Secret Mission

After buying an OTTB, you'd be amazed at how many people are involved (and love) the breed. While at the track this past April I met a woman who rescues, rehabs, and retrains OTTBs. I told her how I got Denali, we exchanged e-mails and have talked off and on since then. Her rescue is about two hours from Seattle, and I just never made it down there. A few weeks ago I gave her a little donation to put towards a new rescue that was a last minute addition from the auction. I wanted to come meet the horse, and we planned on a date. Things changed and we didn't make it down. The weather started getting crappy, so it was either yesterday or next Spring.

Ophelia's mom, her SO, and myself drove to the little town of Elma to see Second Chance Ranch http://www.secondchanceranch.org There is only one word to describe Katie and the horses at the Ranch - Amazing! There are around 40 horses on the property and they all look awesome. I loved hanging out with them! Ophie's mom SO, went into pony overload, he had a great time. There were a few that I really wanted to take home. One was named Eva Rose, and she looked like a smaller version of Denali. She had the same sweet face. Another horse, who has wobbles, was probably the sweetest thing ever! (That's a hard statement to make since I really wanted to bring them all home.) There was a Dutch Warmblood named Ollie who's profile online said he was 18.2. I honestly have never seen a horse that big!! He was HUGE! His head was the size of my torso.

I did learn a lesson-don't walk through a herd of thoroughbreds with a treat bag. No one nipped, no one kicked, no one did anything "rude." They were very well behaved, but they did follow us around like puppy dogs! One of the horses had a cut on his shoulder, and I found it hilarious that when Katie was leading him towards the tack room to clean it, all she said was "Coming through" and everyone stopped what they were doing and moved out of the way. Even if that meant leaving their delicious lunch.

If you have an extra $5 or $10 dollars lying around, there's a donate page on the website. :)

I had a lot of fun visiting the horses. The one that I "helped" was in foster so I didn't get to meet her, but that was fine. We're going to plan a trip back down this spring to do some volunteer work. I told a friend that I was going to look at horses, but I couldn't bring one home because my husband would kill me. She said, "well the barn's not technically home is it?" Funny.

So enough rambling. I took off work today to go take my BCBA (Board Certified Behavior Analyst) which I studied for a lot LAST November (I finished my program last August) but since then not so much. I had a mini nervous break down the other day when I was trying to study for it. I'm not going to pass, and that's fine. I don't need it for my job. It's funny though, I've told NO ONE what I'm doing today. Work thinks I have a doctor's appointment. HA, then no one can ask me how it went.

I am going to up Denali's intake of Vitamin E. I've been reading some good articles on horses with EPM and adding Vitamin E to their diets. Still not 100% convinced that she has EPM, but oh well, blood work can't lie and the drugs can't hurt her.

Have a great Monday! I only have 4 days of work this week, then I'm done! Well, I need to go to work Monday and Tuesday, but no kids which in my head means no work.

Thanks for following our crazy journey!!