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 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.
 mini mules |  donkey |  2 appaloosa yearlings |
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/
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/
 | I'm not sure if I included this in a previous post but you can now donate air miles cash rewards to the Rescue through Change It. You can also 'round up' your credit card purchases and donate the difference to us through Change It if your bank is one that participates in the program. |
 | You can now donate securities and stocks through Canada Helps. This button takes you to their website to make a security donation. If you prefer you can also make these types of donations directly to the Rescue as we are set up to accept them. |
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.
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.
 The first load dropped off at Bob's. |  Beth's group at their new pasture. |
The main herd at Bob's.
 Feed donation from Spruce Meadows, in the new truck. |  One of the new bunnies.  While we were out picking up horses, we ended up with a new kitten! |
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.
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