Horse Rescues

I'm guessing a few of you may have noticed the photo of the nice old horse and the plea for donations on the side of my blog. this is Goliath. He is a 20 + gelding who's 17hh ahead of the saggy parts.

I have stayed away from the horse rescue arena, at least on this blog, for a lot of reasons. One is the rescue conversation is best left to Fugly, she's the master as far as I'm concerned.

Another reason is this blog is about horse training and our relationships with our horses. I feel like you need to stick with what you know, so I do.

But then came Dreamcatcher Equine Rescue. I did a story on Julie and Paul DeMusey for my paper last fall.

I'm not an easy sell, so I went out to their place and drilled them pretty good before I decided they were OK.

They are. They work hard at outside jobs, pay for hay out of pocket when they need to and put their horses first.

The horses are happy and healthy and carefully maintained.

I think Julie had me hooked when she pointed out to the pasture and said, "See that group out there? Those are the old farts. They don't have two teeth between them but they like to pretend they can graze."

She feeds them their mash in the morning then turns them out for the day. They're the first at the gate to come in for dinner.

I like people who appreciate old horses.

Dreamcatcher is full to the brim with horses.They took on 30 head of starved horses from a rescue in Colorado that went hoarder. On top of the 50 head they normally carry.

So now they have more than they should have, but they're cheerful about it and doing the best they can.

Along comes Mugs. The retired trainer who is really missing working with horses. They just happen to have a bunch that need some training.

Since I'm waiting to get my amateur card I can't take any remuneration for my services. But I can donate.

Soooo.....I started working a few head and getting some ground work done. Then I noticed there was a need for some riding instruction and horse 101 around the ranch. You see there is Julie, who knows her way around a horse and a whole bunch of eager but green volunteers.

Now we're planning some clinics and talking about a training/riding program for volunteers. If it works we'll open the clinics to outsiders and let the rescue make a little money.

So I guess I'm involved in horse rescue now. But what I'm actually involved in is training horses and horse people. So I'll have lots to write about.

I'm not going to beg for donations for this group. I will say the Pay Pal button goes straight to the Dreamcatcher account. Julie sends out a thank you for every donation, so you'll get to cyber-meet her if you donate. She's laid back, friendly and grateful for every little bit.

So there's my horse rescue talk.