27
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: charlie's angels, donkey, donkeys, education, friends of the month, good samaritan, gsdr, haven, horse, rehabilitation, rescue, sanctuary, welfare. Leave a Comment
When Charlie’s Angels first began, we contacted the GSDS for advice on setting up and running a professional organisation and were 
exceptionally lucky to receive not only advice but templates for contracts from which we would then create our own unique paperwork. The people at the GSDS are exceptionally hard-working and dedicated people and we’re very proud to hold a link to their site on our own 
- The Good Samaritan Donkey Sanctuary Inc (GSDS) is dedicated to helping needy donkeys enjoy a very healthy, happy life. We offer donkeys a safe haven while they recover from ill treatment — which is all too often deliberate.
- The GSDS is dedicated to providing professional and intensive care for injured and traumatised donkeys while also creating a refuge for these orphaned, abandoned, starved and unwanted creatures
- Our sanctuary covers 300 acres and we typically have around 130 donkeys on property and another 80 with our registered foster homes.
- Caring for rescued donkeys since 1972, the GSDS was officially established in 1990—making us the first donkey sanctuary in Australia.
- Managed by a committee of donkey-knowledgeable members, GSDS has many decades of experience in handling, managing and caring for donkeys.
- Through a combination of rehabilitation, education and tlc we ensure all our donkeys live happy, secure and carefree lives. And we exist purely on the support of people like you for the funding of our work.
To find out more, visit the GSDS website at www.donkeyrescue.org.au.
24
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: 10, 9, charlie's angels, corrective, degrees, diet, exercise, founder, grass, hoof, horse, laminitis, management, pain, pedal bone, pony, rehabilitation, rescue, rotation, shoeing, sinking, trimming, x-rays. Leave a Comment
Sal’s x-ray
Better news has come our way for Sal. Sal’s x-rays of her front feet have shown that the pedal bones have 9 degrees rotation in the right foot and 10 degrees in the left. There is pedal bone sinking in both feet and noticeable bone changes. However, better news with the vet agreeing that a four-monthly review and follow-up x-rays will be okay considering everything we’re doing to help Sal and manage her pain levels. So as long as her pain doesn’t worsen, we will keep doing what we’re doing and hope for the best in four months time
Laminitis and founder is a very serious condition in horses, and the second biggest killer of horses and ponies after colic (slaughter aside). It can take a year or more for a horse to recover and takes considerable commitment and management. If your horse has laminitis, you need to seek urgent attention from a vet and introduce a strong management plan (including diet, regular (four-weekly) hoof trimming, possibly corrective shoeing and/or booting, pain management, restricted access to grass, and exercise suitable for the horse’s pain levels) to get him or her better. It’s not something you can just ‘wait and see’ whether or not it will get better.
If you don’t feel that you have the capacity to care for your foundered horse or pony, please do seek help.
20
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: rescue, charlie's angels, samford, horses, foster, feeding, hooves, laminitis, hoof, pony, trim, shetland, surrender, founderguard, euthanasia, x-rays, pain, mini, diet, john kohnke, plan, sal, laminitic, magnesium, carers, probiotics. 1 Comment
Sweet Sal
Sal arrived as an 8-year-old Shetland x mini surrendered horse, with obesity and severe laminitis. Laminitis is most common during spring, but can happen at any time of year, even in winter, particularly when frosts occur. Sal’s people had ‘inherited’ her and didn’t have the knowledge to look after her so wisely sought our help to take on her rehabilitation.
Unfortunately for Sal, things have looked pretty bad and her attending vet hasn’t ruled out euthanasia at this stage. While the hooves will indeed recover in time (and that can be many months), the pain she will go through in the meantime is considered by the vet to be enough of a reason for euthanasia. We, of course, take this suggestion very seriously. A vet’s advice is never something to ignore. What we feel at the moment, though, is that Sal is coping very well mentally. She is bright and alert and engaged, she doesn’t lie down to avoid the pain, and she will still move around and trot (and even gallop!) when the mood takes her. (Though, at other times she is reluctant to move.) So while she is still showing us signs of her willingness to go on, we would like to give her a little more time to see if we can help get the pain levels down.
Because everyone has a different opinion and experience with how to manage laminitis, it can be very stressful having to make decisions about how best to proceed with so much conflicting advice and an uncertain future. In these cases, we like to choose the advice of a single respected, trusted source of information and stick with it while it’s working.
Sal is also on many supportive therapies to assist her at this time, including Founderguard (which will stop her getting another bout of laminitis at this crucial time), herbs for pain relief, magnesium for pain relief, hoof building supplements, probiotics for her gut and Kohnke’s TRIM to help her metabolise sugars.
We’d also like to extend a very big thank you to Carole Isaacs who has been coming to do Bowen therapy sessions with Sal to assist her pain management.
Sal has had her teeth done, been vaccinated, microchipped and had her feet x-rayed.
Sal is fostering with our newest foster carer, Di, in Samford. And Di has been doing a sensational job!! I recently said to Di how sorry I was that her first foster horse was so complicated but she immediately batted that idea away and said how grateful she was to have Sal. Di’s attention to detail, love for Sal, positive attitude and determination to do whatever Sal needs to get her through this is precisely why we love our Angel foster carers so much
18
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: bo, bojangles, charlie's angels, development, drink, foster, horse, mare, millie, rescue. Leave a Comment
Millie, watching not just over Bo but Fraser as well
Bo with Millie, May 2012
Bo drinking for the first time from Millie
The beautiful, marvellous Millie went home today.
Millie has been with us for many months, serving an amazing role as Bojangles’ foster mare, allowing him to drink, loving and protecting him and helping to teach him to be a horse. So much of Bo’s social development can be attributed to Millie’s impossibly generous, maternal guidance.
One of the greatest challenges of bottle-feeding and raising an orphan foal is to help the foal to learn to be ‘a horse’. This is something only another horse can do and much of our management strategies have been built around this goal. Millie’s departure today signifies an important milestone in Bo’s development.
Bo, now nine months old, is slowing transferring his social bonds to fellow foal, Fraser, who we brought into care specifically with the intention and hope that he provide more social growth for Bojangles.
We want to extend a huge thank you to Millie’s people, particularly Lisa Marshall, for allowing us to have Millie on loan for so long at such an important time in Bo’s life. We have counted our blessings every day to have had her with us and we will all miss Millie. She is such a treasure.
Big love to Millie!
16
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: charlie's angels, companion, damage, foaling, horse, lame, lameness, rescue, ridden, sahara, trail riding, x-ray. Leave a Comment
First vet visit today… Discussed with the vet Sahara’s tendancies to go lame with anything more than light trail riding work. Her history includes difficult foaling and ‘damage to her back end’. The vet said the only way to truly find out what is causing the lameness and possibly fix it would be to put her in work, wait til she goes lame, then x-ray her but says that at her age, if she can enjoy light trail riding, why would we bother? Sahara also has an old cut on one of her hind legs. The vet says it would likely affect her soundness as well.
Sahara had her teeth checked today. Vet recommends 6-monthly checks.
Sahara has a history of intense riding and a great level of education and is looking for a home as a loved companion horse or very lightly ridden horse (who is also very loved!).
Sahara
If you are interested in adoption of Sahara, please see our “Adoption” page and then email us at charlies-angels@live.com.au.
10
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: adopt, arabian, charlie's angels, fostering, horse, injuries, rescue, sahara, sal, Seedy toe, surrender, training, warmblood. Leave a Comment
Sahara, day 1
This is Sahara, our newest equine angel. She came to Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue as a surrender, due to financial reasons.
She is a 19y.o. Arab x Warmblood, approx 15.2hh, who has wonderful manners and has had fantastic training. Due to past injuries, she can now only be lightly trail ridden, which she really enjoys. But she needs a sensitive partner who can work within, and respect, her physical limitations.
Aside from some treatable seedy toe, she is in great condition and is known for being a very good doer. She has been well looked after. She is easy to worm, hoof trim, float etc. She is said to be great with kids and could be good on a lead line with them, but she is very forward moving so does need someone with experience under saddle. She is reported to be safe in traffic. Loves people, loves being brushed and she comes when called.
Sahara and Sal
Sahara is fostering in Samford, along with our other newest angel, Sal.
7
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: charlie's angels, founder, hooves, horse, john kohnke, kohnke, kohnke's own, laminitis, overweight, pony, rescue, starve, trim, trimming, vet, x-rays. Leave a Comment
Sal, seriously overweight
Sal arrived a few days ago as a shockingly overweight pony mare, approximately 8 years old, with severe laminitis/founder.
Her people had ‘inherited’ Sal from someone else but felt they didn’t have the knowledge or experience to manage this serious condition and asked for our help, for which we are grateful, and pleased to be able to help at this time. Managing obesity in any horse, but especially ponies, can be very complex and can be a threat to the pony’s life.
Sal is very sweet, great with kids and dogs, loaded onto the float easily and follows her foster carers around. She has seen the vet for an initial assessment. The vet is very concerned about her future and will be back to do x-rays on her feet later this week, after we’ve had her feet trimmed. She is currently receiving Bute for pain management and we have a strong laminitis management plan in place for Sal.
Sal, day 1, an adorable sweet-natured pony
Helping a pony to lose weight can be difficult. Ponies by nature have exceptional abilities to ‘live off the smell of an oily rag’. But at the same time, you cannot ever starve a horse because their digestive system is designed to keep eating almost around the clock. To starve a horse is very dangerous indeed. So it can be a long and frustrating cycle of keeping the horse’s gut moving while trying to limit calories.
If you have had a horse with laminitis and would like more information on managing the situation, we highly recommend this factsheet by Dr John Kohnke.
Sal is fostering in Samford. Her name means both “saviour” and “princess”.
3
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: barrister, defamation, defamatory, emaciated, horse, lawyer, legal, notice of concern, rescue, rspca, samford. Comments Off
A month ago, three women launched a fabricated story about one of our foster carers taking an emaciated horse and hiding it from the RSPCA in order to protect her neighbour. The story has been repeated on Facebook, Twitter and an online forum (that we know of so far) and has been sadly viewed by hundreds of people. There was no truth in the story. In fact, when we traced the origins of the horse in question, she had been a sickly, 34-year-old horse who had been under veterinary care for some time, and had been euthanised a week prior to the claims that our foster carer “was seen” taking the horse away.
We sought legal advice immediately, were fortunate enough to have a lawyer offer his services pro bono, and issued each woman a Notice of Concern for their defamatory material, requesting that they delete, retract and apologise. None of them has accepted this offer.
Today, we heard from a professional equine colleague in the Samford region that he was relayed the story this morning. Knowing us as he does, he didn’t believe it, and phoned us to let us know what he’d heard.
It is deeply distressing to us to have this story circulating. We are now pursuing further legal action. It is simply not okay to have these lies so maliciously and deliberately spread about us, damaging our hard-earned reputation, which we rely upon in order to continue our good work. And it is not okay for our members involved to have to deal with the level of personal distress this has brought about.
We would appreciate your support in this process. We would also appreciate you letting us know if you have heard this story, with as many facts as possible, so we can continue to build our defamation case for the purpose of going to court.
We have tried to handle this professionally. Each person was contacted right at the start and asked to phone us to discuss the situation as we feared there had been some mistake and wanted to get to the bottom of it. None chose to discuss it with us, but instead kept spreading the story. We followed the lawyer’s advice to send them each a Notice of Concern to give them the opportunity to acknowledge their mistake. And we have tried to refrain from any public discussion of this as it both takes away from our work with our horses and adds fuel to a fire that should never have been there in the first place. Sadly, there will always be a per centage of people who believe something even when it isn’t true.
But that time has passed. Our lawyer’s advice is to vigorously defend ourselves. We need to stand up for ourselves in the public arena because that is where this was firmly put by these three women in the first place. We are a small (only half a dozen foster homes) but effective charity that runs entirely on volunteers and public donations. We all have busy lives and do what we do within our limited resources out of our desire to help horses in need.
We are exceptionally grateful to our ongoing supporters. We can only continue to do what we do with your help. We trust that those who know us know that we act with the highest integrity, openness and honesty at all times.
2
May
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: blue stone, charlie's angels, copper sulphate, dental, fetlock, horse, injury, joey, microchip, rescue, update. 1 Comment
Joey’s awful fetlock injury is healing really well!
Joey and his new friend
Joey is doing very, very well! His fetlock is healing up beautifully and he has a new paddock friend as well. We just need to have Joey’s teeth looked at and get him microchipped and he’ll be well on his way to perfect health!
Thank you to Katrina Joyce for donating a tub of TuffRock poultice for Joey. Much appreciated!
This could have been a nasty outcome for Joey but he is one very lucky boy!
26
Apr
Posted by LucyGabrielle in Uncategorized. Tagged: boosting, charlie's angels, horse, Immune, rescue, sienna, spinal, surgery, wound. Leave a Comment
Sienna's wound post surgery (We saved you the gory picture of it open! But if you're really keen to see it you'll fin it in our Facebook album.)
Sienna is still recovering well from spinal surgery, still putting on weight and looking more relaxed all the time. She has had a small hoof abscess, which has been poulticed and packed by the vet, but is still in great spirits. Her awesome foster parents are doing a wonderful job of keeping her wound clean and helping her to heal. We still have her on immune boosting herbs and supplements to help her continue to improve.Sienna’s most recent vet bills come to $2,506.53. If you would like to contribute to her continued good health, we’d welcome your donation or your $2.50 pledge. You can find out more about this on our donations page. Thank you
exceptionally lucky to receive not only advice but templates for contracts from which we would then create our own unique paperwork. The people at the GSDS are exceptionally hard-working and dedicated people and we’re very proud to hold a link to their site on our own 
