Most of the horses have been moved to pasture (they are so happy to be on grass!) and with only about 50 left to move we thought things would slow down a bit and give us a break.  It was not to be.  We became aware of some animals at a feedlot and ended up purchasing them. With the help of some wonderful people who hauled them for us (a good 6 hour trip one way) they arrived on Sunday, May 22nd.  We've already found a foster home for Midas, the palomino gelding, and for Robin, the pony mare!

After agreeing to take in the above horses, we found out about a bunch of young horses at the same feedlot (sadly there's no shortage as every day he has more pregnant mares and yearlings and you name it, all heading to slaughter usually within a week).  I hoped we could take in the 10 yearlings and within a few hours of posting about it on facebook we'd managed to raise enough funds to do so!  A huge thanks to everyone who donated and to  Four Feet Companion Foundation for the emergency grant of $1250 to cover half the purchase price of the horses.  Once again people stepped up to help with the hauling which was sincerely appreciated.

In order to make room for the new arrivals we moved our other yearlings, that have been here since last year, down to pasture next to the main herd.  Comparing these youngsters to the sorry horses that arrived from the feedlot, you can see what neglect and poor nutrition does to them.   And of course with the moving around of the horses, the main herd had to come in to see what was up, which resulted in lots of running around and excitement. 

This coming week we will be very busy with our farrier who will be here for 3 days.  We'll also be taking Robin, Nosey and Warrior to their summer foster home.

Spring has been here for a while, which is SO appreciated  as we can often have snow into May.  The grass is growing and we are moving the horses out to pasture as we are able.  We've had quite a few intakes, adoptions and a couple of foals born at the Rescue, which has kept us very busy.

Adopted since February were Preston, Aero, Zendaya, Idle Promises,  Renegade (who  was adopted out about 5 years ago and just came back), Bullet, Trigger, Charger (who was adoption pending but that fell through but he was adopted by someone else), Lido, Savannah, Chloe and her foal, Checkers and her foal-to-be, Nicker and her foal, Moritz,  Augin, Dallas,  Fuji, Mercy and Safftron (to The Alice Sanctuary, along with Lilly and Logan, 2 of the cows),  Roche, Simba, and Chaplain!  Highway, Cider,  and Stoney are going out to be worked with and if they are suitable will also be adopted.  

 We had some intakes in addition to the 2 foals that were born.  New additions include Nosey, Warrior, Presto, Honey,  Shantique, and Pogo.     Several of them were in bad shape but all are now doing well.

We had some extremely sad events in April and May.   Pet, our oldest resident horse, was euthanized quietly 12 days before her 40th birthday.  Pet was here for nine years, years we will forever be grateful for.  She was such a kind old spirit and her passing has left a huge void.    Silver Wishes had to be euthanized due to a severe colic episode that she could not recover from.  She came to us in such bad shape in December but  she captured everyone's heart.    Our heartfelt thanks to Barrie and Karen for fostering her and giving her a wonderful few months.   Yola, our female turkey, passed suddenly one night.  She was such a lovely bird,  and she is also missed.  Very tragically, Wilbur the steer passed suddenly  in May.  Our hearts go out to  Krystle, his foster mom.  She was rushing him to the vet because he was sick, but he died in the trailer before he could be helped.

We had an online auction this spring and raised over $2,800!  Thanks also go out to:  Lisa Cameron for your donation from your 7th birthday; Kathy Hetherington from Wild Ridge Stables for coming out and working with some of the youngsters; Pets for Life Society for the grants toward our vet bills;  Community Natural Foods in Calgary for the donation of  $1,069.75 (!) from their bag program in April;  Shelby Hirsch for creating some nice posters for us;  Hands of Hope-School of Hope for the donation of hay and for coming out for a tour;  Donna for the donation of a trailer to sell, what a big donation!; Courier Equine Park in Androssan for the $50 donation from Christmas;  and Sarah Walters and Sonny for the $200 donation from Sonny's 30th birthday party! We had a good bit of support at The Mane Event, we raised $775 through 'Donate A Bale' (thanks Leane and Tracy!). 

Thank you once again to Denis and Ted from Denis Gobet Hoof Trimming for coming down with your tipping table and trimming all the 'unhandled' horses. We did 70 horses over 2 days.  So good to see everyone with nicely trimmed feet!

​We have been offered 40 acres of hay in the Okotoks area and are looking for someone to hay it for us.  If you can help, please email us at [email protected]

We started doing freeze branding again (we did 12 horses this week) and hope to be able to get all our horses done this year.  Freeze branding them with our brand will help us to ensure that they never end up at auction  or at the slaughterhouse.  We hope to offer  previous adopters the option of bringing their Bear Valley horses to the Rescue for branding in the near future.  We'll keep everyone posted about that through this blog.  We had several of the horses' teeth floated in May and have more to do later this week.  Spirit, Denali, Zebity and Simon were gelded.  Denali also managed to get a nasty cut on his front leg but at least he did that about 5 minutes before the vet arrived to float teeth, so he got stitched right up and it is healing nicely.

I have collected some figures from 2015, a busy and successful year! - 
Intakes  -   2 foals born, 1 calf born; 2 mules, 5 donkeys, 8 rabbits, 294 poultry, 1 goat, and 71 horses (includes 19 returns)
In foster homes -  45 horses (including 2 mules and 2 donkeys) and 4 cows
Adopted to new homes - 53 horses (including 2 donkeys) and  245 poultry
Raised funds through:  used tack sales - $8,513; online auction sales - $7,178; donated through The Tack Collector - $3,251!!  Thank you so much to Mary Ellen Lickfold for your hard work and to Kathleen from The Tack Collector for your support.
​

We've been enjoying an unusually mild February, which we are especially thankful for as we're going through a LOT less hay with the milder temperatures. 

The final total for our Christmas fundraiser was an amazing $17,093!  We had our second annual Valentine's fundraiser that ran Feb 1st to Feb 14th and raised over $700.  Thank you everyone who bought a valentine for their favourite Bear Valley resident!

A 'shout out' to Pets for Life Society for their ongoing support by helping pay for our vet bills.  You've been a godsend!    Thank you to Alberta Morgan Horse Youth Club for the donation of $300 from the Beaumont Youth Show 2015.  Thank you Robin Baril for selecting Bear Valley Rescue as your charity of choice for The Centre for Learning@Home 'casual Friday' pool.   Thank you to Big Country Midstream Projects for donating over 50 LARGE square bales of straw from a past Atco project and for hauling it all the way out to us.  It has and will come in very handy as bedding!    Thank you to Lori Hoppe of Soul Equine Performance Massage for the $200 donation from your workshop.  Thank you once again to Spruce Meadows for donating feed from their warehouse.    Thank you Tammy Badry for donating $122 that was collected for the Rescue at your wedding - what a nice idea!  Thank you Deanna from AARCS for bringing out about 15 bags of feed.  Thank you Paige for bringing us 20 bales of lovely hay.

We had a busy few days at the beginning of February with hoof trimming and deworming.  Thank you to everyone who lent a hand, we got a lot done. 

We have had a couple of intakes so far this year.  From the Alberta SPCA we took in a thin, older, Thoroughbred mare we've named Delphi, along with her companion, am unhandled grey mare whom one of our volunteers has named Shadow.  Our second intake was Big Bucks, a gentle old guy  and yet another thin Thoroughbred.  This seems to have been the winter of Thoroughbreds!

Some good news on new homes!  Charger is adopted and will be leaving for his new home shortly.  Salsa was adopted and left for her new home a couple of weeks ago, along with foster Davey.  Little mini-Panda was adopted and went to her new home along with foster Silver Wishes.  Flower has been fostered, joining Moritz, Timber, Scoops, and Taylor!   Augin is adoption pending, and Pokey was adopted and left for his new home back in January.  Fuji, one of the mini foals, has been fostered and is doing great at his foster home.  Lido is also adoption pending though he may not be leaving for a month or two.  Deva is adopted and will be leaving in March or April.    Thank you to the wonderful people who have stepped up to take these horses; whether adopting or fostering, we're happy for the horses and happy for you!

The Mane Event, in Red Deer, is coming up April 21 - 24, 2016.  It's 4 days long this year and we're looking for volunteers to help man the booth.  Also coming up, August 28  - 29, 2016, is our fundraising casino, also in Red Deer.  If you can volunteer at either event please send us an email at [email protected].  Paid overnight accommodation is available for the casino.

Happy New Year to everyone!  Our Christmas fundraiser has been a huge success, thank you to everyone who contributed or shared or sent good wishes!  We still have today to go and we've already raised over $15,000!!

I have quite a few new additions yet to post on the website.  Here are the ones that we've taken in since my last post.

I started my previous blog on December 2nd and only got around to actually posting it today.  Rather than add to it I figured I should start a new blog so here we are 2 weeks later.  It's actually almost 3 in the morning.  For some reason (perhaps because of all the work we do during the day?) the only time I seem to be able to work uninterrupted on the computer is when I can't sleep and am up in the middle of the night.  Not that I am complaining in the least!  After working in an office for almost 35 years, the freedom to be up in the middle of the night and not have to worry about having to get up in the morning and drive to work and then spend the whole day at the office in priceless.

I had mentioned in the previous blog that we had the Red Deer College Theatre Production Program out for a volunteer day to work on the seniors' shelter.  Thank you to our volunteers Kim and Mette for arranging it (as they are in that class), and thanks to their scenic carpentry instructor Ian, shop supervisor Rick, and students Aaric, Trevor, John and Nevin (and Kim and Mette).  The senior's shelter was completed, save for 2 gates that Mike installed the next day.  Thank you also to Mike's brother Brian who was out helping that day as well.  The horses love their new shelter!

We received two nice donations through employee matching programs, namely Cenovus Employee Foundation and Encana Cares.  Thank you!

We received several 'donations in memory' over the last couple of months.  Thank you to those who chose to memorialize their loved ones in this way.

Thank you to our local feed store located in Sundre, Dougan's Farm and Feed Supply, for donating about 40 bags of Nutrena Vitality horse feed!

Michelle Neaves won a draw through Red Deer Mitsubishi, where the winner gets to select a charity of their choice to receive half the prize money.  Thank you Michelle for selecting Bear Valley Rescue as your charity of choice!

In the last 2 weeks we've had several intakes, including the ponies mentioned in the previous blog, save that we ended up with 3 mares and 3 foals, not 4 mares and 2 foals as originally anticipated.  Our sincerely appreciation to Four Feet Companion Foundation for their generous grant to assist us in taking in these cute ponies!

This past weekend, some wonderful friends volunteered to make an all day drive south to pick up an old gelding from an impound lot.  Thank you RJ for contacting us about the horse, Clifton for contacting RJ in the first place, and Stephanie, Laura and Bob (and Stephanie's friend) for making the drive.    Meet 'Thirty'!

Also coming to us this past weekend from a feedlot were 2 thoroughbreds and a filly.  A huge thanks to Alyssa and Emily for hauling them down to us from Lloydminster, another all-day trip, also involving an emergency stop at a vet clinic in Edmonton when the filly went down in the trailer!  Thankfully she was okayed for the remainder of the trip and is recovering nicely in the barn.  We've named the filly 'Flower', and the 2 thoroughbreds are Sir Charles B, 22 years old (the black), and Into the Fire, 18 years old (the bay).  They are all lovely horses, very well mannered, though sadly in poor shape.  We'd also like to thank the ladies of the 'Westlock and Beaverlodge Auction' facebook page, for their efforts to save horses destined for slaughter.  It was through them that we got these 3 horses and their fundraising efforts helped reduce the purchase prices and hauling costs to get these horses safe.

Our Christmas fundraiser is well under way!  Thank you to everyone who has contributed, donating during the month of December or specifically buying a present for their favourite to put under the tree, or as will now be the case, into the sleigh!

I'd like to thank once again Pets for Life Society Alberta for their very generous support in paying our vet bills for October and November. 

Yikes, I didn't realize it has been so long since my last update.  As the saying goes, life is what happens while you are making other plans.  So much has been happening, and thankfully most of it good! 

We've had quite a few adoptions, but of course as usual we have had more incoming than outgoing.  Currently we are expecting to take in 4 young mini/pony mares, pregnant, and 2 of them with foals at side.  We plan to pick them up early next week.  We recently had a few returns, including Hope and Bonny who were adopted out in 2008, Kokanee who was just recently adopted but didn't fit in well at his new home, and Cider who was adopted out in 2007.  This week we are also expecting back Sugar and Disco, as their owners are moving to the Yukon.   Additional intakes include 2 nice Quarter Horses, Fawn and Ziggy; another Quarter Horse, Charger, who came in with Hope and Bonny; Zippity, a mini paint stallion (already adopted!) and 2 cute weanling fillies, Autumn#2 and Zendaya; a donkey, Zebity, at foster with the mini-mules and Eeyore; and 2 more rabbits and some chickens.  Adopted out were Tawny, Django, Twix, Rigby, Chex, Zippity, Juanita, and foster fails Yuma, Zaz and Romeo!

We are so glad that the weather held out and we were able to pasture a lot of the horses until well into October and November.  The last 33 horses were brought home by Mike and one of our wonderful volunteers, Barrie, at the end of November, all looking very fat and happy.  All the horses were so good to load and haul.  Of the 21 we brought home from the one pasture, of the 4 or 5 loads to bring them home, it wasn't until the last 4 horses that any of them even needed to be haltered - and this was loading them loose on a quarter section without even corrals!  I have to say I am glad to have them home, even though it means having to feed LOTS of hay.  It is so nice to be able to see them and interact with them on a daily basis.

There was a great volunteer day in October with thanks to the employees of Deloitte Touche.  Lots of fencing/painting/clean-up got done!  Thank you to Mike's brother Andy for coming out and helping to supervise.

Once again we are so thankful to for all the support we get from the horse community and public in general.

Thank you Bob for the donation of 100 round bales of hay!
Thank you Ken Chapman and Catalyst Changers for the donation of $10,000!!

We had the online auction on facebook in September in 2 parts that raised, drum roll please...  $7,482!!  A huge shout-out to Mary Ellen for all her hard work in organizing and running the auction, and thank you to everyone who donated items!

With Halloween we received LOTS of pumpkins for the pigs.  Thanks to everyone who collected pumpkins and brought them out to the Rescue (special thanks to Amy from Red Deer Humane, that's her in the pic) from Mountain View Dodge, Olds College, AARCS, Red Deer Humane Society, and more !

Thorncliffe Venturer Scouts volunteered a day at the Rescue in November - building a fence, hanging some gates, etc.  Thank you Scouts!

Thank you so much Pets For Life Society for the donation to cover our October and November vet bills.

Today we had another group out, the .... class from Red Deer College, to help finish the seniors' shelter.  It looks fantastic!!

We are very pleased to announce that we have been verified by Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.  It was a long process (years!) but we did it!  Bear Valley Rescue is the first equine sanctuary accredited by GFAS in all of Canada.  This is an honour and a commitment, as we strive to meet and exceed the standards required, to do the best for all the horses and other animals in our care.  Thank you to our volunteers who worked hard to help us achieve this, and to all our supporters who make it possible for us to do the work we do for the animals.

It's been a couple of very busy months.  In addition to getting our GFAS verification, we were able to purchase a new truck.  Thank you to everyone who donated to make that possible, and a huge thanks to Mountain View Dodge for their support, and to Olds Sign Shop for the logos for the truck that were supplied free of charge!  We will continue to fundraise for the truck as it does cost money to keep it on the road, for fuel, insurance, etc.  and we did have to finance a portion of the purchase price but we can pay that off sooner if we can put additional money towards it.

We had part 1 of our online auction on facebook at the end of August and part 2 is currently underway and runs until October 7th.  We raised a whopping $4,125 in part 1 - that will buy a lot of hay!  A super big thanks to Mary Ellen for running the auction - in addition to managing it online Mary Ellen also coordinates receiving and sending out all the items.  That's a lot of work and we really appreciate it!
Thank you to everyone who donated items for the auctions, we couldn't do it without you.

We have had quite a lot of movement of horses, both coming and going.  Tri's adoption fell through but she was subsequently adopted by another lovely lady and ardent supporter, and Ravii, Tulsa, Buttercup, Bella#2, Marnie and Mosaic were also adopted out.  Tawny and Romeo were adopted by their respective foster homes.  Twix is still out on foster but is available for adoption.  Cola, Rene and Missy#2 have gone out on foster.  We have 3 recent intakes that include a donkey and 2 very cute mini-mules!  The donkey is very sweet but the mules are VERY fearful.  They'll need a lot of work before they are able to be adopted out I'm afraid, unless there is someone out there with special mule skills who'd like to volunteer some time working with them.  That's a blatant hint for volunteer help!  We took in 5 rabbits from Calgary Humane Society and just yesterday we took in a filly from Precious Pets Animal Rescue that was surrendered to them because she has a huge sarcoid on her eyelid.  Thank you to both these organizations and to Alberta Equine Transport for hauling this filly to us.  Our vet was here yesterday doing geldings (Magnus and one of the mini-mules) and took a look at her eye, we think we can remove the sarcoid fairly easily so we'll have that done next week.  We thought the donkey needed to be gelded but it turns out what we thought were testicles was just fat - he really needs to diet!  With regard to Magnus, thank you Becki of Bold Equine for coming out and working with him so we could get him gelded.  We took in 2 lovely appaloosa yearling geldings from the latest Innisfail auction.  Thank you Mary Ellen for attending on our behalf and saving these two.  

We took in an old mare (Brandy #4) and were very happy to be able to place her straight into one of our great foster homes.  We had a number of returns including Torch, who was adopted out in 2008 and came back with her pasture-mate Wynn (not a Bear Valley horse).  Sad to say they came to us through the Alberta SPCA, though fortunately neither was in very bad shape.  Bullet (the foal of one of our very first rescues, a pregnant PMU mare we called Sky -AQHA My Blue Jodi),  Arizona and Stoney came back due to a change in their owner's circumstances - they were adopted out way back in 2004 not long after we first started rescuing.  Also returned with them was Arizona's 6 yr old foal Trigger.  I know, we have a strict no-breeding policy on our mares but apparently Trigger was an accidental breeding.  Very sad in this case, three of these horses are quite underweight so we are very glad they have come back to us.  Macie, Kahlua, and Wanda came back from their summer foster, thank you Jim and Susan for hauling back down for us.

Thank you toAARCS (Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society) for coming out and volunteering on a team-building day.  We certainly appreciate the work you did.  Thanks go out to everyone who helped us find reasonably priced hay and all those who volunteered picking it up in the field and unloading and stacking.  It was a lot of hay to move by hand!  We got about 250 square bales from the Red Deer area and 700 square bales from Black Diamond.  Thank you Judy for donating 110 square bales today and on top of that hauling it all the way out here for us!  Thank you once again to Spruce Meadows and especially Laura Day for the donation of more lovely feed and another 700 lbs of carrots! 

Thank you Karyn of Penny Lane Farm Sanctuary for including Joe's story in your article for One Green Planet about horses saved from slaughter.  Here is the link to the article if you'd like to read it - http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/horses-that-were-saved-from-slaughter-thanks-to-kind-people/ 

As I mentioned above, we moved a lot of horses over the last 2 months.  Thank you to Kerry for finding us more pasture and to Clive and the Soper families for donating the use of the land.  This pasture is a nice level approx. 10 acre piece and Beth and her group and Ghost and Rosey and their foals are out there.   Thank you to Bob for donating the use of your land.  We moved the whole main herd (27 horses) to Bob's quarter section, giving our main pasture location a much needed rest.  We added another 6 horses to that group for a total of 33, and will add more next week from another pasture that is now grazed down.  Both these properties hadn't been grazed in a while and the grass is at least 2 feet tall.  The biggest plus is that as long as the weather holds the horses can be out on pasture and we don't need to start feeding hay, which is very important with the price of hay being what it is. 

Mike has started hauling home the round bales,  We have about 36 in our yard and another about 625 that he's putting in the bale yard.  We'll have 100 smaller rounds coming after that.  Another thank you that I can't say enough is to everyone who has helped us raise the money to pay for this year's hay.  From donating cash or items we can sell, to finding alternate sources of funding, to fostering and sponsoring, we've been able to cover the huge increase in our hay costs this year.  Our hay suppliers are allowing us to pay for our hay over time as well, which allows us to keep cash available for the other expenses such as vet, farrier, and feed.

Sadly, the appaloosa placement we were trying to help with mentioned in my previous blog didn't go anywhere.  We'd found a home for at least one of the horses and interest in a few of the others but we weren't able to get a commitment from the family so it fell through.

We have been asked to help find homes for 8 appaloosas.  The owner passed away and the family wants to ensure the horses do not go to auction or slaughter.  If you are interested in any of these horses please email us and we can arrange a viewing. 

** Please Note ** - We have almost no history on these horses.  Some of them appear to not even be halterbroke and some are obviously older but generally we have no idea as to age, temperament, or training.  We know the fellow had not ridden for many years so even those that may have been broke to ride would need to be restarted.  The older horses will required dental care and they all have probably not been dewormed, trimmed, or vaccinated in a while, if ever.  Any information noted is anecdotal only.

We also saved 7 lives on Thursday that were on their way to the slaughter plant.  Mike drove 4 hours to the impound lot and arrived there just before they were to ship.    the new additions:

We've had lots of things going on with the nice spring and summer weather.  We just finished several days of farriering and we were able to do over 80 horses.  I was pretty impressed that in the one herd of 22 horses which includes most of the youngsters, 21 of them are able to have their hooves done.   Further to that, thank you Denis Gobet and Ted for coming down and trimming 36 horses and 3 cows with your tipping table in June!  Mike and his brother Brian built a really nice chute system for Denis and it went like clockwork.  We were able to trim many of the horses that are not footbroke.  It's so nice to see them all with nicely trimmed hooves!

Unfortunately we had to cancel the dinner and dance we had planned for July 4th due to lack of interest.  Thank you Stephanie and Laura for all your work in trying to get it off the ground.

We moved most of the horses out to pasture and it seems like we are still moving horses around.  We are fortunate to have lots of pastures available this year though they are scattered around the countryside.  Right now, not including regular foster homes, we have horses at 10 or 11 different pastures.  Fingers crossed that our regular hay suppliers are able to meet our needs this year as everyone has been worried about the hay crop due to lack of moisture in some areas, which is driving the price up as well.  Any donations of cash toward our hay purchase would be greatly appreciated or if you are able to donate hay please let us know.

We are fundraising for a new truck!  The timing isn't best as we normally are working hard (and still are!) at this time of year to get enough funds together to purchase the coming winter's hay, but our old truck is nearing the end of its life and we can't afford to have it break down, that's for sure.  A big shout-out to Mountain View Dodge in Olds, AB.  Thanks to a nice lady who follows our facebook page who works at the dealership we were able to connect with them and they are helping immensely to get us into a new truck, contributing almost $30,000 so far!  If you are looking at buying a new vehicle please consider shopping at Mountain View Dodge as they are also donating an amount (I think it is $250) towards the new truck for each vehicle sold in the months of July and August.  This is the truck they have in their showroom for our fundraiser - pretty nice!

We have a new memorial fund set up by the Isiah family to memorialize their horse, Mingo.  It is located under the "What Can I Do" tab as "Mingo's Memorial Fund".

Special thanks:
Spruce Meadows, first for the 700 pounds of carrots (!) and then for the truckload of feed 
Coleen Gittins -  St.Francis Stables and Haunted Lakes Pony Club Society
Kittyhawk Animal Foundation
Four Feet Companion Foundation towards Atticus' crypt surgery
Grace and Brooke Robson birthday donation
Raiya Ellis birthday donation to sponsor Gemma
In memory of Sidney Castle – from Lynn, Lee, Martha & Tim Lickfold
In memory of Elizabeth Bakuska - from Candace & Brad Charlton and Sheldon Bakuska toward Ghost’s    
   foal, also named in her memory as Spirit of Erzsebet, or Spirit for short
Laura Metrow - bottle drive donation
Laura and Stephanie Schmidt - chocolate sales donation
MVP Promotions
In memory of Whitney Laine Mah and Snow Angel (Snowy)

The winners of The Mane Event raffle – Silvia Thacker - goodie bucket, Sara Munro - hoody & cap, Terry Rogers - Timberline trail ride

We've had a number of horses come in to the Rescue over the last few months - Buzz,  Reba#2 (from the Alberta SPCA), Rosie, Atticus #2, Tri & Juanita , orphan foal Filly, Tulsa, Rene, Ravii, 3 standardbred mares (Refiners Gold, Bingo Fever, and Idle Promises), Bella#2, Tuffy, and Pokey.  Two foals were born this spring, including Ghost's foal Spirit and Rosey's foal Matilde.  We also took in 1 Lady Amherst/Golden cross pheasant from the Calgary Humane Society, which we subsequently found a home for.  A number of Bear Valley adoptees came back including Yuma, Confetti, Panda, Smudge, Abilene, Rigby, Mosaic, and Preston.

Augin and Django went out for training but will be coming back shortly due to shortage of pasture at their foster home.  Tulsa has gone out for training while Sebastian, who was out for training, was adopted.  Yuma, Maggie#2 and Smudge have gone to new foster homes and Hershey came back from his foster home.  Others that have been adopted are Mesa#2 (who has had his hernia surgery, sponsored by his adoptive family!), Reba#2, Kokanee, Ranger, Buzz, Confetti, Abilene, Sebastian, Snickers, Bibi, Fresno, Riley, Tivio, Karma, Tri, Atticus#2, and Zora.  Saffron, Lilly, and Red have been fostered, not sure yet if it will be permanent or just for the summer.  Twobits, Kahlua and Macie have gone out for summer foster.

Highway has had a lump on his leg that we had xrayed.  It is not on the bone, is just a soft tissue thing and doesn't bother him.  Snips had a puncture to his shoulder that required a drain be put in.  He's healed up nicely though he really didn't like the whole procedure.  Reba got some cuts to her chest from barbed wire and they've healed up well.  We heard that Snuffy, who was adopted out last year, developed a lump on his knee which was cancerous.  They had it removed and we hope that he is going to be okay now, he was always one of my favourites.

You can now support Bear Valley through Change It!  ChangeIt® lets you automatically round up your debit, credit, or mobile wallet purchases and donate the difference to causes you care about.  It's the easiest way to give and getting started is simple.  Click on the below link for more info.  You can also donate Air Miles cash rewards to the Rescue!

Once again I'd like to plug the event we have coming up July 4th at Horse in Hand Ranch in Blackfalds -http://bearvalleyevents.wix.com/bear-valley-events#!events/c1h6a-  please check it out and share with your friends and family!  We are looking for sponsors for the event along with vendors for a country market we will be running in conjunction with the dinner, dance and silent auction.  It will be a great way to support the Rescue and have a fun evening out at the same time!  We have had a lot of interest and have some great things lined up for the silent auction already along with quite a few vendors for the market.

April has been a much better month than March in just about every way.  The weather has been unusually mild.  Of course everyone is starting to complain about how dry it is.  We haven't had much moisture, snow OR rain, this month, but May and June are usually the wettest so there's lots of time for rain yet (and hopefully not snow!).  We had some wonderful adoptions this month, including Estelle (who went to the same family who adopted Mac the appy a couple of years ago), Plume (who went to the same fellow who has Renegade who was born here a number of years ago), Quentin (who will be joining Rasta) and Smudge and Voodoo, who were adopted together.   Karma went to a new foster home, thank you Heather.  Trixie has also been adopted and will be going to her new home shortly.  A big thank you to Marcie and Christian for fostering Trixie and working with her, and to Peggie and Stephanie for sponsoring Trixie while she was there.

We had 3 horses return to us this month.  Ranger, now 5 years old, was adopted as a weanling.  He came back to us because he injured his shoulder a while ago and didn't come completely sound again but he is broke to ride and would be suitable for light riding.  Yuma was adopted out last year but has soundness issues (he's coming back tomorrow and we'll have our vet look at him).    Tacoma, an older palomino gelding we bought at auction a couple of years ago, was returned due to serious illness on the part of his owner.  He is not in great shape (was boarded somewhere that didn't provide good care) but he's doing much better already on mash and good hay.  We also took in an older Arab/standardbred mare.  She's a strong mare and well broke but not for a beginner.  I will get these horses posted on the website shortly.
Abby has a sponsor, thank you Francesca!  Francesca has been sponsoring horses for a number of years but they keep getting adopted (most recently, Voodoo), so this time she picked one that is a permanent resident!

Bear Valley Rescue is hoping to be verified by Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries and to that end we had a  visit from 2 lovely ladies from International Federation of Animal Welfare a week ago to do an on-site audit for GFAS.  Thank you to all the volunteers who worked so hard over the last couple of weeks getting everything ship-shape after winter.  Fingers crossed we get our verification status!

We had a nice visit from Sheila Isiah, whose horse passed away recently.  Sheila would like to set up a memorial fund in honor of her horse, Mingo.  There was a very generous donation in the mail today to put toward care of the seniors, thank you Leah.  The Rescue received a $1,000 cheque from Kelly Kay and HorsePlay Family Fun Day that was held a few weeks ago - thank you Kelly!   I finally got the year end done and once again our wonderful accountant, Jim Muma, did the year end statement and tax return for us free of charge.  Thank you to Doug Bennett (Prince's owner for 30 years) for the generous donation in memory of Prince who we lost last month.  Calgary Gymnastics Centre is fundraising for the Rescue