7-31-09

Lucky's Rescue Story

The weekend rescue story is about Lucky. She was an orphaned foal we rescued in 2004.

Lucky was rescued from a livestock auction at the age of 2 months. Lucky's mother was no where to be found, and no one wanted a poor little orphaned filly, especially as she had an umbilical hernia. When she went through the auction ring, Tawnee's hand seemed to go up on its own, she just had to bring this cute filly back to the rescue!After wining the bid we assumed the auction workers would have put her in a pen by herself. We paid for her, and two other horses we saved that day, and headed out to find her. To our horror we found her in a pen with about 6 cows with long horns! Poor Lucky was extremely scared!

An auction worker stepped up and said "Here, I'll get her out for you." He walked into the pen with a paddle and started whacking on Lucky to get her out. The cows were scattering, dashing this way and that, and one of the horns almost gouged into her neck. Thankfully Lucky emerged unscathed.

We did some research and found out that poor little Lucky had been separated from her mom as her owner was doing a herd dispersal and wanted to cut down on her herd size. The poor little filly with a hernia and weird markings on her back was discarded as an unwanted horse. She was loaded into a trailer with about 20 other horses. She managed to stay alive for the 120 mile trip to the auction they made early that morning. It was well over 100 degrees at the auction that day, and Lucky sat in the hot dusty pen all day until the auction was finally over in mid afternoon. All this at only 2 months of age. We gave her some nourishment and then loaded her into our trailer and took her back to the rescue. You can see Lucky's journey that day on the map below.

Lucky did not take to a bottle, nor was interested in drinking milk from a pale, she absolutely refused. She did, however, enjoy nibbling on hay and All-in-One, and drinking water of course. So we ended up feeding her All-in-One with powdered milk and other vitamins all mixed in. She loved it!

Lucky had weird markings all over her back and we just could not figure out what they were until someone emailed a link to equinecolor.com, and it seemed to fit. Click here to see what the weird markings on Lucky's back are!

Lucky was a cute little girl and adjusted well to living at the rescue.

Every day she discovered new adventures and became brighter and happier.

About a month after the auction it was hard to tell it was the same horse. She was now full of life and energy, yet still only 3 months old.

And she still had amazing markings on her back. They are called Lacing and so her named became Lucky Lacing.

In Dec of 2004 she was adopted by a very sweet lady and started her new life. Lucky was now old enough to have her hernia surgery, so her adopter had it done and the surgery was completely successful.

Lucky is doing great today. The last photo's we have of her are in mid 2007, you can tell that she has grown up to be a beautiful mare!

Her adopter says that everyone asks about the markings on her back. She explains that Lucky is a beautiful horse and is certainly one of a kind.

7-30-09

This is the first time we have ever gone fishing at the rescue. Cleo the Mule certainly didn't need a 110 gallon trough in her pen, so it was dumped out and replaced with a much smaller trough. Unfortunately some fish also got dumped out, so Jason, despite his flu and fever, spent about half a hour catching fish and putting them in the trough. Jessie also came out and joined in on the fish rescue. It's nice that Tawnee is well, but she gave the flu to Jason.

After the fish were safe, Jessie and her friend wanted to help out wherever they could. They helped with fencing and helped take adoption photo's by getting horses to pose. This is Juliet, the Mustang mare who had lost her foal, the one that was looking longingly at the gate when we rescued her from the kb. If you missed her rescue story, click here. She is a nine year old, and is probably around 13 hands or less. She leads, but still needs some direction in that area. She is certainly very cute!

Jessie's brought her friend Janice out to the rescue, she is a long time blog reader and really enjoyed visiting. She has a lot of history in animal rescue and loves to keep up with what is happening out here.

Tawnee asked them if they would like to share in the special moment of Prince's first bath. They were both tickled pink to be able to join in this moment.

Prince wasn't too wild about the whole situation, but he finally got used to the new sensation and his first bath was completed shortly after this photo was taken.

Tawnee had to head off to the vet as there was two horses that were brought in for the euthanasia clinic late. One of them was brought to the rescue, the poor old gelding with cancer and laminitis. The other one was dropped off at the vet yesterday, she was 27 years old and had lived a wonderful life with her owner for over 20 years. Her owner told us she knew it was time. It's always hard saying goodbye to these horses, but knowing that their suffering is over is so comforting.

After the vet Tawnee went shopping for Macho Man. There were some items he just has to have for his big adventure. Between Tractor Supply and Wal Mart we hope we have everything he needs for his first road trip.

We would like to thank Nancy P for her extremely generous donation today. Thank you for donating to save lives Nancy!

7-29-08

We know you are sick and tired of hearing about flat tires. So are we. The tires are in good condition, there are just a lot of nails on the dirt road that like to poke into tires. The tire that was low in yesterdays blog was completely flat this morning, so Jason got right to work and got it changed out to the spare.

Deb came down this morning, hooked her truck up to the trailer and off she and Tawnee went. Somebody had emailed us a horse ad that was very concerning. It was one of our horses that had been adopted out and the ad read: "Selling as brood mare. Do not know anything about this horse is a repo of a loan. Do not have any interest in riding her have gaited horses. She is a great deal at 800. 15 hand black bs mare with white blaze with black erbon spots and right rear fetlock. Great bloodlines and confirmation is broke to ride but has not been ridden for a while. Would need refresher course for the trails. Good for experienced rider only or brood mare, had loud overo black and white foal last year, thining my herd will trade for 2 horse trailer or gaited horse." Tawnee was horrified when she read the ad. A repo? The person didn't know anything about the horse? Something terribly wrong must have happened. She scrolled down on the ad to see the contact information and sure enough, it was the adopters name and phone #. What did she mean she didn't know anything about the horse? A anonymous phone call was made to find out what was going on. The adopter claimed that she got the horse from a sale, yes it was a repo. It was a twisted story and didn't make much sense. But she would make a great broodmare. There are way to many horses out there to just breed indiscriminately. Arrangements were made in the phone call to go see the horse.

When Tawnee and Deb arrived, the lady was definitely surprised to see them. She said we could just have her and to go get her. Soon Checkers was in the trailer and on her way to the rescue. Any horse that is adopted from us is welcome to come back at any time. If the horse isn't working out, or you find that you don't have time for it, just bring it back!

It was a long drive heading back to rescue, it was very hot. Tawnee and Deb saw a beautiful river alongside the road, so they pulled over for a quick cool-off stop.

And splash, Deb jumped in clothes and all.

Tawnee was more reluctant, she hates wet jeans, but in the end Deb threatened to throw her in, so she mustered up the courage to brave the icy water.

Once they were on the road again they headed to Dancer's foster home. She is a beautiful girl and unrecognizable from the skeleton that walked into our rescue last year. We have a potential adopter interested in her so it was time for her to come back to the rescue.

Meanwhile at the rescue, hay was being delivered! This time it was only $7.50 a bale, with a $20 delivery charge. Can it get cheaper this year? Probably not. It is so wonderful that hay is getting reasonable once again.

Home at Last Sanctuary had a couple openings, so they came down to the rescue. They really like Midge and he has now found his forever home where he will never have to be ridden or any other demands put upon him that he is not physically capable of performing.

They also took Sweety Pie into their sanctuary as well. She is going to be buddies with Ranger, so they will have their own teenage gang up there. Thank you so much Home at Last for opening your doors to these two special horses.

Deb and Tawnee arrived back at the rescue safely this evening. The horses seemed happy to be back at the rescue and settled in nicely.

Jason has been working very diligently on the truck and today he drove it around the rescue for awhile. It is almost road worthy and should be hauling water this week. He got the water pump mounted on the side and only a new gas cap, air filter bolt and hoses remain to be installed. It is rolling on its own wheels though.

Thank you so much Taryn M. and anonymous for your monthly donations that came in today. Your support is greatly appreciated, we certainly can not do it without your help!

7-28-09

This morning Jason headed to town to get parts for the water truck. The list of needed parts was very small, so he was back in short order.

After Jason arrived back at the rescue Tawnee headed to the vet to pick up a couple horses we had out there that were ready to come back to the rescue. On the way she stopped at some property that is for sale that is relatively close to the vet. It is nice, but it is pretty much bare. It has 2 big barns on it used for agriculture. Everything else would have to be from scratch.

It has cell service, on the paved road, and lots of naturally occurring water. This pretty creek is on the property and is flowing really good. We have no idea if this property is a good place for NorCal or not, but it is always good to check areas out that may be a possibility. This 30+ acre property does have the 3 top priorities: high speed Internet, on a paved road, and lots of water.

After Tawnee was done drooling over the property, she headed to the vet. Midge greeted her happily and was more than willing to hop into the trailer for the ride back to the rescue. We're hoping we can get to the bottom of his problems soon.

This girl, Ginger, had her teethe floated and hopefully she can start gaining weight. She was able to come back to the rescue today as well. She came from the last auction and has a long way to go. She's an older mare and we're hoping that her life takes a brighter turn.

Finally everyone was loaded and Tawnee was ready to head out.

A few miles from the vet she noticed that there was a low tire on the trailer. It looked like it was getting lower too. She stopped, and couldn't hear any air coming out, so she decided not to change it but rather find air at a gas station. You would think it would be easy to get air at a gas station. But no, not today. First she had to find 75 cents. After digging around she finally found a dollar. She went inside the store to tell them she needed some air and to exchange the dollar for some quarters. She went out to the machine and tried to stick the money in. The machine was very ungrateful and didn't want to accept her money. She peered in through the coin slot and saw other money jammed in there. Apparently the machine was not hungry.

Tawnee went back into the gas station and said that the air machine was not working. The person said "No problem, I'll turn it right on for you." Tawnee headed back out and waited a bit, and sure enough, it came right on. It wouldn't take any money, but at least it was filling up the tire.

Back at the rescue Deb was evaluating one of the horses, Holiday. When it came time to tighten the cinch on the saddle, Holiday leaped into the air and reared. After they were able to calm her down and let her know everything was ok, they took the saddle off. They put the saddle against the panels on the round pen. Holiday went over and started shoving the saddle around like she was fed up with saddles and never wanted to see one again. After her temper tantrum she calmed off by taking a nice long roll.

Meanwhile Jason was still working on the water truck. He did get it started and running under its own power, now it just needs to get some bugs worked out and it'll be ready to haul some water!

Tawnee took a nice gentle stroll up the hill on I'm Not Teasin' as the sun was setting. Mostly because she didn't feel like leading him all the way up to his pen and it was easier to hop on his back. She's almost recovered from being sick but still doesn't have a lot of extra energy. Teasin' first came into our rescue 900 horses ago. We are always more than happy to open our doors to one of our horses if their adoptive family is no longer able to keep them.

The sun was dropping below the trees, signifying another long, hot day was drawing to a close.

We would like to thank Gail G. and Jenn F. for donating today. Your generosity is awesome!

7-27-09

Tawnee was still sick in bed with the flu so less than half of what normally happens on a given day at the rescue happened, but she was able to answer the phone today and talked to a lot of people. On a normal day the rescue gets about 50 phone calls.


After Jason was done with his chores and her chores, it was off to visit a previous donor. A great big yellow tow-truck followed Jason to their place.


They were selling a 2,000 gallon water truck for almost nothing, and so after visiting it yesterday we all felt it could serve the purpose of moving water to the rescue when the well has a hard time keeping up very well. We're also hoping to water the road on busy days to keep dust under control.

The motor wouldn't start, so it had to be towed to the rescue. Fortunately it was only a few miles away so towing expenses were negligible. Soon the water truck was hooked up and ready to go.

A quick turn around and they were on the road.

Soon it was being pulled into the rescue.

It was backed into position, the tow truck unhooked and soon it was sitting there all by itself.

In no time at all Jason was under the hood making it go. He reports that it did run today, but that it needs a new fuel system which should be installed tomorrow. It will be so nice to have a source of water on wheels!

We would like to thank Wal-Mart for donating a bunch of feed today, and many thanks to April and Larry for picking it up and delivering it. It is so wonderful to have volunteers that are able to lend a helping hand. It really helps when Jason or Tawnee don't have to drop everything and rush into town when Wal-Mart calls.