Amazing Ladies and Vaccination Day

It always seems that when I start to panic, someone appears out of the blue to help. On Sunday we had two amazing young ladies volunteer at the Sanctuary. My original plan was to have them help vaccinate and deworm. What I had expected and what happened were exact opposite.


Those two amazing women stepped up and took over and I had the opportunity to step back and watch them in action.


I hate giving shots. I would rather get shots than give shots. I'm always afraid I'm doing it wrong and I know I'm causing them a bit of pain. Although the flies this year are causing them just as much if not more pain so I'm not sure why I was worried. But I think the horses can sense my hesitation while standing there with a needle in my hand (or a dewormer). Those two ladies made fast work (and the horses weren't expecting shots or deworming). I think the horses were expecting grooming and treats. Don't get me wrong, they got treats and grooming but the important job was taken care of.


As the one said, they have no expectations on any horse whereas I know them and their personalities and what they will do. Brego is usually a hard horse to deworm. One head raise and they had the entire dewormer in him just like that. No preconceived ideas, it was just done.


It was a fabulous day and knowing that all of the horses are vaccinated for another year is a huge stress relief. I'm sure we should have done it sooner but time seems to play havoc on life these days.


The second best part about Sunday is that almost all of the shots were free thanks to Merek generously donating these shots to us (and to other rescues throughout the US). This time around, they also threw in a few doses of rabies, which helped cut down the price as well.


I will admit that I am worried about funding this year. We normally don't do too much fundraising this time of year anyway but had hoped to do something this summer that would be a new annual fundraiser. We've put that on hold in hopes next year will be a much less stressful year due to the coronavirus. I don't feel comfortable asking people for donations when so many are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Sure I'm asking for donations to put food in the manager and to keep a roof over the horses but it's different somehow. Last year we didnt' have our annual playday and depending on how things go, we may or may not have one this fall. If we do, we will have to rearrange and have it outdoors. I do not want to have any event we host turn into a hotspot and cause more harm to people. But that's all for another post I'm sure I'll comment on later.


But for now, I'm going to breath a sigh of relief knowing that everyone is vaccinated and we will tackle deworming again in a couple of months. And a huge shoutout of thanks to the two amazing ladies who were willing to step up and not just help but to take over so all I had to do was catch horses (and I'm sure they would have done that too had I let them). I told them they had to return next year but they just laughed at me.