The mustangs arrived!
On January 18, 2017, our two mustangs, whom I had already named Denali and Standing Rock Dakota, arrived. It truly was a dark, rainy and very cold winter night...we were still in the midst of all the snow storms which had prevented D & D from arriving earlier in the month. But let me start at the beginning....
I had been reading and hearing about the plight of our mustangs for years. Wild horses who should live free on our land, but who instead get chased by helicopters and rounded up, only to live the rest of their lives in pens without shelter, separated from their families and segregated by sex.
I fell in love with mustangs and for many years I had been reading books and had learned about horses and how mustang live. I thought it possible that at some point in the future, I would adopt mustangs...
Fast forward to November 2016, when I heard that authorities had seized a mustang rescue in South Dakota a few months earlier, and hundreds of mustangs needed a home. I started following the drama on Facebook. An organization called Fleet of Angels was asked to take over the process of finding homes for the horses.
The situation (WARNING: document has a lot of graphic images of horses injured and dead) had been going on for months. Many mustangs had died of starvation and it was a truly dire time. Of course I was just reading about it, and I had no intention to adopt one. After all, we still lived in the city and we had no place to keep a horse....and you had to adopt two, not just one... but they were free....
Over a month went by, and I was riveted to the screen every day, reading about what had happened, and what was happening to the horses next. It was a tragic story, and many many horses suffered. Horse transporters all over the country were offering special pricing for these horses to be moved from South Dakota to other states. All you needed was a vet to examine them, pay a nominal fee, and pay for transport to your state.
One day I decided to fill out an application! What was I doing? I felt totally crazy. On one hand, I was compelled to fill out the application, on the other hand, I could not believe I was doing it. I was thinking "I can't adopt two mustangs. Where would they go?". Most people adopting had their own place. No facility is going to accept a wild or even semi feral horse among domesticated ones. It's an impossible task. You could not pick your mustangs of course. You could ask for younger, older, pregnant or not (most mares were pregnant)....
Also, I knew nothing about the day to day care of a horse, even though I rode domesticated and trained horses for a short time in England as a teen.
Dakota, the day after arrival. He was pretty shut down, but he warmed up to us very quickly and his friendly nature appeared
But, I was on a mission. We had to save the mustangs! Even my very compassionate husband looked at me incredulously when I told him on my intentions. Like, where are we going to put them, in the garden?? But eventually he relented (he knows me well).
To fill out the application properly, I had to find a place to board them. I had to list name, address, and the kind of shelter they would be in, what type of fencing they were going to be kept in, how high, etc. So I began the search to find the appropriate place. After much searching and physically going out to talk to people, many days on the phone, I found a boarding facility run by a mother-daughter who considered my situation. Many discussions back and forth about how wild are these horses? Of course I had no idea. Were they so wild we could not get near them, or could we easily teach them to be haltered and moved? Impossible to know. I did not even know who these horses were!
The situation got a lot of publicity and people all over the country were now adopting these free mustangs. Originally they estimated the horses to be about 500, but in the end, which was more than a year later, it turned out there were 907 mustangs who needed a home!!
I was able to list this boarding facility as my choice, and I sent off the application! And within days, I got approved! It was now late November. Soon enough I found out though, that it would cost me close to $1000 to transport them to Oregon, even with the discount the transporters were offering. I just could not afford that! So even though I had been approved, I had to let the organization know I could not, at this time, adopt.
I was brokenhearted. I had however, made lots of connections via Facebook with many people, women mostly, who were adopting the mustangs. Some of these women it turned out, were in Oregon. And some of them were adopting several horses.
The weather was also playing a huge part, as it was now freezing in South Dakota, with wind chill factors of -50º! The mustangs had no shelter, no wind barrier, no cover. Snow and ice was covering the roads, and transport truck drivers were risking their lives by loading the scared mustangs and drive them to adoptive homes all over the country. Regardless of the weather, the people involved continued moving the horses, and the mustangs were now being adopted by people all over the US.
One day in December, out of the blue, a woman named Patty contacted me and inquired about me possibly adopting two mustangs...from another woman who adopted a herd of 9. Where were they? I asked. In southern Oregon....only a few hours from me. Wow!
By then though, the mother-daughter facility decided they were not equipped to deal with so many unknowns in my specific situation, so they decided I could not board with them...so now if I was going to adopt anyone, I had no place to bring them to!
Within days, Patty and I had spoken many times, and I was able to get in touch with the woman who had adopted the 9 horses...They were all from the same herd (the Sheldon herd, originally from Nevada) and had a pretty harrowing transport thru snow and ice storms, and it appears they never got off the truck once in the 5 days it took for them to arrive, after many stops because of the challenging weather.
Surprisingly, within days I was able to find another boarding place which agreed to receive them, and after much going back and forth about when to pick them up, having Dakota gelded prior to his arrival, and having both had their hooves trimmed, and other details, we waited for the weather to clear a bit and for the snow to stop so we could hire a local transporter to pick them up....which happened on Jan 18, 2017!
The day they were to arrive, there was a horse death in the barn they were going to move into, so things were a little stressed to say the least. Nevertheless, Dakota and Denali made it into their stalls that rainy January night pretty easily, walking out from the trailer after a 6 hour trip, and being investigated by several other horses as they walked past them on their way to their individual stalls. They had spent about 4 weeks with the first adopter, who had been working with them, so they both had halters and short ropes on.
We spent little time with them their first night. Once in the stalls, they immediately started eating and drinking water from the automatic waterers. I remember Dakota kept drinking and drinking, more out of "this is fun!" rather than a need to have a lot of water. It was a preview of his charming, mischievous and oh so playful personality!
Thanks to Anna Clay for the photo. This is the herd (one not pictured) after they arrived in Southern Oregon in Dec 2016. Dakota is the palomino on the left. It was from this photo that I chose "I'll take the two palominos" I remember saying.
Denali was approximately 15 years old when she arrived in Oregon in Dec 2016. Her small size made her look much younger and originally they told me she was a young mare.
