Worthy Horse Rescue Organizations and Current Needs and Updates
VA_in_CA
Member
I've been thinking about starting a discussion about various Horse Rescue Operations. I've been following Mea Ola's Place and Ponytales Rescue recently and have posted news about two foals with interesting stories, one from each place, on Mare Stare, but many of you don't follow Mare Stare and these two foals are growing up now, so they need to be moved out of Mare Stare. Sadly Ponytales' Owner has been harrassed by trolls recently and so has taken her website and facebook accounts down, so I can't follow them just now. I'll be posting more about Rowdy from Mea Ola's Place in the days ahead. I've also started following HiCalibre, also located in CA, and will post more on that later, too.
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This is Spider, destined to be GREAT. He is a yearling Thoroughbred by Birdstone, winner of the 2004 Belmont Stakes. He is about to be euthanized unless we can help!
[ Pictures and Video can be found at https://www.facebook.com/OperationHorseRescue ]
We were contacted by the owner, as well as the person boarding Spider, to see if we could take him in. Spider most likely sustained a broken pelvis at birth, or possibly in the first few weeks of his life. He was born in Kentucky and did not receive the proper vet care he needed. The good news is that it appears his hip is healed, but he is now crooked. He will never be a riding horse, much less a race horse. His owner has fallen on hard times and is selling his horses, but no one will buy Spider. Because he has a great personality, they thought of us because he could be used in Equine Assisted Therapy. They are out of options and Spider is now facing euthanasia.
We do not have the budget to take another right now, so we are asking for funding for Spider so we can save him. All of our corrals are full at the moment. He will need to be gelded and have a thorough exam with xrays so we will know exactly what happened and how to make sure he stays comfortable. We also need a few folks to commit to a monthly sponsorship for him. The lady currently boarding him will donate a corral for him, but we need a shelter top and wind break. She has also agreed to deworm and vaccinate him before he comes, so we won't have those costs.
Donations can be made through paypal. Judy Stevens, one of our board members, has that set up for us.
Here is the break down of what we need to be able to save him:
Exam and xrays: $300
Gelding: $400
Shelter top and wind break: $500
First 3 months feed, meds, etc: $450
A monthly sponsorship for Spider is $150. Partial sponsorships work great, too. Six people at $25 a month is what we need. Visit our website at www.meaola.com for more info about the monthly sponsorships.
- See more at: http://www.petcaring.com/animal-rescue/saving-spider/42584#sthash.3jRWgqMS.dpuf
Please spread the word by sharing with your contacts, and offer prayers.
This rescue group (Mea Ola's Place) is the real deal, and they use the horses in various therapies with different groups. Today they are working with sexual abuse victims from Ft. Irwin. They also work with various groups of kids. Ann is a Vet Tech and a trainer. I watched her work with Tilly, one of the mares they rescued last winter from a kill lot in Nevada. She's a strawberry roan, quite a pretty girl, whom Ann thinks is quite young--maybe 3 to 5. She was completely wild and so Ann has still not been able to check her teeth. Yesterday Ann was working with a harness, sliding it partially up her nose and then pulling it off and rewarding her with small handfuls of hay. She also put the rope over her ears a few times. Very slow but positive progress.
They are working to build an enclosed building so that Dr. Sam can conduct lameness clinics there. He was Rowdy's savior vet who has gone up there to treat him, and it's a very long way, about 2-hours or more one-way. Mea Ola's Place is in the high desert not far from Victorville (check map), and he is at the beach in Orange County--Mission Viejo (check map). He obviously follows them on facebook because when Ann called him, he knew who Rowdy was. He had previously visited them to treat Mea Ola herself. Recently Mea Ola had a "new-fangled" stem cell treatment and she looked much improved. Poor girl had had multiple leg and foot injuries before she was rescued, in foal. Ann said that Mea Ola survived her pregancy only by lying down about half the time.
For those of you who don't know, Mea Ola is a Hawaiian name that means "survivor." Ann pronounces it "may-OH-la," but she calls the mare, "Mama" because this was Ann's first experience with a foal. She put the whole episode on MareStare, in 2012, and was the most popular page on MareStare at the time. They had over 600 pages of comments. The filly was born in May that year. She is a beautiful black. Mea Ola is black and white. Sassy towers over her mother, and Ann thinks the sire was probably a Thoroughbred and Sassy does have that look, especially the head.
Here I am hugging Rowdy.
And here, he is hugging me. (Horses do that by pressing the side of their head against the side of the human's face. Very special.)
He is just the sweetest boy and very well-mannered for such a very spoiled colt of only 5 months.
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Updates
10/31/2014
by Mea Ola's Place
Thank you everyone! It looks like we are going to make it, we are almost there! We are so close, that I did contact the owner to let him know that we will take him. Please continue to share his story, as Spider is going to need the support and it would help us so much to reach this initial goal for him. I will be returning to see Spider on Sunday and will update with pics and video then. We should be able to bring him to Mea Ola's Place...a place for SURVIVORS...next week.
- See more at: http://www.petcaring.com/animal-rescue/saving-spider/42584#sthash.gaNlh87U.dpuf
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Looks like I'll have to make another trip up to the high desert. I really want to meet this guy.
Here he is: Mine That Bird's and Summerbird's little brother (among many-lol) He's now a yearling, but will officially be two on Jan 1st. He's a contemporary of Ziconic.
As she reported, Spider (half-brother of Mine That Bird) has arrived at Mea Ola's Place and you can see him now on live cam through MareStare. He's in the lower left picture. Ann was just in working on him, giving him some love and reassurance as he adjusts to his new home. He's small, but still young. Officially a yearling until Jan 1, when he will be officially 2. He's a contemporary of Ziconic, but has problems with his butt since he was injured at birth and seems to have suffered a broken pelvis. Maybe he was born of a standing mother. Who knows? He seems able to walk okay. He also has an infected scrape on his right knee just now, and he looks a little undernourished. He's a dark bay.
For those who haven't been following all this, the other 3 cams at Mea Ola's are all on Rowdy. They're a 4-way split on the MareStare Live Cam, listed as Cam 1.
Ann is back in with him again. Lucky for him she's a vet tech. I think she's going to work on his knee, maybe. Yup. Looks like she's washing it.
She's certainly busy this morning. When she's out working around the other horses, Rowdy often whinnies to her. It's so cute.