Wow, sometimes it seems like there is not even time to breathe at our tiny little rescue. I arrived home from Nevada with Tawny and Mika with one day to spare before the Shingletown Summer Faire. I then spent the one day making cheesecakes so we could do our donation to the medical center. On Saturday, we headed over to Camp McCumber for a day of fun with the kids during the fundraiser. I was considering taking Mika and Tawny, but it seemed like that would have been pushing it. Tawny had barely had hands on for a bit over a week, and was still very reactive and trying to settle in. We knew that DaBubbles was always a hit with the kids, so we decided I should take him. There were probably 40+ kids that stopped by and got to feed DaBubbles a bit of hay and hang out with him. The smiles on their faces always make the effort worthwhile, although I was reeling a bit from the last week. However, it was a great day and I found out that I had definitely made the correct decision when they landed the medical helicopter on the grass next to us. Dabubbles could have cared less. He was all about the kids and that noisy, windy contraption didnt bother him in the least. (You have to remember, he survived a mountain lion attack and he is a tough little guy, so it was just another day in the park to him. He is just too cool for school unless you leave him alone. Ever since the attack a few years ago, he does not ever want to be by himself.) I got home and gave Matt a big hug. I was so relieved that all of our obligations and schedules had been met, (with the exception of the Santa Cruz event - due to the baby call - and when we get those, the rest of the world stops as we all know). Finally, I told him, we can stay home. About an hour later the next call came, and it was for a Different Kind of Rescue. For close to a year, we have been trying to get a horse out of a pretty horrible situation. The horse had been completely alone for about two years, and had been living in a stall for about 6 years. Little did we know what we were really going to find. After all the time that had passed, we had the option to pull him but we would have to leave the next day and head out to Covina. So much for my plans. Guess God was having a good giggle again. I feel like I am riding on a train, and God has planned out the direction we are going and life goes best when I just sit back and enjoy the ride and He will put in front of us what He wants us to do. However, sometimes I make Him giggle when I start trying to make my own plans. This was one of those cases. No staying home for us. :) We quickly lined up our crew to take care of the place and the babies while we were gone. Our son Travis and his girlfriend Marion stepped up once again to make sure everyone was taken care of. Normally we would not leave the babies behind, but Tawny was doing well enough after a week of good food, meds and munchies, and Mika is very healthy, just in need of some training. So we decided not to put them through the approximately 1200 mile trip. We do like to take them on shorter trips as we end up with babies who travel easily and with no stress. They will lay down if they are tired and hop in and out much better than horses who have not ridden in a trailer very often. We headed down Sunday afternoon and picked up Sarjah the next day. Sarjah ended up being a personal rescue as opposed to being part of the Chilly Pepper - Miracle Mustang rescue. What this means is his care, like Magics, is personally funded as opposed to being funded by donations. This was necessary as the only way I was allowed to pick up this horse was to promise to keep him as my personal horse. Just the fact that we were able to get him out of his situation, which actually was even more horrific than we were apprised of, made it all worthwhile. Normally we focus, and that is always our priority, on the neonatal, critically ill or injured orphans, and that will always be our priority. However, we do have the Equine Rescue & More for a reason. We have rescued ducks, squirrels, chipmunks, not to mention cats and dogs. We have to turn so many calls down that is is a continuous heartbreak, but it seems that God guides us in the direction that we are supposed to go if we just listen. Out of all the horses that we have rescued, with the exception of Dakota, a string horse, I never knew what they looked like or saw photos of them a head of time. This was also the case with Sarjah. We knew he was an Arabian, but agreed to take him on long before we ever saw him. When we picked him up I was pleasantly surprised as he is quite a pretty boy. However, we had no idea who we were bringing home at the time. This horse has been horrifically abused and has obviously been hit. The lady we got him from apparently had a neighbor kid who was terrorizing folks, using BB guns, breaking stuff, stealing stuff and genuinely was out of control. As far as anyone knows, he was most likely the cause of the trauma; that and being alone for two years and stuck in a stall with little to no contact and sometimes irregular feeding. On the way home, we pulled in to a rest area and spend the night in the trailer. In his condition, constant bracing in the trailer while traveling would be so much work and cause him quite a bit of stress as he was forced to use muscles that had atrophied a great deal. He is extremely food aggressive, is great at letting fly with both hind feet and is a very angry and unsure animal. I found out the hard way about the food aggression when he let fly with those hoofers towards my head. He is not a mean horse, but there is oh so much anger and he is actually dangerous right now as he has no boundaries and apparently did whatever he wanted when he was mishandled during the last six years. You can tell that he was deliberately tormented and he cannot trust anyone right now. He is almost more frightened if you are loving on him and being nice. You can tell by his body language and his eyes that he is just waiting for that punch, slap or whatever they got him with. So now our latest rescue has turned into an emotionally devastated mind and spirit, as opposed to a starving or physically ill one. We were completely shocked as the folks that were involved in the rescue kept telling us how amazing he had been and how he loved loves and kids etc. They were actually horrified when they saw the physical condition he was in and learned that he had turned from a well trained, healthy and happy horse to the emotional mess that he now is. So we are taking it one day at a time, giving him a routine and he is starting to bond with all the other critters. For the first couple of days he did not even acknowledge any of the other animals, but at the zoo, there is so much going on that he could hardly help himself and started paying attention to all the interaction going on around him. We are looking for so many prayers for him as he is just so emotionally devastated. When he gets a trigger, it is like hitting a light switch. He goes from being nervous to very angry and those ears go back and his eyes go hard. He is actually quite frightening in those moments, so we have to make sure that he knows who is in charge and that he is not the alpha. But this has to be done every so carefully and with great thought to personal safety. Hopefully in time these incidents will subside and he will once again learn that there are people he can trust and who will protect him and make sure he gets food everyday. He is not starving, but has no muscle tone from standing still so long. So begins the journey of Sarjah into his new life. I have to say that his favorite horses here are the baby girls, whom he calls for when they are out of his sight, and Magic, our other rescued Arabian. The two of them are pretty evenly matched temperament wise and are bonding up quickly. I have to say that is is much easier and safer to take a completely wild and untouched horse and gentle that one than to work with a horse who has been improperly handled and gotten away with bad and dangerous behavior. I have to say that is why the wild ones are so much easier to train. They learn boundaries from their families in the wild and know about respect. It is people who do the most damage to the psyche of the horses. Gee, once again, the people, NOT THE HORSES, are the issue. The week ended with an emergency call about 3 orphan kittens. Of course we picked them up, so they are settling in nicely and of course need to be fed every few hours. So far their health seems to be pretty good, but we are always in need of prayers for these critters. As always, we are so grateful to God for allowing this to be our lifes mission. Even more so, we are always thankful for all you wonderful folks who make this all possible and who send your prayers and love. We are looking forward to more visits from folks who want to see the latest babies, (and maybe want to adopt a halter trained little one) and come visit. Thank you and God bless! Palomino Armstrong
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 21:54:14 +0000
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