We attended the Innisfail Auction on Aug 30 and purchased 26 horses, of which 16 were from the Medicine Hat herd. We were able to purchase some broke horses and pretty well all of the broke ones were adopted within the first week! We've also taken in a little old, underweight, pony mare and a nice grey pony mare that had foundered and is still a bit sore. The interesting thing about the grey pony is that she belonged to the owner of a certain auction mart, who shall remain nameless. He contacted us to buy this mare because he didn't want to sell her through his own auction because he didn't want her to go for meat! We've also taken in a flashy young paint mare that, unfortunately, has a tendency to buck, and a retired, older QH mare.

Sarcee came back from her foster home as her lymphangitis has flared up again. We're trying laser on it this time. Sonata came back from Elation Equine, she got as far as having someone sit on her back but she was so nervous about moving forward at that point that it was decided we'd leave her and send a different horse. Duchess, who was also at Elation, was adopted and Willie, who took Sonata's place, was adopted almost immediately. We are going to select 2 more horses, perhaps Kiki and Foxy, to send over to Samantha at Elation Equine. Samia and Nina have gone to Gregg Garvie to be started. We believe both of them are pregnant and due late winter or early spring, so it's imperative that we be able to handle them as they will have to go into the barn if they foal. Gregg will work with them for 2 weeks so that they are halterbroke, footbroke and able to be led. We are going to be sending 8 yearlings/2 year olds to Olds College in October to be used in the equine studies program. They'll get lots of good handling! There is a fee ($7/day) to put a horse into the program, so again a big thanks to Mary Ellen and Laurie for raising funds to sponsor some of these horses. So far they've raised money to cover 6 of the 8 horses!

We had quite a time dealing with the illness of Pancho, the stallion from Medicine Hat. He was sick prior to the auction and had so much trouble breathing. We went through at least 4 or 5 different medications. Eventually the one thing that worked was ventipulmin. He's all better now and ready to leave for his new home. He's also put on weight and looks great! Monkey also had a nasty attack of heaves and the ventipulmin helped him too. Summer has healed up nicely from her wire cuts. Shay had a really bad abscess which had her lame for about 3 weeks and took forever to drain. She's just now on the mend from it. In addition to Pancho, Duchess and Willie, Neeka is adopted, along with Soliel, and the new horses: Terry, Aurora, Finn, Delilah, Arnie, Aric, Promise, Stella, and Shiner. Our farrier was out for 4 days over a 3 week period and we got lots of the horses trimmed. Surprisingly, quite a few of the ones out on pasture didn't required trimming at all. I've been spending a lot of time lately working on a couple of grant applications and looking for new fundraising opportunities. Funding, as always, is a major concern, especially when it's time to buy hay! Check out the fundraising page - we've been nominated for the Calgary Real Estate Board's '25 for 25' grant - if you know any realtors please encourage them to vote for us!

Very sadly, Soliel the warmblood mare foaled a beautiful paint colt but he passed away 3 days later. He had hypothyroidism. It was our first experience with that and hopefully the last. We worked so hard to save the little guy but to no avail. Thank you Susanne for helping through the whole ordeal. Also on a sad note, we lost Echo the Arab mare, we believe she was struck by lightning.

Our vet has been treating Monkey's and Joanie's old leg injuries with laser - one treatment every 2-3 days. It looks like we're having some real success in finally dealing with these injuries. The swelling is going down and the injuries themselves look a lot healthier and are closing up. On the downside, the cost is quite expensive due to the number of treatments required, but if it works it will certainly be worth it as they have both been dealing with these injuries for several years now.

Thank you for Calgary Polocrosse, they raised funds for us during their annual tournament and it was a huge success: almost $500 was raised through snack sales, a silent auction, and donations! Thank you to Sherral and Carment for manning a table for us at the tournament. They said it was a lot of fun. If you're looking for something exciting and athletic to do with your horse, consider polocrosse!

We've been very busy with visitors and adoptions this month. Popcorn, Dusky, Golddust, Sky, Fritz, Buddy, Mac, Pup, Rasmus, Sofie, Griffon, and Thor have all been adopted. Rasmus was just gelded last Friday and won't be leaving for a couple of weeks, Thor of course won't go to his new home until he is weaned, and Sofie won't be leaving until next spring. We took in 2 four month old foals last week, both beautiful buckskins. The colt is very cute and the poor little filly has some serious cuts to her chest/legs from going through a fence when she was weaned right before we picked her up. She's certainly getting used to being handled now as we've been having to clean her wounds and give her medicine twice a day. We also took in a 16 yr old mare with a crooked leg. I'm not sure how long her leg will remain stable, we have had horses with this sort of problem in the past (Navajo, Roz and Emma) and eventually the leg or joint does deteriorate past the point of being any good for the horse. 

We took in a few more rabbits from the Canmore cull, these being the offspring of one of the rabbits that was caught and gave birth before being spayed. The babies had to grow up enough for themselves be fixed. One of our little black bantam hens raised one chick! Not sure how she ended up with just one, but it's grown enough that they're back with the regular flock. Speaking of babies, we're pretty sure Mackenzie and possibly Samia and Nina are pregnant - unfortunately looks like they'll be winter babies. Our condolences to Virginia Scott, she adopted Dollar from us 6 years ago and Dollar passed away suddenly the other day. Dollar was a nice older, Thoroughbred-type mare we bought at auction in 2005. I've fallen victim to the social media bug and a lot of what is going on is posted more regularly on our facebook page. Check us out on facebook if you haven't already done so! The latest big thing is that we were contacted by someone who's grandparents had to declare bankruptcy. They were raising quarterhorses and had a herd of at least fifteen mares with young foals at side and ten 2 year old colts. All their horses, including their personal riding horses, were seized as part of the bankruptcy and are going to auction today in Innisfail. This girl (lady?) was heartbroken as she feared (rightly so) that many of the horses could go for meat, and also that the young foals (3 months old) might be separated from their dams as they really are too young to be weaned. Through contacts and getting the word out, we've all been able to generate a LOT of interest in these horses so that it looks like there will be a lot of private buyers looking to save these horses at today's auction. On top of that, we've received some very generous donations towards saving some of them ourselves, so we will be at the auction tonight. Sadly horses from situations such as this are what populate a lot of the auctions and there isn't anyone to save them. Because we are a registered charity, and because horse slaughter is not illegal, we can't actually lobby against slaughter, but we don't condone it. It's not just the equine tragedy, it's the human tragedy that goes with it that also makes it all so sad.

We delivered Skyler to his new home and picked up Neeka and Sky. Romeo left for his foster home. We had the U of C vet students out to do teeth again as part of their rotation. We got 11 horses done. It went well and some of them did need some serious work! Sonata has come back to the rescue from her adoptive home on Vancouver Island. We took in 6 warmbloods, including a stallion, 2 mares (1 bred), and 3 youngsters. The one 2-year-old colt has already been adopted and the one mare, Duchess, along with Sonata, have gone to Samantha Pritchard of Elation Equine for training. We look forward to partnering with Samantha in training and placing some of our horses. Buddy the mini has also been adopted, thank you Charlene and Jordan, who also adopted one rooster (now named Jacob) and 2 ducks!

We had the farrier out over 3 days and managed to get a lot of the horses done. We also took in 3 appaloosas, including a nice young gelding, and 2 mares, one of which is blind in one eye and the other has damage to her facial nerve. Hannah, one of the older mares currently being fostered by Janine, developed a bladder infection. Thank you Janine for being so patient in finally collecting a urine sample! Hannah went through a series of shots and seems to be doing fine now. Old Red got a pretty serious wire cut to his chest but it is healing nicely. Remi got a bad cut to his neck as well, not sure how he did it, but it has healed up. Our vet has a new laser therapy tool so we'll be giving it a try on Old Red's injury, and Joanie's and Monkey's old injuries. Maybe it will help them to finally heal up completely!

We are going to be sending Samia and Nina to Gregg Garvie for training in September. Gregg is a fantastic trainer and does wonders especially with difficult horses. We've turned the herd out on a new pasture and they are having a great time in all that grass! We've moved the yearlings down to the herd along with the new appys. And I've finally learned to back with up the trailer! Our condolences to Meghann, who adopted Leyla, who was pregnant but sadly lost her foal, and to Julianna on the loss of Lalita, who she adopted from us several years ago.

Senator, Fritz & Skyler have been adopted, and Sonata should be back today or tomorrow. Neeka and Sky are coming back, and they've both been started under saddle. Our thoughts are with Rick, who was fostering them, as he received a serious kick to the chest which will have him laid up for quite a spell. We took in a nice little dun mare with an eye injury, Roxy, and she's already found a foster home - thank you Tracy & Jonathan! Romeo will be returned to his foster home next weekend. Thank goodness!

A big thanks to the Charltons and Naffins, for the donation of the round bales and delivery! Also a big thanks to Monty Gwynne for the donation of the (very heavy!) square bales. 

Phoebe had her 2nd cannula removed from her eye and it's healed up pretty nicely, though she does have a scar in her eye. She's happy to be back with the herd, and she settled a lot from all the handling she had, the one good thing that came out of it! Golddust is better now, and Mellow's itch has been clearing up but now she seems to be developing an abscess in her foot as she's completely lame on one foot. Seems to reinforce my idea that most foot abscesses are brought on by stress. Shadow(#3) got a small puncture in his shoulder and it has abscessed as well. Hopefully it will drain soon. Gracy the standardbred went out for adoption on a 'trial' basis of one month. It's been 2 months now and I haven't been able to get hold of the guy to either return her or pay her adoption fee. Never again with the trial periods! Our adoption fees are low enough and with our policy of full refund if returned, there's no reason for anyone not to pay the adoption before the horse leaves. We have enough on our plates without having to chase people for money, and my biggest concern is for the horse - what kind of home is it if the person isn't even honest enough to pay?! Should I publicly post his name in the hopes that I can embarrass him into getting back to me?

Minx, Fritzy & her foal, Mitzy, Sebastian, and Preston all went to their new homes. Sylvia left on foster with Sebastian and she'll come back when he's ready to be weaned. Hank is also adopted and will be leaving in about a month. Popcorn's adoption didn't go through, I wasn't comfortable with the placement, so he's available once again. Harriet & Kikko's foster has become a permanent adoption. We took in a new horse this week, he is Prince, a 29 yr old gelding. He's a little sore on his fronts, prone to founder, but a really nice old boy. Also Sonata is being returned to the rescue, unfortunately she's on Vancouver Island so we'll have to arrange to get her all the way back here.

Munsie had her foal, he was born on Jun 25th. He picked up some sort of bug and has been doing poorly the last few days. We had the vet out and she tubed him, plus he's on antibiotics and neorease and he got a shot of fluxinin and equi-stim, and he seems to be doing better. We put a second cannula in Phoebe's eye, and her stitches have started to come out and it looks like the puncture still hasn't cleared up completely, but the cannula is going to have to come out anyway this week. Mellow had some sort of allergic reaction to something or picked up something that's made her incredibly itchy. She's rubbed her face raw and between her legs. We've been treating it, plus I dewormed her again, and she seems to be getting better. Golddust was rough- housing with another of the yearling geldings and took a nasty fall and hurt his shoulder. He was very sore for about a week but is getting better now. Remi cut his neck, it's not too bad though. The day after Kiwi and Gemma went up to their foster home, Gemma lay down in a bit of a dip and couldn't get up. Fortunately Carol's daughter was able to rush out to Carol's and give Gemma some help so that she would get up. I hope Gemma is smart enough to not lie down in the same spot again!

We had a nice visit and gave a tour to Padnoma, a group for people with learning disabilities. A big 'Thank You!' to Serena Crisanti, who collected donations for the horses in place of her 11th birthday presents. We did a short presentation at the last meeting of the Calgary Regional Trail Riders group. They have been big supporters of the rescue over the last two years, donating part of their casino fundraising proceeds to us, which we really appreciate! Thank you to Linda & Gary Charlton, who have donated a large number of round bales of hay to us. Also thank you to Monty Gwynne for donating the nice (very heavy!) square bales. Our email has been acting up again, so if you don't get a response to your email, if it's urgent you should call, or message us on facebook. Last week the email was down for several days. Hopefully it won't be down as long this time, but I have no idea what the problem is.

We had Riley gelded this week, that went well but the poor guy is pretty sore. We removed Phoebe's cannula from her eye, but unfortunately it hasn't healed as much as we'd hoped so we may have to insert another one. Fritzy foaled on Jun 10th - right after I typed the last update I went out and checked her and there she was with her foal - a nice dun colt.

A big thankyou to the dedicated rabbit volunteers who came out and laid sod in the rabbit pen in the pouring rain. I hope none of you get sick as a result, you were all soaked through!  

I've posted all the new horses on the website, including the 4 started 3 year olds. I'm not sure how started they are, some of them can be quite nervous but at least they are halterbroke. I was kind of hoping they'd all be footbroke too but it doesn't look like it. Also posted is a nice looking 2 yr old QH colt, Riley. Norma, an older mare had been here only 1 day before she'd already been selected as a foster by someone looking for a couple of horses.

Sarcee went to a foster home. We had seem some improvement in her leg and then we tried a couple of injections of another drug, one used for dairy cows with udder swelling, and it really seems to have helped even more. Thank you Carolyn for taking on Sarcee. Fleury is adopted and Norma will be going to the same home as a foster. Burton, Traveller, Cooper and Popcorn all look like they're going to be adopted, but I'm not counting on it until deposits are paid or they've actually left for their new homes as all too often we've had was seems like definite adoptions and then they fall through at the last minute. There's been a fair bit of interest in the horses lately, mostly the youngsters. Josephine and General finally left the their new home, though I'm not sure if Josephine will work out - we may see her back again by fall. Zeke has been adopted!

We moved many of the horses out to summer pasture. Fifteen went to a pasture about 20 minutes east of us (thank you Nancy!) and nineteen went to pasture about 1/2 hour south of us (thank you Sarah!). Four of the horses have gone to the cow pasture (but not the cows as there isn't enough grass yet) and five have gone to Janine's. Today we are taking three to pasture for the summer at the mini's foster home and we'll be picking up the remaining Munson estate dispersal horses, which unfortunately will include a stallion or two. We're going to have to create a separate area for stallions (ex-stallions, as they do all get gelded). Three of the last four days we spent with Pat, our farrier - thank you Susanne for helping every day! We only trimmed about 35-40 horses this round but that was enough! Also had our vet out to do some teeth and deal with some health issues. Phoebe punctured her eye and we had to sedate her and insert a cannula in order to medicate her eye. What an ordeal! Phoebe was so stressed because she can't see out one eye and she did not cooperate at all. We ended up having to knock her right down in order to do it and even then she became quite frantic when she came out of the sedation. We also dealt with Brandy, who had an abscess on her face caused by a missing tooth, and we have gelded some of the young colts and will be doing the rest next week. Mellow had her hernia banded and Mercy was sedated in order to trim up her crooked foot really well. Slinky was sedated and trimmed again, her first actual 'farrier standing next to her and picking up her feet' type of trim! Her feet finally look really normal. A big thanks to Sherral for holding down the fort on Saturdays, especially for coming early and doing the morning feed. Also thank you to Linda and Sue for helping out, and again to Susanne, you've been a life-saver the last few weeks!

Thank you to the volunteers who came out and helped build a new rabbit enclosure. The bunnies are happy to have more room of their own away from the goats and sheep.

We gave away one of our male geese (went to a new home with a nice girl goose!) and thankfully the remaining goose has settled down a lot, he's no longer attacking us every time we enter the poultry enclosure (the 2 of them together were like a gang!) and he's not nearly as noisy any more either. 

Somber left for his new home in April. Gracy#2 left for her new home today, and Trouble and her new foal Thor left for their temporary summer foster home today as well. Kat and Leyla will be leaving for their new home tomorrow. Kiki and Millie have come back to the rescue, along with new horses Echo#2, Buddy, and Shadow#2 and Traveller and Saffron left for their new home in April and have already come back again. Shamrock left to join Silk at a wonderful foster home in Sylvan Lake. I'll get the new/returned horses posted as soon as I can, hopefully in the next few days. I'd also like to get new pictures posted of especially the youngsters, as they've all grown and changed so much. We've also taken in another owner surrender, Major, a very nice, tall palomino Saddlebred gelding. He's joined the geriatric crowd at the rescue. And Granada, who I mentioned came in in the last update, was here less than 24 hours before a previous owner found out he was here and came and took him home! We also took in another 10 rescue hens.

Sylvia had her foal, a nice bay colt we've named Sebastian. Trouble had her foal as well, a flashy little dun with one blue eye and we've named him Thor. Very sadly, Twobits had her foal, a beautiful filly we named Topaz and we lost her 2 days later. She had a very large umbilical hernia and I believe it strangulated her intestine. She was running around and playing just fine and 2 hours later we found her and she was already succumbing to hypothermia as she'd been down for a while. We tried for over 2 hours to bring her body termperature up but she just stopped breathing at one point and that was it. We are so heartbroken and feel that we've let down Twobits as well. Fritzy is still expecting, I assume she'll have her foal in the next couple of weeks. Our heartfelt sympathies to Carolyn on the loss of Roseka, whom she'd fostered for us for many years. Also to Hazel, on the loss of Hawk, he was such a kind old gentleman.

Thank you to Nancy Blain for donating some pasture for this summer. Once we get the fences checked we will move the smaller herd over there. It's only about 20 minutes east of us and there's LOTS of grass! Farrah will be getting special shoes tomorrow, in the hopes that it will help straighten out her crooked foot. That's assuming we can get her shod of course. Thank you Brenden & Katherine! Red has an abscess so he's up at the house. It's started to drain and today Carmen and Sherral soaked his foot for a while. Gemma is doing great, she's on a low-dose steroid and has no trouble lying down or getting up. We did some interesting alternative therapies on Sarcee yesterday. She's had a recurring infection in her hind leg that has caused it to stock up severely. We had tried all the usual things - sweat wraps, long term antibiotics, cold rinsing, etc. Nothing has worked, so now we're trying the 'leech' treatment (very gross!) and we'll also be trying some herbal stuff. Next week, Tuesday, will be gelding day! We have at least 10 colts to geld, so we'd better get started on it. I've also started deworming and vaccinations on the horses at the house. Next weekend we are planning on doing the herd. Can't wait!