The Golden Carrot Newsletter's Archive

October is a good month for news, as it turns out!

First, let me report that due to everyone’s efforts, but particularly Jan Heppert’s, in the Race for the Rescues, TGC raised $2,250 for the horses! Jan (on the right) raised almost HALF of that! Jan, Lisa and Jules ran for us, and visited with After the Finish Line, who you will recall invited us to participate in this fundraiser.

More good news is that many rescues benefited, and dogs and cats brought from the LA Shelter were ALL placed in homes! If invited, we’ll probably participate next year, and hopefully have more of you involved!

Second, I want to remind everyone of other ways to help TGC -

     SHOP at Ralphs after visiting their website at www.Ralphs.com and registering your rewards card, and designated TGC. Then, Ralphs donates to TGC! NO cost to you.

     SHOPONLINE with www.iGive.com. With the holiday gift giving season upon us, if you shop on-line, please consider designating TGC as your charity of choice, and when you shop, the iGive toolbar will automatically record the purchases, and donate a percentage to TGC! NO cost to you.

In addition, this is a car magnet that Katja had made for us

- you can have your own for a $12 donation (donate on our website and let me know it’s for a magnet). They don’t mark the paint at all, stick well, and are a way to help spread the work of our organization!

Third, the ASPCA has graciously granted my request for Hay funds, and will enable me to buy enough bermuda hay to get through to January. The ASPCA has been so kind to TGC, but this is so special. In these difficult times, with drought and other weather related disasters causing need all over the nation, for the ASPCA to help us is a huge boost to me. I appreciate this organization not only because of the help they’ve given to TGC, but all rescues - they actually DONATE to rescues, and HELP animals, they don’t just talk about it. Thank you, ASPCA!

Fourth, with help from Dawn at Horse & Man (www.horseandman.com), TGC has decided to take in three, yes three, horses who are at risk. Turned in to the Castaic shelter for various reasons, and two of them held there for months, these three horses have run out of time. A County requirement would necessitate their deaths as they were considered unadoptable. Although only one horse is elderly (a 24 year old QH), they all have soundness issues which made placing them impossible. Dawn has made these guys her October Bucket Fund offered to raise $2,700 to cover their bail, transport, initial vet and farrier visits and some feed for a few months.

The horses are:

"Red"(we hope to get his papers and if so, his name may change) 24 year old QH, sorrel, with navicular.  We’re trying to confirm (a shelter employee said she had this horse’s papers and would fax them) but Red may have been a rodeo horse, an ex-roper, who competed in the National Finals Rodeo in his past. That’s a high performing horse, to end up in a shelter! He’s been there. Done that. And isn’t in real bad shape. His feet were very long and his shoes/pads were waaay to small. He needs special bar shoes for support as there’s a chance he has navicular. And he seems to have or have had a skin condition on his shoulders. Vet will be out this week to assess him. He stood well for the farrier, and was completely assured when introduced into our herd. Very personable boy - I’m betting someone loved him very much in his past....

Lester, 12 year old Arabian, gray, with possible DLSD

Dear Lester is actually pretty ouchy. His rear fetlocks are down, about as bad as Montego although he’s half Monty’s age, but I think he has something going on in his hips as he had trouble lifting his hind legs for the farrier. He has nice big feet tho. Lester is also very sensitive, and emotional, and I don’t think very dominant in nature. I’m hoping he’ll make a friend, but right now, just doesn’t want to be separated from Diamond.

Diamond, 14 year old QH, possibly palomino, with severe arthritis/bum knees.

This poor guy was so shaky at the shelter that when Christine arrived to transport these horses, the employees there offered to euthanize him on the spot! He’d only been there a week, having been bought at auction by a family who, "seeing his knees the next day" then dropped him off at the shelter. A LOT of changes in a short period of time, and he’s very thin. Christine Griffin of Equine WellBeing, who transported these three horses for TGC for gas money only, gave him a shot of banamine and loaded him in the trailer with a wall to lean on if necessary, and he came here two days ago. After two days of good food, and removal of his shoes and trimming back of his insanely long toes, he CANTERED out this morning! No, death was NOT an option! I feel that if we had not taken him, the shelter would have euth’d him. THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has worked and donated towards this rescue!

My feeling is simply this. These horses were out of time. I had just enough stalls to take them. And you all know I’ve been hovering over Dion, Buck, Victor, and Queenie, for months. I fully expect to lose one or more of them in the next months. Should these new guys die because I’d rather wait until a stall opens up? Because having 44 horses here will be a LOT of work? No. We have to step up when danger threatens these innocents.

Fifth, while it’s early days, I may have a helper. This young woman, Charley, can’t do the heavier construction stuff necessarily (although the two of us may try to fix Spencer’s stall). But this young woman is working to feed her own 2 horses and 2 donkeys, and does a great job cleaning stalls, and is tool savvy. I think having her help will enable me to continue doing more heavier work, without breaking down. $320 (half in cash and half in feed) a month isn’t much but it helps her horses too, so I feel it’s a good investment. Fingers crossed that Charley doesn’t leave me the minute I get used to her help! "-)

Please don’t forget us!

The Race for the Rescues funds won’t be here for probably 60 days. And although Dawn is working hard at it, it will be another three weeks before we see money for the Castaic horses! So although our fundraising efforts are bearing fruit, we still need your support.

As always, I urge you to consider sharing this newsletter with friends, family and coworkers. You NEVER KNOW who might be looking for that charity to donate to; who might know the guy looking for work who might consider helping here; who might know someone with 40 acres of land they’re tired of paying insurance and taxes on, and who needs a good tax deduction! The more people know of these horses, and our efforts, the better our chances at obtaining the donations, support and ideas that we need. If you are on FB, please join our FB Group, or "like" our page, and then share our posts with everyone. I always used to avoid a lot of publicity, because it brings so many more horses looking for homes, rather than donations. But frankly, I have a list of horses looking for homes - calls and emails every day anyway - so ..... let’s see if there’s some truth to that old adage that "there is no BAD publicity!"