There are definitely more than 120 alive. We loaded more than that today - approx. 150 and 16 had moved yesterday. More to go tomorrow.
Nothing I saw today was in any imminent danger of death. They have been eating now for a few days and are doing better. They do have all the conditions previously reported by the media - rainrot, lice, wormy, terrible feet, etc. But they are not dying.
The horse that fell down, fell down because it bounced off a fence as it was being herded back to the corrals. It was NOT killed, did NOT break his neck, was NOT roped at the time and got up after a few minutes and ran off. Anything you've heard to the contrary is ridiculously incorrect. Nobody dragged ANYTHING for 2 feet much less a mile. Did not happen.
Overall I thought we had a great team comprised of various individuals from rescue that are repo'ing horses from Jason to HSUS staff to National Disaster Animal Rescue Team volunteers (I'm officially the latter). Yes, HSUS is paying for our expenses, and I cannot imagine why anyone would have a problem with that, but I'm still trying to figure out why people are so scared of the HSUS to begin with. Seriously, they are not trying to take over the world. Some of the staff here at this operation eat meat and everything, LOL.
I met Jill Starr, and I thought she was one of the most competent horse handlers out there, and I was not around for the events that led to her leaving so I can't speak to that or respond to her post regarding the matter but like I say, she's a very good hand with horses.
Love the NorCal folks...Jason and Tawnee are great with loading tough horses, always on their toes and in the right spot and a lot of fun to hang out with. And they brought Sassysmom, who says hi from the other side of the hotel room, having thankfully survived nearly being run over thanks to another individual who was so not in the right spot. ;-)
Wish us luck tomorrow with the rest of the loading. I have a whole bunch of really nice ones picked out if anybody wants to adopt. Some of these are skittish but some of them are veritable pocket ponies. I will let you all know when we have information on when they might be able to be adopted, or if they're going to be auctioned or how that is going to work. They are in the custody in the Sheriff at present, as previously reported. The Sheriff and numerous officers were present all day today and so all went smoothly. We were at the ranch about 8 hours today, 'til we lost the light, and it was hot and then turned very windy...it's a desert like place, all sand and grit, so we're all windburned, sunburned and tired. But the biggest part of the job is over and, as Jill reported previously, no horses or humans were hurt so that's pretty awesome news!
