Finding an Equine
Stallions of DreamFriesians and Lusitanos
To all of our friends, fans and mares in foal:
We are proud to be launching new stallion photos on our site of the young Lusitano stallions growing up (turning 4 now and beginning to show), photos of our new addition to the herd PRE Andalusian Stallion Hermoso XXVII, and, of course, many new photos of Friesian Stallion Zero Gravity on all of his summer adventures. Take a look at our two featured studs of the day; Lusitano Caetano and PRE Andalusian Hermoso XXVII:
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- Lusitano Stallion Caetano at 4 y.o.
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- Ridden and Trained by Katie Hoefs-Martin
More info available on each of their pages. Certainly feel free to visit their pages for more pictures, video and information. Breeding is by private treaty and A.I. only. Multiple mare discounts may apply. Breed for your dream foal of color and presence!
How do you rescue a horse from it’s “rescue” home?
In this lousy economy and in the face of epidemics like the H1N1 Virus (the Swine Flu) more and more people are feeling down, depressed and broke. When this happens the ones who tend to feel it the worst are the ones who suffer in silence – the animals.
Along with the down turn in the economy comes a whole host of side effects that often accompany job and money loss: Homelessness, debt, depression, and pet/animal abandonment. For every animal that is abandoned or abused discovered there is an undetermined fate hanging in the air. For horses, being expensive to keep and difficult to move, the options are much more limited. Unless someone with unlimited funds is able to find them, the outlook is often bleak:
“According to the Humane Society, the United States sent 98,363 horses to Canada and Mexico for slaughter last year. As of March 28, 17,758 horses had been sent to those two countries for slaughter.” (NY Times, 2009)
Sounds like a horrible statistic, yet, how much more horrible is it to wait, starving in the backyard or filthy pen of an unworthy “rescuer”? As an avid horse-lover, and serious horse-spoiler, I have encountered a number of animals that were labeled as “Rescues” by various owners. I often find them through sale ads or other means of horse shopping and am inherently curious as to how they arrived at the place they stand now and what happens next. Naturally, I can’t just stand by and let an animal suffer or rot in an unfit environment, so I try to help out by either purchasing the horse or assisting in the advertising and placement of said horse (because I am not of unlimited funds, I can’t just go around buying every horse I see). During these episodes of attempted “horse placement” I am repeatedly faced with the same scenario:
The “Rescuer” is unwilling to release the horse.
Every excuse imaginable is given for not letting the horse go to each home, or the rescuer is just so incredibly flaky and unreliable that it is impossible for the horse to every meet a potential owner/adopter. The rescuer, though well-meaning, is more often than not, unable to truly care for the horse themselves or afford proper medical and farrier treatment, yet they do not relent. Day after day, those “rescued” horses stand in filthy or inappropriate enclosures, crowded and inadequately fed while their feet grow, split and abscess and their scrap of remaining health is lost. Is this really a fate less horrible than slaughter? I honestly don’t know.
In case I ever do manage to extract a few of these horses from their “rescue” homes or should I perhaps attempt to assist on a real rescue in the future, I need some advice:
Are there any real equine rescues out there with reputable people running them? If so, how do they fund their rescues and what are their guidelines for accepting and re-homing a rescue horse?