Believe! I do believe.  I believe doing good comes back to you. It is how I have lived my life as long as I can remember. It is the way I run the rescue farm. I know people who plan in great detail but not me, I use my gut feeling, or intuition. 
(Wikipedia A gut feeling, or gut reaction, is a visceral emotional reaction to something) 

I smell the roses, I see the beauty in everything.

Sometimes I am down to my last few donation dollars, have tons of bills to pay and someone hands me a check or donates a car to sell or offers to pay on a feed or vet bill or donates hay. I believe it happens because I did something good; a good deed, a good thought, a word of encouragement.

When bad things happen, I try to understand and learn how to make things better. I was recently trying to help a lady who has many animals and is getting into a better place after living in her car and letting her dogs take over her home. She also has horses. Her animals are not starving but it was hard for her and now it is getting better. She now has a safe home, run ins for her dogs and lovely pasture for her horses. One horse was a stallion, sweet but not handled. She had an older mare who the stallion attacked so gelding was necessary. I see it always as necessary anyway.

Vets planning on how to dart the stallion.

Thursday, two experienced vets, a dart gun, a vet tech and myself finally caught the stud and the gelding procedure went quite uneventful. It was clean and fast. When he started to awaken from the sedation, one vet held the lead rope at his head, the other his tail. He was too unsteady. The vet got him to lay back down. The horse kept trying to get up even as the vet held tightly on to the lead. The horse flailed and rolled around. There were puddles filled with water, guide wires from a  security light, fencing and other dangers around but the vet held on. The horse even crashed into the horse trailer but just had a small cut from the corner of the trailer. The vet had him down on the ground and again, he jumped up, fell into a ditch. slipped again and fell again. When he got up this time, he fell and broke his leg. He had to be euthanized quickly. The owner was screaming, crying and just was inconsolable  We all felt her pain, no one wanted it to end like this.

My gut feeling when we arrived at the lady's farm was this horse was going to die. I surely wasn't going to say that to anyone and tried to get it out of my mind. As I was watching the whole gelding process, I felt surely I was wrong. It went so well. Was this God's way of preparing me for the sad outcome? It was horrible. I have relived it every night as I lay in bed trying to make some sense of it. Every intention was for a good, positive outcome. Why did this happen?

I really needed a good thing to happen. It has been 4 days now. I was still holding onto the sadness and pain. Now it is early Sunday morning and I opened an email about a horse needing a home, one of several I get daily.

Jazzy is blind and needs a loving home

Jazzy is very healthy but only a special person sees the beauty in a disabled horse.

It was a blind mare, owner going to college, parents can't care for to help. The owner loves the mare and wants safety for her. I looked on FaceBook and my dear friend, who loves blind horses was already posting and she is on Central time, earlier then it was here. I told her about the mare and she said 'YES'. It went wonderful, it was easy! It was good. Was it another of God's plans that we both were up early? Was it part of the Universe, the way it should be?  What ever the force , I believe! 

Thank you for believing in SaveTheHorses. 

You are our strength and 

your kindness is our most valuable possession.

Good Bye Lady Jane

Lady Jane has left us. We let her go with dignity. It is the hardest choice to make for any horse. There is no turning back, no changing your mind once you euthanize them. All you have left are the memories and they make your heart feel empty for a long time. 

Sandy put bows on Lady Jane before we let her go to Heaven.

It was nearly a year ago that Lady Jane arrived. Everyone gathered around the trailer to see this majestic beauty. She was a big elegant Percheron mare. Beauty's Haven Equine Rescue (http://www.bhfer.org) in Florida asked if we could take her. She wasn't doing well in the humidity of a Florida summer. She seemed to have some breathing problems. She moved slowly and flared her nostrils. All of the volunteers loved her but Sandy Lehman was totally in love with Lady Jane. She wanted to adopt her but I wanted to make sure Lady Jane was healthy and didn't have any breathing problems like COPD. If she did, Sandy most likely would still adopt her but we would know exactly what she needed to keep her healthy.

Sandy riding Lady in the ring.

As the weather cooled, she started moving better and breathing fine. Sandy started to gently ride her and they both seemed happy to be best friends.

 Sandy started to buy her feed and Lady Jane was never without special treats. Everything seemed perfect.

It was early March when she started laying down. 

We didn't notice a limp for a few days. She was a trooper. The farrier came out to see her, then the vet came out to check out her foot. An abscess is painful but treatable with some work and patience. 

Looking for abscess

More farrier care, more soaking her foot, applying special medications that were sent to cure her. We had radiographs done, dug out infections, cleaned them out to have another place on her hoof start oozing with pus. 

Sandy soaking her foot

Then it would come out above her hoof, more radiographs, more medications, more soaking, more prayers, more hope. All the while we had Lady Jane on anti-inflammatory medication so she would stay comfortable. 

Regional limb perfusion

We did not want to give up. Dr Mary Pat Hill donated her time and expertise to do homeopathic remedies and acupuncture regularly. Sher Kerr volunteered to do Reiki treatments. Everyone sending good thoughts and prayers. We even considered seeing if we could get a prosthetic hoof made for her if we could figure out how to make it work comfortably. We has so many wonderful suggestions for horse lovers everywhere.

Beautiful Lady!

Now 4 months and $3000 later, we could not win this battle against the infection. Lady Jane was put to rest in the big pasture, covered with her new blanket and lovely roses placed at her head. 

Sandy is going to pay Lady Jane's medical bills. Though she never adopted Lady Jane on paper, she surely adopted her with her heart and soul. 

 We question every decision, every treatment. We so wanted a better ending and not now but years from now. Sandy was here every day, many days for hours. I sang to Lady Jane every evening. I would do my night time barn check and sing, 'Lady, when you're with me, I'm smiling'. Now I am crying. 

We will always miss Lady Jane. The emptiness will start to fade away but right now it hurts so much. It is heavy on our minds.

Then one of our little volunteers, Sydney, sent this picture. She says this is Lady Jane running after crossing the Rainbow Bridge and we smile.  

I am sure she is right! Run on Lady Jane! 

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