Welcome to H.O.R.S.E. Rescue and Sanctuary

This has quite a year so far. Cloud and Rain(the filly) have been placed with a dear friend named Avie near Buffalo. Avie keeps us updated on a regular with the antics of little Rain and keeps us in histerics. She is a very special baby and is keeping Avie hopping. In August, the horse Dollar was purchased from a family for $1, hence his name. He is a ten year old Thoroughbred off the track and a very handsome kind boy and has been placed with a wonderful woman in Byron, NY. We wish Roberta and Carolyn well in working with and enjoying Dollar(his new name is Jordan). Also in August we placed Elvis, Dakota and big Tom(Belgian) with a camp for terminally ill children named Stallion Park in Millbrook, NY. In July, we received a call from Jessica who works at the camp. They had seven horses in their program and the woman that owned them moved to Tennessee and took her horses with her and Jessica asked us if we could help get them some horses. We checked out the facility and were told it was really awesome and decided to do what we could to help the kids. To make a long story short, we donated our three and found three more camp horses to send them. They had received one horse from a farrier that heard about what we were doing and with our six that made seven horses. In addition there is a deputy sheriff not too far from the facility that is donating two more horses and the possibility of two more from Forgotten Friends Pet Rescue in Sharon Springs. The staff is greatly pleased at the response to their plea and they now have horses for the kids. In addition to the terminally ill kids the camp works with physically and mentally challenged kids and adults. We were glad we were able to help out such an outstanding organization.

We received a call from Chris Ramos, the town magistrate from Montezuna, NY asking for help in placing nine abused horses they had seized from a family in town that had the horses taken because of abuse. The people were charged with nine counts of abuse and the charges were pleaded down to three counts if they would surrender the horses which they did. On Friday, August 8th, Chris, Mike, Jean Fiano and two volunteers drove the eighty-five miles to Montezuma to see the horses and talk with the judge. The two worse ones were Merlin, a twenty year old Saddlebred and Lite Shadows, a seventeen year old Thoroughbred. Both were at least 300 pounds underweight and Shadow had a draining foot infection. On Tuesday, both of them arrived at the rescue. We weren't sure Shadow was going to make the trip but he did. They hit the grass as soon as they were out of the trailer. After all the rain we have had and not much time for mowing there was lots of nice green grass for them to eat. We let them graze for about a half hour and put them in a stall together. They were given equine senior and a couple flakes of hay and pine shavings on the ground for bedding. They both ate with gusto and the following morning when Mike checked on them, it was obvious that Shadow had laid down during the night because of the shavings all over him. These two will need at least three meals a day if we are going to get weight on them before winter. We will need help in the form of feed donations to get them healthy again. Shadow will need vet attention on a regular basis and antibiotics every day. You can call our feed dealer, Country Max at 585-344-4554 and put a bag or two of feed on your credit or debit card and they will hold it for us to pick up.UPDATE!!! Merlin went to his new home on Nov. 4th. He has gained enough weight now to be out of danger. He still needs another hundred pounds or so but he will be fine. Shadow has gained a lot of weight too but but he is still plagued by the abcess on the right rear foot and now has one on the left rear which our vet opened on on Tues. Nov. 11. He is now putting weight on the foot and we are soaking it epsom salts once a day.

Donations are really down this year due to the high cost of fuel which means the price of everything has escalated. We are very worried about making it through this winter. We now have twenty-seven horses depending on us for their daily feed. Since the rescue is all volunteer, every dollar goes toward feed, hay and the things we need to care for them. Won't you please consider helping the horses? We are doing fundraisers and grant applications but we still need help from the people that view our website. We can't do it alone. We need donations of cash, feed and hay. We expect many more horses to be in need this winter. Please help if you can with any size donation.

Mike and Chris Dodge
Founders