Saturday, March 10, 2012

DoubleHP horses glad to help the Oglala Pet Project

Yesterday we received a thank you letter from the Oglala Pet Project in South Dakota. Several of their volunteers attended our equine assisted learning workshop a couple of weeks ago. We encouraged them to apply for our Spayngeld (spay neuter gelding) funds. They did, our committee unanimously approved their application, we sent them some Spayngeld money, and they immediately sent us a nice thank you letter.
"Our organization works to help the Oglala people and their pets through education, spay/neuter support, pet health resources, and the re-homing or networking of abandoned, abused or unwanted pets," their letter explains.

We asked them what the funds would be used for. They sent us some examples.

Kate who had 9 puppies and all will be needing to be spayed & neutered after they are weaned. 


 Gordon who is living close to the Post Office.  He is being fed and treated for mange. 
(update: we have now seen updated photos of Gordon, he is looking much better and is getting ready to move from the Post Office to a real foster home to get ready for adoption!)


and Cante.  He's been in a foster home since before Christmas.  He was starving, mangy, eyes matted shut, & feral. 

We are very happy to help the Oglala Pet Project. Thanks again to all who contributed to our 2012 Spayngeld program. We have more Spayngeld funds available for other animal welfare groups or individual pet owners; our application is accessible here on this web/blogsite. call if you have any questions about it. thanks. 605 359-0961

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Could sure use some volunteer help at the horse shelter this week

Our main day-time chore helper is gone all week. So, if you are interested in getting in some volunteer hours, please give us a call. 359-0961. We are 501c3. One or more days would be very helpful. And it's excellent exercise too! Not overly heavy or difficult, but it does keep you moving.

Last March and April were so so busy with rescues and court/legal type activity. In fact, it was March 6, 2011, that we got the call about Shadow and Bella. That they were standing in a cattle feedlot (authorities called it an animal shelter, ha!) with a herd of horses eating cornstalks and getting no medical attention after they had been starved again. And, they were headed for the loose horse sale in a few days! Some rescue, huh? So life got frantic here for a while. The result was good. We rescued Shadow and Bella. But we did not get enough donations to rescue any of the others. And some did go to slaughter.

So anyway, if all I have to do is horse chores this year in March, I will not complain. Much. Though I could sure use a little help this week. It's going to be muddy now with these warm temps, and we often feed all 17 horses in their stalls when it's so muddy out. It's amazing how quiet 17 horses can be, just the happy munching noises. So just call if you want to help out. 359-0961. thanks.

here's a little picture story from 2 days ago, this past Sunday.
in the afternoon, the horses coming into the barn area for grain time and supper. and some of them get to go riding at this time, some brushing and hoof cleaning, and they are all observed for lameness issues or anything else that may not seem normal.
 Pretty sure Shadow and Bella are having a much happier March this year than last year.

Shadow's ready to work. Though he and Minerva both made faces about it at first.


Where would you like me to put this, Heidi?
So, I'll just watch for a while and see how Heidi does it. (Bella was afraid to even look)

ok, think I got it!


Bella really wasn't very helpful. Very affectionate though. Appreciative of her new home and good food most likely.