1-20-09

We got a great update about two of the horses that were adopted from us sometime ago. Donna adopted Dollar (formerly Looney) and Red and sent us the following update. "Red has put on quite a bit of weight and he looks so much better. That is the sweetest horse besides my mare. He nuzzles me on my face, but I don't take that for granted I am still careful. I was freezing cold one night. He had colic one day and I had to rush to his side and get him up and walk him around. It was freezing cold, dark night except for the moon. I only had on a thin pair of pants, a thin shirt and a hoodie jacket. Red and my mare must of realized that I was cold they both got on each side of me and nuzzled real close until I was warm. Might of been a coincident, but I don't think so. They both just love each other... Looney is growing up, a little bit. He isn't as mean to Red anymore. Looney is a smart individual. I told him to give me his rope and he brought it over and dropped it on the ground. Then he had his grain bucket and dropped it on the ground. I told him to pick it up and bring it to me. To my surprise he did. He picked up the bucket and brought it over and placed it in my hand and let go. He is pretty smart guy." Thanks for giving them such a great home!

Dollar and Red were both rescued from a feedlot in Nevada together. It is so wonderful they can live their lives out together forever. Fallon Nevada is a really bad spot for horses, as you can read further about in todays blog.

Jason's tax receipt prison sentence is almost up. He started stuffing the brochures this morning, but after doing hundreds, his hands got tired.

So he recruited some others to help, and in short order they were all stuffed and ready to go. Later in the day Jason headed to town to mail the receipts, and had to stamp them all at the Post Office. Thankfully, they don't sell lick and stick stamps anymore... You should have your receipt within a week, if not, contact us ASAP and we'll email you one.

Ron worked with the horses today, maybe the last sunny day for awhile. Jakey Boy was evaluated and he is a great guy, loves to be ridden and is very easy going. No doubt we will have a home for him soon. Hopefully.

Tawnee was still sorting tack today, those girl scouts sure brought up a bunch! But, why is she staring at the laptop? Did she get bored and have to watch TV? No, she is watching the Fallon Livestock Exchange auction, streaming live. She wanted to bid on some horses and save them from certain death, but unfortunately you have to register for a bidding number 24 hours before the auction.

It was really hard for Tawnee to sit back and watch horses run through the auction, knowing there was nothing she could do to save them. She felt so hopeless. She waved her hands frantically in the air but the auctioneer did not pay her any mind, being many miles away. Watching them run through and knowing what will happen to them is so hard. Here is one of the horses being ran through. It's a shame that no doubt this horse will be slaughtered soon.

In Fallon, NV, at auctions such as above, horses are referred to as "dier" horses, simply because they are going to die. The auction ring is one of their last few steps these horses will take before ending up at a slaughter house. In California there are certainly plenty of killer buyers, but they have to pretty much keep quiet as it is illegal, although never enforced. The first time we went to this auction, in Fallon, was in 2005. After the auction a man drove up to the truck and asked Tawnee "So you save horses, do you want to save some more?" It seems there were about 70 yearlings on the reservation we could have for $70-$80 a piece. "They'll be shipping out in the morning if you don't take them." In California thankfully you don't hear things like that, but sadly, that means they just ship out without a chance. Even now we are not set up to handle that many wild horses, much less in 2005.

Another auction over in Fallon, if you look at their auction report, they say the following:

It really shows how horses are considered over there. We would love to expand our rescue operation into Nevada on a more regular basis. There are horses everywhere that need us, but we are limited by the donations we receive. A Nevada auction rescue can generally entail three days away from the rescue, but with Ron and Claire able to watch over everything, Nevada auction rescues may become more common. We used to do a lot of Feedlot rescues over in Fallon, but the feedlot starting raising the prices, while we knew for a certainty the auction prices the feedlot was paying was dropping. And simply, we could rescue more horses by going directly to the auctions ourselves without enriching the feedlot. We are hoping with your continued support to start saving these wonderful horses in Nevada from a most certain death.

On a brighter note, there has been a package at the Post Office for us since Thursday. Unfortunately every time someone was at the Post Office they were closed. And with the Holidays, we were just dying to see what the package was. Today Jason was able to pick it up. We just love getting packages from Horse.com, knowing that someone went on there and ordered the rescue horses some wonderful things.

Well, sure enough, it was a big, heavy box from Horse.com.

Tawnee couldn't open it fast enough. Any guesses as to what was inside?

Well, enough halters to last awhile! Maybe you remember our color co-ordinated halter scheme, if not, click here. They were great while we had them, but, Tawnee kept selling them off to people who didn't have a halter. We would sell them for more than we paid, but soon they were all gone...

Now, we have enough to last a while and Tawnee has been told not to sell any more of the pretty halters. She can sell the old ones that come in on horses. Tawnee is holding all 40 of the brand new halters. And she even managed a smile.

Tawnee headed off to put the new halters away. This is how the halter area was looking: pretty sparse. Now, it's all co-ordinated and all the colors are neatly stacked together, so if Tawnee says "Get me a medium halter" just grab a black one. If anyone wonders why there is a blue halter in the lime section, well you see, it was very dark when Tawnee was putting them up in the tack room, but the camera flash revealed a slight problem.

A huge Thank You to Kim and Rico, again, for their generosity, this time in providing these wonderful halters. We can't thank you enough!