3-2-09

We are extremely pleased to announce we have received two offers of donation matches today. One is for the euthanasia clinic, and the person will match all donations up to $750. The second person has generously offered to match donations for auction fund, up to $1,000. Your donation dollars will go even farther!

The auction fund is currently at $989 for the rescue and care of horses. Only 6 days left, but we know that together we can save lives from slaughter.

We received an email from Dawn, one of Habitat for Horses' volunteers. Tawnee asked her to write up an email just for our blog and she wrote: "We really need the help to keep in the top 20 to move on to the next division of the contest, which is the shelter visit! Please join us at http://www.zootoo.com/. When you get there you need to register and use Habitat for Horses as your shelter and rescue and the zip code is 77563. This contest is for a Million Dollar Shelter Makeover. If we can win we could help so many more equines have a better life! Rescue them from going to slaughter, abuse, neglect, starvation and the list goes on and on as we both know. Visit Zootoo and show us pics and videos of your beautiful babies, make comments on news articles, play pet wars, review products and services, answer questions and all these help us accumulate points to stay in the top 20."

As Norcal Equine Rescue is not in the running for the $1,000,000 rescue makeover, we believe that Habitat for Horses does a great work and so we would like you to vote for them. They were hit by a terrible storm last year and lost a lot of their facilities. This makeover would help them out a lot.
We would like to thank all the shoppers who enter our Care Code on Horse.com. So far this month we have received over $100 simply because you entered our code. Our main Country Care code, which we prefer you use, is "NorCal" We also have "savethehorse" and "Norcalequinerescue". Any of these care codes will send 5% of your order to the rescue. Thanks to you shoppers and thanks to Horse.com for your generosity in providing this program.
Tawnee did some more research on Jockey's today. One person stated on our blog comments that none of the horses that crashed in the video were injured. The trainers could have easily told the film crew the horses were fine while the horses were hobbling out the back onto the kb truck. They also stated that all the MEC International Racetracks have an anti-slaughter policy in place. The fact is, we are still rescuing straight off the track TB's at auctions. Yes, the trucks may not shipping directly to slaughter, they are processed through the formality of auction first. Many of the TB's that are in the racing industry have no idea how a normal horse should live.


Just a City Guy, a 4 year old stallion, now gelded, we rescued from auction a month ago, came with a Breeders Cup racing certificate stapled to his Jockey Club papers. He is recently off the track. He is in a large pen, but he stands in one corner with one of his hinds leg trembling while his front legs slowly step up and down in place, with his head raised high. He unfortunately is psychologically damaged from being confined in a small box stall at racetracks his entire life. We are trying to teach him that it is ok to relax and just be a horse. Just the other day for the first time since coming to the rescue he was actually standing in the sun, soaking up the sunbeams with his neck and head relaxed and lowered. Claire couldn't believe it was the same horse. Many TB's off the track have been psychologically damaged and have to learn how to be a horse. It's truly sad.


If you would like to comment on Animal Planet's website about Jockey's, click here. You'll have to scroll to the bottom of the page where you can comment. Animal Planet needs to know that having a show about an industry that treats horses as disposable should not be aired.


Today was a rainy soggy day. Claire worked on email's, Tawnee is still trying to recover from the flu and Jason headed off to a meeting.

We had been asked by the Coalition for Animal Welfare and Support group to come visit a meeting to get a feel for how their meetings go to prepare ourselves to give a full presentation to them. Jason headed off in the pouring rain with nothing but an address to try and find the place. Unfortunately, the GPS did not recognize the street address as being a correct address, so Jason was fearful he would be unable to find the location. Sure enough, driving around Nevada City, Ca in the dark, there was nothing coming in sight that made the least bit of sense. This way and that, up one street down the other. As the time for the meeting to start passed, Jason finally gave up and called Tawnee.

Tawnee looked the location up on Mapquest and told him to try to get his GPS navigation to navigate to a cross street close to the meeting. Another 2 miles in one of the least illuminated towns in America, and Jason was there.

Jason thoroughly enjoyed the presentation by Hartsong Ranch. They do a great work with blind, lame, and other disabled animals including horses. Click here for their website.

As the C.A.W.S. group were finishing up their meeting they asked Jason to introduce himself and tell everyone who he is. You can see his response in the video below. If you cannot see the video, click here. Thank you C.A.W.S. for opening the floor for Jason to speak!

Hopefully the rain will let up enough for more people to decide they really do want to adopt a horse.