunteer work. Residing anywhere in the United States is fine. We have a couple specific duties that we are looking for volunteers to fill. First we are needing some volunteers to help with the My Pony Girl Club of America. You may remember reading about this club before, well we are getting ready to launch but we need your help! We are in the beginning, planning stages of this exciting, nationwide club that we expect every horse loving girl between the ages of 5 and 15 will want to join. You can visit our website (under construction) at http://www.myponygirlclub.com/.

Our second volunteer need is for someone to do the adoption application processing. There are only 4 - 5 references to call, but somehow it usually ends up taking quite a few calls, playing phone tag, etc, to get it all done. We really need someone that can devote some time and organizational skills to getting this done.

Gregster has been playing with a lot of kids recently. He was taken to a Vacation Bible School and he was a huge hit. He really enjoyed taking kids around for rides, not to mention the handfuls of treats. Looks like fun!

We got an update on Dakota and Bi-Gold, they are doing great in their new home and are settling in nicely. Just a FYI for anyone that may have been worried they are separated from the previous pictures, they were in stalls right next to each other and are together again now.

High speed Internet is now a reality! Thanks to Jason's 100 hours of hard work, we now have decently reasonably high speed Internet! It's about 20x faster than our old Internet, so we'll be putting more video's of our rescued equines on our available page now.

We just got an update on Prairie and Spunky while we were doing this blog. They are doing great and looking oh so good these days! Quite a change from the scruffy shaggy TB yearlings we rescued earlier this year.

06-23-08

We got up to the undelightful overcast of thick heavy smoke. It's no wonder with almost all of northern CA burning up. It kept the temperature cooler, but it was really muggy and hot anyway. We called up Sally, our barefoot trimmer, and she had to cancel coming down once again because she was under evacuation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those that once again are threatened by fires. So far it just hasn't been a good year for fires...

Cathy and her kids came out today and volunteered. They did a lot of cleanup and horse care. They also helped with the never ending horse watering. With the heat, it's hard to keep up with all the water and our well has a hard time keeping up with the demand. Hopefully it holds out through the summer. Here they are enjoying the little pony, Pegasi.

Jason delivered Bi-Gold and Dakota to their new forever home today. It is so wonderful seeing these two senior horses placed into a home where they can live out their lives together.

Dakota is in a nice quiet stall, she was a little nervous being in a new situation, but she was settling down as Jason left.

Bi-Gold and Dakota's adopter is a previous adopter who adopted Muffin in 2006. Muffin is still doing absolutely great! When he first came he had a heavy winter coat on. He was underweight, but it was hard to tell unless you felt his bones through his hair.

Now he is a classy, fat little guy, hanging out in his forever home with more of our rescued horses now.

The auction fund is currently at $1015. With All Road Communication's matching funds we have raised $2,030! That can save a lot of horses, but we would like to save more...

Jason and Tawnee are fighting hard to kick the flu, hopefully sometime this week!

06-22-08

Today was a busy day and we found out that Pegasi has some tricks up his hooves. He can bow and stretch out, and who knows what else he knows. He neck reigns, rides nicely, and is a super sweet little guy. He still thinks he's a stallion, but he's not... Time should fix that one. His adoption fee is only $650.

We had 6 volunteers come out today: Deb, Becky, Teresa, Kimmy, Annette and Fernando. A huge thank you to each one of you!

Here's Deb riding the mule, Brayden. He did really good, he is very nicely trained to ride. She also evaluated a lot of other horses, but we are waiting for her write-up about them.

Teresa also came out today. It's been a long time since we'd seen her last, but now she has a 4 month old baby to show for it! She didn't bring her baby with her, it is really nice to have her back though. She enjoyed washing the horses and cleaning out the tack room. Thanks Teresa!

As usual Tawnee showed lots of horses. Tawnee is still quite under the weather with the worst sore throat she has ever had, but work has to go on. Deb and Becky helped take over the showing of horses today. They did a great job, Hershey is now in adoption pending!

We also two adoptions today. Makayla was adopted, she'll be going to her new home really soon. Thanks for giving her a great home and the training that she needs!

Buck was adopted today as well by Anette and Kimmy. They are the ones that placed a hold on him, and after several visits they realized that life wouldn't be the same without him, so they adopted him today. Such a lucky guy Buck is, we know they'll take great care of him. Annette's favorite color is a palamino, and this guy she really loves.

We had a great update today on Crisco! "It is truly a match made in heaven. Everyone at the stables is amazed at how beautiful Crisco is now. He doesn't he seem like the same horse. I think he shed his fears and sadness away when he shed his winter coat. He is the most amazing horse! It thrills me to no end to see him so happy.I would love to have to visit him sometime. You will be shocked at how shiny his coat is. He looks like a show horse now."

It's been a long hot day, we'll all see what tomorrow brings!

06-20-08

Today both Tawnee and Jason were inoperably sick, and so other than caring for the immediate needs of the horses, not much got done.

Claire and her husband Ron came over today to borrow the stock to shear their Llama's. Claire gave us an update on the little bird: it is doing great and is almost ready to fly! Good job Claire, it's simply amazing how fast birds grow.

The auction fund is currently at $95, with All Road Communications matching grant we are at $190! So, with the current funds, about 1 horse can be saved. We want to save a lot more horses than that though, so please give what you can. You can be a horses hero.

Jason feverishly, literally, worked on the emails, so if they seem a bit incoherent, it's sickness induced. If you are expecting an email and didn't get one, please write again.

Have a great weekend! We're planning on resting a lot and kicking this flu.

6-19-09

Wow, just in case you hadn't heard the news by now, Pharlap died of arsenic poisoning 75 years ago. They are claiming it may have been accidental overdosing, but who really knows. The person that really knows, if there is one, is probably already passed away by now. You can read one of the many news articles by clicking here.

We headed out to the vet today. We had so much to do it was just crazy. We took Bunny to get her hernia evaluated. After her examination, the vet determined that there was a large tear in her abdominal wall and a large portion of her intestine was pushed out through the tear. There is nothing that could be done for Bunny, a surgery at her age most likely would kill her. The vet aged her at approximately 25 years old. Our vet recommended that Bunny be humanely euthanized, so she was. We will really miss Bunny, she was a part of our lives for a long time.
There is great news, the vet gave us a perfect bill of health for Alex! He is in adoption pending, so hopefully he will be going to his forever home very soon.
We also brought back Pegasi the pony, now a gelding. He is doing well, he has some swelling so he has some medicine to make it all better. He is happy and chirper though.
Cowboy has come back from the vet for good now. We have been in extensive communication with Sally, our barefoot trimmer, and she is going to be examining him on Sunday to see what her plan is. She is going to try some things with special boots etc.
Buddy also came back today, he was too wild to get close enough to sedate enough to geld. We will have to try some other options. The picture below is Buddy loading into our trailer from his stall at the Vet.

We drove past part of the Paradise fire, what a horribly devastating fire it was. Here is just a small part of it as seen from the road by Butte College.

With everything that has been going on with the rescue, we have been unable to keep up with all the emails that are pouring in, but tomorrow we are setting aside a large portion of the day to hopefully catch up 100%. Sorry if you haven't had an email reply yet, feel free to call us.

06-18-08

Today we got terribly sad news from our retirement foster home. Bessie passed away during the night. She was 21 years old. We rescued her from a feedlot before she was shipped out for slaughter. The feedlot gave her anabolic steroids to fatten her up, and when she came to us she quickly dropped weight. She gained it back and was seemingly very happy and healthy. Just 7 days ago Tawnee took this picture when she trimmed her hooves. She would have never guessed that a week later Bessie would pass away. We love you Bessie and will miss you!

Today we got very exciting news! All Road Communications will match all donations towards this auction rescue up to $5000, for a total of $10,000 towards this auction rescue! Each dollar that you donate will be doubled. Your donation really makes a difference now, please donate what you can. Even $5 will turn into $10 just like that thanks to the generosity of Chris and Janet at All Road Communications. The matches will be added at the end of the fundraising. We are currently at $90, which with the match is $180!

Today Tawnee worked tirelessly on finding our next source for cheap hay. No, we are not almost out, but it is much wiser to purchase hay when it is cheaper than when it is more expensive. We hear sad news that hay may be hitting $17-$18 a bale this winter, and that's not the feedstore price. Tawnee found great quality grass / clover hay for $8.88 a bale. They are selling it for $10 a bale, and we are giving them a tax receipt for the difference. We will be getting about 500 bales. We are also going to be working on getting quotes for a large hay barn, hopefuly we can get a years supply in the springtime each year when it's cheap.

Today we showed horses and Ann Marie came out and volunteered. She got the stalls all clean and gave Dakota a great grooming. Dakota enjoyed it so much, you could see it all over her face.

Great news for 4 of our newer arrivals. Pixie and Indus were placed into adoption pending status, and so was Bi-Gold and Dakota! We are so excited that Bi-Gold and Dakota are getting a forever home where they can live together forever. The plan is for them to go home on Monday.

We want to share a great rescue success story with you. Lucky was rescued from a livestock auction when she was 2 months old back in 2004. She was separated from her mother and driven to the auction with a bunch of other horses for 5 hours. She spent all day at the auction in the summer heat. We bought her for $90.

With lots of love and care Lucky pulled through her ordeal and started growing and showing signs of being happy and healthy.

Lucky was adopted when she was 6 months old to a very wonderful lady.

And here is Lucky Lacing almost 4 years later, still doing great! Her coloring is absolutely unique and beautiful. It is called Lacing, and Equine Color has a great write-up about it. Click Here!

We are so lucky to be able to make a difference in horses lives, and we are so lucky to have you as our friends and supporters to make it possible We have already helped 146 equines this year alone thanks to your support, both financial and emotional.