Check out the news and events page for some great upcoming events in 2015 benefiting the Rescue!
Also coming up is Giving Tuesday, December 2nd.  And you can create your own fundraising campaign for Bear Valley Rescue through Canada Helps - check out their campaign creation page by clicking on the 'fundraise now' button!  We'll also be starting our 'fill the Christmas tree for the animals' fundraiser on December 1st - we had great success last year from all of your, our supporters, and filled TWO trees!

We were so thankful for the extended lovely fall weather but now winter is here full force!  About a foot of snow fell over the last day and the temperatures sure dropped.  We got a lot (but not all unfortunately!) of the fencing done and we're hoping the weather will improve by the end of the week so we can get more done, maybe even get it ALL done, plus we HAVE to get a couple of shelters built.  Today we have to brave the roads to try and get the remaining 20 or so horses still out on pasture back to the Rescue.  One trip we had to do we were able to put off to the weekend, thank goodness, as it would have involved driving east of Calgary and back with a couple of side trips in between.
We had 2 intakes last week, both Thoroughbreds, made possible through the efforts of quite a few people both before and after their arrival!  Thank you to Mary Ellen Lickfold, Jaclyn Skorpack, Marcie Thompson, Evelyn Sabraw (R3 Equine Rehab) and friends, Renee Ptolemy and Terri Bodell for helping save these horses and secure their future (and shine a light on their past):
Tucker is from the auction, he's a big, beautiful dark bay/brown gelding, about 12 years old.  Tucker was run through the auction with absolutely no information at all and was being bid on by only the meat buyer.  Tucker seems very friendly and quiet (especially for a Thoroughbred!), was obviously raced as he has blistering on his cannon bone and a lip tattoo.  He doesn't appear to be unsound but we'll have to see.  We will try and trace his tattoo - by what I figure it is, he'd be from Illinois.  Not sure how likely that would be?  He's already had his teeth floated and is putting on weight.
Tyler is an older sorrel gelding, supposed to be 19 years of age.  Someone became concerned because he wasn't being cared for or fed properly and was very underweight, especially with winter coming (which it sure did!).  The owner apparently got Tyler for free on kijiji as a companion for his mare but they didn't get along, and the owner was not making any attempt to care for him.  We were able to trace his tattoo and his registered name is Little Taylor and he's actually 24 years old.  Tyler is in poor condition but we've already had his teeth floated (he still has all his teeth, which is good) and he's looking better every day with the extra rations he's getting and all the hay he can eat. 

Speaking of teeth floating, Chanel, Colton and Russa also had their teeth floated this past week.  Russa has so few teeth that they don't meet up so she needs annual dental work to keep them even.  Colton, even though he's only 7, had a lot of sharp points (as did both Tyler and Tucker) and Colton also had ulcers on both cheeks as a result.  Poor guy must have been very uncomfortable but he'll do much better now.

Esperanza's adoption has been finalized and Felicity has been adopted. Zaz came back last week from his foster home, thank you Carolyn for having him for the last year and a half as a companion to your horse, and then Zaz left on the weekend to a new foster home to be a companion to a blind horse, thank you Anne!
We have a sponsor for Colton, hank you Jennifer Graydon for sponsoring Colton!

Sadly we had to say goodbye to Munsie a couple of weeks ago.  Munsie was a cute little mare that came from an estate dispersal a couple of years ago.  She was pregnant at the time and had a sweet little foal, Thunder, born that spring, but little Thunder was premature and though he seemed to be doing well he only lived 2 short weeks before passing away.  Munsie was unsound when she came in to the Rescue and she had ongoing issues with abscesses that progressively got worse.  It became apparent that there wasn't going to be any improvement and we had to make the decision to let her go.  Thank you to Janine, her foster, for caring for Munsie over the last few months, and to Julie, of Julie's Natural Hoof Trimming, for her work on Munsie.