Lemon's Hope Sanctuary

04/14/2025

Trying a fleece lasagne to ameliorate mud. Popular in the UK, where sheep are abundant, you layer brush and sheep fleece to fill in muddy spots. You can cover that with a bit of soil or old hay or straw or brush and grass may grow from that. Hoping for less mud in the future.

04/07/2025

Beautiful here today.

04/01/2025

There’s always at least one icy morning as winter moves into spring. Some photos from my dog walk two mornings ago.

03/29/2025

We need to create something like this for our seniors. The exercise will be good for me, lol.

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03/28/2025

Training animals, in this case Scottish Highland cattle, to put on their own equipment. This is how we do it with horses and dogs as well.

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03/22/2025

Sanctuary friends and past workshop participants: Please share our upcoming workshop with Emily Lewis and Casey Matthews with your networks. The animals benefit from robust attendance at our training events. This one is at the end of May and includes both non-working and limited working slots. Early bird discounts are currently available, but end soon. Thank you!

A three-day event focusing on working with aggressive and reactive behavior in dogs .

02/23/2025

It’s been a rough February at the sanctuary. We appear to be finally coming out of a prolonged and deep cold spell. But before that a storm that brought a foot of snow and some rain/ice took out the minis’ shelter. Sigh. We will need to replace it with something sturdier in the spring.

02/03/2025

Some folks report enjoying listening to cute animals chew. So, here is a video of cutie pies Diablo and Angel eating their hay. More videos of their chewing in the comments.

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01/28/2025

The girls being cozy.

01/24/2025

We will be doing this with our rattos.

01/21/2025

I know the trainer who has been guiding the training of this horse. Michelle Martiya, head the equid division and steering committee member of the Pet Professional Guild, is very talented and knowledgeable about R+ training with fearful horses. Fearful equids, including horses, donkeys and zebras, are her specialty. You can’t get better. Additionally, she’s a skilled coach of humans working with their fearful animals. Again, you can’t get better. And, yet, Heart of Phoenix is taking this horse back from their human custodian and trainers.

This move is cruel to all concerned, particularly the horse, and based in ignorance. Ignorance of how behavior works, behavioral science, and positive reinforcement based training (of ANY and all species and individuals). Know better and do better.

Protect Swagger's Home - Urge Heart of Phoenix to Do Better

01/21/2025

What might be seen at the sanctuary on a snowy day.

01/17/2025

Throwback to when Hope and Lemon were the only two re-homed animals here at Lemon's Hope. Lemon came first and was very fearful of people. Hope helped her to come out of her shell, so to speak, in addition to the training we did with her to give her skills to engage with us. Now she is still shy, but enjoys our workshops with professionals, as does Hope. Hope is a great candidate for doing sheep agility with!

In other updates: the rats are doing great, coming out for treats and interacting with people. More on them to come.

12/28/2024

New rat, Amber.

12/19/2024

Old man Chance has to be labeled as friendly. ❤️