Pat our farrier was out at the beginning of June and we were able to sedate Slinky and trim her up nicely, along with Tilly who had a badly cracked heel. We've had a few major health issues to deal with, including Moritz who injured his shoulder, Gizmo who had a huge abscess over his eye, Salsa who got a really bad wire cut to one back leg, Prince who has a bad abscess, Sarcee with her lymphangitis flaring up, and Mercy who cut her leg and went on a cross-country jaunt in the middle of the night. Very sadly, we had to euthanize Lucky, who had been with us for many years, as he started to develop issues with not being able to get up. Pet and Russa both really miss him. We've done quite a few geldings, including 2 crypt surgeries. Aric had one testicle removed, it was a 3 hour surgery just to find the one (it was up by his rectum!). We may have to go back if it seems he still has one more. That's a biggest problem with unethical people who will geld a horse with only one testicle showing. You have no way of knowing if there's one left behind. One of the horses that we just purchased at auction, Nanook, was sold as a gelding but he had a fresh surgery scar, on one side only, so I think that's a pretty good indication that they only found one testicle and that's also probably why they dumped him at the auction.
We've had quite a few horses go out on foster, including Zaz, Rose Red, Titus, Simba, Tigger, Percy, Royal and her foal Diamond, Taylor, Scoops, Moritz, Zoey, Spark, and on Friday, Cecil. Cisco, Shandra, Dan and Old Red also went to new foster homes from Janine's. Nikki, Venus, Karma, Emily, Ronin, Athena, Early Hank, Chanel, and a sorrel gelding who left before we could name him, all went to new homes. Amazingly enough, it turns out Nikki's adopter also owns Nikki's 5 year old son! Samia and Nina are leaving for their new home on Friday.
Thank you Robin McKay for coming out and doing Jin Shin Jyutsu on some of the animals. A big thanks to Mary Ellen and Dot and all their helpers for the 2 fundraising garage sales held to benefit Bear Valley in June. Almost $800 was raised! Thank you Riley for your donation - Riley sold lemonade and cookies to raise money for the horses! We received a small grant from Alberta Outdoor Sportsman Association, it is much appreciated! Thank you to Adrienne of Livestock Identification Services for helping us revamp our adoption contract/bill of sale. Thank you to the students of Niton Central School who did a fundraiser for the Rescue, holding a Mother's Day sale and restaurant!
We have new pasture closer to the Rescue, thank you very much to Roy and Amber Hoffman! We hauled all the horses back from Westbrook (blew a fuel line in the truck in the process, but Mr. Fixit Mike was able to repair it pretty quick!) and now they're just a short walk to the east. Thank you Janine and Janneane for helping with the move. We also moved the 3 rescue calves, Olive, Charlotte and Norman, to a nice paddock at our cattle lease, and today we moved the oldest cow Ester up with them. We weren't affected by the flooding in Alberta but we did take in 17 poultry that were rescued from the flood and we also took in 6 rabbits that were surrendered during one of the Spay/Neuter Task Force clinics in Sask. (I think).
There is a new June newsletter posted if you haven't read it yet. We have some pretty amazing numbers happening!