Happy 2009 everybody!
Well, it's time for an update on everybody's favorite faux rescue, Columbia Basin Equine Rescue. You know, those folks who "rescue" from a feedlot, except it's not a feedlot, in Yakima, and except that they don't actually remove the horses from said feedlot until some kind but naive person has agreed to pay 3x the horse's actual value plus pay for an overpriced month of quarantine boarding - and actually coughed up the cash. No cash, no rescue!
Well, the CBER drama continues unabated. Here's a filly named Maple. Maple was bailed out by CBER supporters, and they paid two months of overpriced "quarantine board" as well. Guess what happened next?Yep. They took her back to the feedlot and traded her for something more adoptable. The filly had an offset knee. She went on the slaughter truck, after all that people had paid to keep her off it - well over $1000! Yes, those are the actions of a non-profit rescue! Sure they are!
They recently put up a poll on their message board:
Horses on lot needing to be put down
There are two horses on the lot that need to be put down. one has a hock injury and is limping on three legs other is a reject from Stanwood. It cannot stand very well.
Here is the deal we can get the horses from Chuck and have them
1. put down by bullet $150.00
This is a touchy subject and We want to do a poll to see what YOU would choose. This poll will close at 9 pm.
I would choose to call Animal Control and report Chuck for threatenng to stick two crippled horses on a double-decker. THAT'S what I'd choose, $am! (However, I will note that your belief that a bullet costs $150 may explain your belief that a 28 year old grade Appy costs $700.)
Um, $am? Most of us do not think of child molesters/cat killers as "beloved" and the fact that you do is yet more evidence that you have no business being involved in any kind of animal rescue.
I started writing this post and before I could finish, there was another CBER clusterfuck. A mare called Ying Yang showed up on Seattle Craigslist for $100 - possibly bred to a donkey. Awesome. She was for sale because she had an abscess and her owner did not want to have to go out to the barn and take care of it (actual posted reason, what a winner!). A little detective work revealed how this mare had wound up in such a stellar home - CBER director Kay McBean had dumped her at the Enumclaw auction this spring! 'Cause that's how you place horses you've rescued, right? What a complete and total joke. When this all came out, Kay came a-running with a home offer, as everybody does when in CYA mode. She admits to selling the mare at the auction, but has yet to offer any kind of explanation as to why she considers selling a horse to any Tom, Dick or Mary at an auction to be acceptable. It seems to have had something to do with her own personal finances. Shocker!
Here's another good tale. Several years ago, CBER sent three roan fillies and a sorrel colt to a foster home in Middle-of-Nowhere-Oregon. They were named Chai, Latte, Coffee and Felicity. Probably 9 months to a year later, foster home did not want them any more and asked CBER to take them back. $am, showing her usual laziness, talked another rescuer unaffiliated with CBER into making the nine hour trip to retrieve them (and never reimbursed her a dime for gas). The other catch? $am did not know the address they were at! True story. They sent someone to a small town in Oregon where she had to ask around to find where these people lived.
When she arrived, the horses were in a white sweat. The "foster family" had been chasing them for hours trying to catch them - trying to rope them off of other horses. The fence? Barbed wire. The horses were thin and most had fresh wounds from the unsafe fence.
This is Coffee, the colt. At left is how he appeared on the feedlot, before rescue. At right is how he appeared the day he returned from the foster home CBER put him in.
I have looked for Coffee for years and have only recently learned CBER gave him to Wayne, another horse dealer. Most likely, Coffee went to slaughter after all.
Speaking of Wayne, Wayne also got another mare from this particular mess - Latte. Latte is a cute, grade QH mare. At left, thin and hurt, the day she was retrieved from the foster home.
Still, she was alive and young and sound and could have been trained and had a chance at a good life as a riding horse. What did CBER do? Take a guess...
No, this one didn't go to slaughter although they did sell her to a kill buyer. He decided to keep her for a broodmare! Now she is a proud momma and bred back - thank you, Wayne! He has the three-in-one, shown here, for sale on Craigslist for $1000. In what world is he going to get that?
And now ONE rescue horse has turned into THREE rescue horses. Way to go, CBER! Well, at least Wayne has fed the poor thing...
Then I got the minutes from the latest CBER Board of Directors meeting (see, this is what happens when you piss people off and have constant turnover - your private shit gets spread around). They discussed the fact that they are "missing" several of their 2008 horses and they don't know where they went. They also discussed that $am wants to up the QT charge to $15/day or $450/month. Sure she does! That girl loves money. She took a whole bunch of tack that was donated to CBER up to the Hermiston sale, sold it and pocketed the cash.
What it all comes down to is what I've said before - CBER is not a rescue. They don't follow up. They don't make any real effort to place horses in appropriate homes. They don't do medical care out of pocket. They don't even RESCUE horses out of pocket. They don't ensure that horses stay safe after rescue - hell, they have sold horses back to dealers like Wayne themselves or taken them back to Chuck to put on the truck to slaughter. I have evidence that $am not only makes money hand-over-fist with CBER, but she even gets kickbacks from the kill buyers themselves! Of course, she claims (are ya ready?) to have only made $250 last year on her taxes.
$am's admitted a million times that she will NOT support CBER horses (apparently, not even out of CBER money!) and even threatened in an e-mail of June 29, 2008 that horses would be put down or brought back to the lot - i.e. right back on track for slaughter, even after their "bail" had been paid, merely because their board wasn't being paid!
CBER has no business being a 501(c)(3) and representing themselves as a rescue. They're horse dealers, and they'd better start admitting to it and paying to be licensed and paying their taxes, or they're going to have a whole lot more to worry about than the Fugly blog.
P.S. The last time I mentioned CBER, someone was here who was very concerned about the fate of Abner the mule. I hope you are still reading because I got an update and Abner found a mule-knowledgeable home and is now happy and properly cared for. That one got lucky.
I started writing this post and before I could finish, there was another CBER clusterfuck. A mare called Ying Yang showed up on Seattle Craigslist for $100 - possibly bred to a donkey. Awesome. She was for sale because she had an abscess and her owner did not want to have to go out to the barn and take care of it (actual posted reason, what a winner!). A little detective work revealed how this mare had wound up in such a stellar home - CBER director Kay McBean had dumped her at the Enumclaw auction this spring! 'Cause that's how you place horses you've rescued, right? What a complete and total joke. When this all came out, Kay came a-running with a home offer, as everybody does when in CYA mode. She admits to selling the mare at the auction, but has yet to offer any kind of explanation as to why she considers selling a horse to any Tom, Dick or Mary at an auction to be acceptable. It seems to have had something to do with her own personal finances. Shocker!
Here's another good tale. Several years ago, CBER sent three roan fillies and a sorrel colt to a foster home in Middle-of-Nowhere-Oregon. They were named Chai, Latte, Coffee and Felicity. Probably 9 months to a year later, foster home did not want them any more and asked CBER to take them back. $am, showing her usual laziness, talked another rescuer unaffiliated with CBER into making the nine hour trip to retrieve them (and never reimbursed her a dime for gas). The other catch? $am did not know the address they were at! True story. They sent someone to a small town in Oregon where she had to ask around to find where these people lived.
When she arrived, the horses were in a white sweat. The "foster family" had been chasing them for hours trying to catch them - trying to rope them off of other horses. The fence? Barbed wire. The horses were thin and most had fresh wounds from the unsafe fence.
This is Coffee, the colt. At left is how he appeared on the feedlot, before rescue. At right is how he appeared the day he returned from the foster home CBER put him in.I have looked for Coffee for years and have only recently learned CBER gave him to Wayne, another horse dealer. Most likely, Coffee went to slaughter after all.
Speaking of Wayne, Wayne also got another mare from this particular mess - Latte. Latte is a cute, grade QH mare. At left, thin and hurt, the day she was retrieved from the foster home.Still, she was alive and young and sound and could have been trained and had a chance at a good life as a riding horse. What did CBER do? Take a guess...
No, this one didn't go to slaughter although they did sell her to a kill buyer. He decided to keep her for a broodmare! Now she is a proud momma and bred back - thank you, Wayne! He has the three-in-one, shown here, for sale on Craigslist for $1000. In what world is he going to get that?And now ONE rescue horse has turned into THREE rescue horses. Way to go, CBER! Well, at least Wayne has fed the poor thing...
Then I got the minutes from the latest CBER Board of Directors meeting (see, this is what happens when you piss people off and have constant turnover - your private shit gets spread around). They discussed the fact that they are "missing" several of their 2008 horses and they don't know where they went. They also discussed that $am wants to up the QT charge to $15/day or $450/month. Sure she does! That girl loves money. She took a whole bunch of tack that was donated to CBER up to the Hermiston sale, sold it and pocketed the cash.
What it all comes down to is what I've said before - CBER is not a rescue. They don't follow up. They don't make any real effort to place horses in appropriate homes. They don't do medical care out of pocket. They don't even RESCUE horses out of pocket. They don't ensure that horses stay safe after rescue - hell, they have sold horses back to dealers like Wayne themselves or taken them back to Chuck to put on the truck to slaughter. I have evidence that $am not only makes money hand-over-fist with CBER, but she even gets kickbacks from the kill buyers themselves! Of course, she claims (are ya ready?) to have only made $250 last year on her taxes.
$am's admitted a million times that she will NOT support CBER horses (apparently, not even out of CBER money!) and even threatened in an e-mail of June 29, 2008 that horses would be put down or brought back to the lot - i.e. right back on track for slaughter, even after their "bail" had been paid, merely because their board wasn't being paid!
CBER has no business being a 501(c)(3) and representing themselves as a rescue. They're horse dealers, and they'd better start admitting to it and paying to be licensed and paying their taxes, or they're going to have a whole lot more to worry about than the Fugly blog.
P.S. The last time I mentioned CBER, someone was here who was very concerned about the fate of Abner the mule. I hope you are still reading because I got an update and Abner found a mule-knowledgeable home and is now happy and properly cared for. That one got lucky.
