3-8-09

First thing this morning Tawnee got Smokey out of the pasture and got him ready to go to his forever home. He looked so excited to be going on a grand new adventure, he may now know what is happening, but he can trust us that he is going somewhere great.



Tawnee and Deb arrived at the auction while tack was still being sold. There weren't too many horses there today, so the sale went quickly. Before Tawnee knew it the auction was over and we had saved about half of them.

After saying "Hello" to the newly rescued horses, Tawnee, Becky and Deb went out to meet up with Smokey's adopter. Poor guy had waited patiently in the trailer for a couple hours. He had his own large stall and he didn't mind the wait one bit. His adopter was so happy with him. They weren't at the auction yard too long before they met up with a goat. This poor little goat was destined to be a topping on taco's at the auction cafe, and Smokey's adopter made sure that sad fate did not happen to the poor goat. So they took a wonderful horse and a cute little goat home today.

After Smokey and Taco goat were off to their new home, Deb grabbed the lead ropes to start finding and sorting all of our horses in the pens.

Poor sad dejected faces. They had a glimmer of hope, which sprang into sheer excitement when they realized that they were coming to the rescue.

Soon horses were being loaded into our trailer. This is the same horse pictured above. This poor guy's entire body is caked with mud. We can't imagine what his home must have been like.

As we were loading our horses to our horror we saw a giant box van backing up to the cattle chute. Surely they were not going to be loading any animals in there? Our first thought was maybe someone was going to put some sheep, cows, maybe a goat in there? Surely not a horse! Sure enough, a man had purchased two horses and was proceeding to load them into his box van with slick floors and no ventilation. What was he planning on doing to get them out? Just open the door and make them jump the 4' to the ground? Thankfully the auction owners and workers made it quite clear that this was not an option for this man or his horses. So he pulled away from the loading ramps to decide what he was going to do.

These poor horses, they were the ones purchased by the man above. Tawnee, Becky and Deb felt so bad for these poor horses, so they decided to scrape up the funds to purchase them. Surely the man would want to make an extra $50 or so.

So the haggling began. "Give you $500 for those horses." Nope. "What about $550?" "Nope, I want to make a method for training them." "$600." Nope. "$650!" Nope. Tawnee walked away feeling very hopeless, the man only paid $175 each for them, and he didn't even want to make double. Tawnee, Deb and Becky felt so bad for these horses, anyone that would put horses into a box van with no ventilation should not be owning a horse. Tawnee told Becky "Let's give one last effort, tell him we'll give him $1,000." After discussing it with his wife he said no once again.

Finally he arranged with someone else to transport the horses, so Tawnee Becky and Deb sat back and watched the trailer pull out of the auction yard following the box van. What lies ahead for these horses? It's a scary thought. KB's aren't the only ones at auctions that should not be buying horses. The sad thing about auctions is that anyone can buy a horse, whether they know how to put a halter on or not. And he didn't.

After all our horses were loaded there were 2 horses that we did not have room for. We got them settled and comfortable for the night. We are planning on picking them up tomorrow.

Becky headed home while Tawnee and Deb got ready to make the trip back to the rescue. Hoping to get back before sundown...

...but as their luck would have it, about 15 miles from the auction someone rolled down their window and yelled "You have a flat tire!" Sure enough, the tire was going low. Tawnee looked in the back of the truck for the trailer ramp and it wasn't there. Her second thought was "Well, we have AAA!"

Ironically they were pulled over right across from an AAA office. On the other end of the phone she heard discouraging words "We don't do trailers. Even if we did you would have to take all of the horses out of the trailer before we could change a flat tire." Tawnee tried to reason with the operator that it was not an option, but she stuck firmly to her script. Tawnee's pleading words were "All I need is a trailer ramp, I'll do it myself!" No luck there.

Deb and Tawnee started putting their heads together. There has to be some way to get this tire changed! Tawnee loosened the lug nuts while Deb looked around for something that could help.

Soon Deb had found little bags of rocks, she piled them up and Tawnee backed up onto the bags of rocks to get the flat tire suspended in the air. It worked!

Soon the spare was being rolled back to be put on.

Tawnee tightened down the lug nuts and double checked them to make sure they were good and snug.

Then, all the little bags with rocks were put back where they found them. It's always good when you are in a situation that looks hopeless to look around, find a solution, and make it happen! Don't give up.

Finally at 9:30 pm they were back at the rescue.

Tawnee said "Hi" to the horses and took pictures of them again.

And then they started coming out the back.

They all settled in to eating, drinking, and they all seem quite happy.

While Tawnee was at the auction we had visitors. 10 girls from the Signma Alpha Agricultural Sorority CSU Chico came out today to help out how they could.

They made the mare motel truly shine today. Many hands make light work indeed.

Jason, Ron and Claire showed horses to people interested in adopting and kept the rescue in operating order today.