Paradise Waits Mustang Sanctuary

03/08/2025

Yellow horse and Brother Fee, even as a senior in his big old body Kix can keep up with Fee's antics.

Photo: Julie Lawrence

03/07/2025

Muzzle nuzzles are Kix's love language 💛 I can't believe somebody let this big love bug slip into the slaughter pipeline. When you send a 1400 lb senior, mostly blind Mustang to auction, usually nothing good will come from that, but for Kix, the road was bumpy with twists and turns, but eventually he ended up here.

Photo: Julie Lawrence

03/07/2025

Last Sunday we were blessed with a visit from our volunteers and photographer Julie Lawrence and her daughter Avonlea, the weather was a bit grey but the ponies played and ran, bucked and kicked, spring is in the air and were all ready for it!
These two have been seen spending a bit more time together lately, mostly just play time. Cedar the strawberry roan is our stout little Warm Springs reservation mustang that came to us as an injured rodeo horse, he hadn't had any good interactions with humans and had been discarded and sent to a quick direct ship sale. Cedar has some structural issues that will be unfolding in the next year, with the assistance of a trainer I've been able to do more structural integration on him and while he's had profound releases we believe he may have suffered a break somewhere that is pinching nerves, we will be working on getting to the bottom of this or at least try, he is sound and seemingly pain free and that's what matters. Maple is our flower moon filly, born under a massive big leaf maple on a full flower moon. We found her mama Luna emaciated with sores on her hips and abscesses in three feet in a kill-pen in the fall of 2020, she had been sold directly to the kill buyer 3 days prior. She was a big very sway backed mare and we couldn't leave her behind, we were going into winter and we brought an extra hay net just in case, she was our just in case. During quarantine she saw our beloved (now retired) Dr. Hills, she was vaccinated, had her teeth done, our farrier worked on her poor hooves. We found out she was from the Warm Springs HMA and had been rounded up in 2000. We were told by two veterinarians there was no way she was pregnant, there's no way a fetus would have survived the malnutrition plus all the vaccinations and stress.
Six months later I saw movement in Luna's belly, one month later Maple arrived.

Photo: Julie Lawrence

03/06/2025

Yesterday was sunny with a little chill in the air but the horses were all relaxed and napping, for the most part. At three PM the trimmer came to do a few horses, I had moved our trimming area back up to an area at our second gate, we have a sheet of plywood for Jasper and Kix to stand on and it also provides a clean, flat surface to trim horses on.
This is a place that we often trim horses if it's not raining, every horse has been trimmed up here and they always want Into this area because there's nice grass. But yesterday nobody wanted any part of it! It took me a while to convince Jasper it was safe and when I got him into the area I let him go so he could check it all out and realize there were no monsters, he was so spooked. Fee was also very skeptical and on high alert but we got him trimmed with no incident, except for the moment when he had his left hind on the hoof jack and his other three feet left the ground for a moment, Pamela and I were baffled at what he'd just done... moments later we got the alert there had been an earthquake. We finished Fee, did Jasper's hooves, and I went to fetch Maple, this is here after absolutely refusing to go anywhere near the upper gate trimming area. We could have forced her but I'm not one to force so I grabbed her mama, Luna. Luna was on high alert and super worried about heading to where we were going, I had to dodge her quick spooky maneuvers a couple times but she was a very brave and trusting mare. We've had four earthquakes in the last two weeks, it's a little spooky for me too!

03/06/2025

Have you ever wanted to walk in Wild Horse Annie's shoes? Here is your chance to be a voice for our Wild Horses. Let the people who can make change know how you fell. Just click the the link or copy and paste in your browser..it's that easy!

http://bit.ly/Euus-23

Photo credit: Steve Serlano

03/04/2025

Wow! This is good news! So grateful for the folks doing this work to protect our wild horses and burros! 🙏🏽

Join the movement to protect America's wild horses and burros. Advocate for humane, in-the-wild conservation to ensure these majestic animals roam free on our public lands. Get involved today and help keep wild horses wild.

03/03/2025

Buds 💛

03/02/2025

Keep up the good work, keep fighting for our wilds ♥️
https://app.oneclickpolitics.com/campaign-page?cid=fyzqP5UB9sorxFLOVopy&lang=en&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3Ct7rlxbVlXGo-WXiy5ad87CPS3GV9qFt3e0hiCnf9M-fSphxRr14jjSM_aem_exqjUOZkN-CLWByQZCs8_g

Please Send This E-Mail. Wild Horses and B***os need protection from harm this will save the taxpayers billions

03/01/2025

Celebrating the herd on World Horse Protection Day, it's our greatest honor to care for these majestic beings. ♥️

02/28/2025

Today, the Save America's Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act was reintroduced in Congress by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill).

The timely reintroduction of this important bill comes at a critical time as American Wild Horse Conservation gears up for a national day of action to celebrate National Horse Protection Day on March 1st, calling for a halt to helicopter roundups.

The SAFE Act would expand the Dog and Cat Meat Prohibition Act which was passed in 2018 as part of the Farm Bill to include equines. It would prohibit the commercial slaughter of horses, both domestic and wild, in the United States and would end their foreign export to slaughter.

Take action now and call on your Member of Congress to cosponsor this important bill: https://bit.ly/3EXUWcK

02/27/2025

Mud puppies! The herd has been enjoying the warm morning sun the last couple of days and also mud baths. Jasper and Fee were running around playing this morning and then came down for a good roll and rest. These two are a couple of years apart in age, Jasper is a stocky built Paisley Desert Mustang and Fee is a lengthy TB built with a touch of Appaloosa we think, he's from the Warm Springs reservation. These two have really been buddying up lately, every morning they're rearing and playing and loving life!
Jasper seems to be handling his DSLD and is self regulating his activity when needed. ♥️

02/25/2025

Good morning!
I wanted to come on here with an update about our urgent need for hay.
Thank you to everyone that generously donated yesterday, together we were able to nearly raise enough to cover our hay and feed for a month, this is incredible, and we are so profoundly grateful.
We are going to continue fundraising, and we are going to continue searching for, and applying for grants.
These are really tough times for small rescues, dare I say horse rescues in particular.
We are 1 ton of hay and a few bags of senior feed away from our goal.
🙏🏽

02/24/2025

‼️URGENT‼️

We need hay, we went through a lot of hay during our cold snap and desperately need to re-fill the trailer.
We have been doing everything we can to seek grants and sponsors for herd members and we'll keep trying but that doesn't help where we're at today.
We hate that this is urgent but it is.
It's costing us nearly 2 grand a month to feed the herd, that includes senior feed, but does not include supplements or medications.
Donate if you can, help our horses remain together as a herd at our sanctuary.
Donations not only support our herd, they go back into our community, feed stores, their employees, local farmers, our Veterinarians and Farriers. ♥️

Here are the donation links, we are hoping to receive 💯 $20 donations, we are grateful for all donations, every dollar counts! Thank you, from all if us at PWMS 🙏🏽

https://venmo.com/code?user_id=3900665348752760730&created=1740418853.712038&printed=1

PayPal.me/ParadiseWaits

Zelle - 530-307-0417

Checks can be mailed to-

PWMS
PO Box 94
Carlsborg, Wa
98324

02/20/2025

Family breakfast.
I truly believe giving the horses the opportunity to be as a herd, move as herd, eat as a herd is one of the most therapeutic, healing and nurturing to their emotional health. Things are different at night, the herd is separated, the seniors get mash and hay nets, Kix is separated into a safe zone because he is completely blind at night, Cosmo is given his own space to eat because he will steal from the seniors and the young herd will steal from him. But this is a typical morning feeding, after the seniors have their mash they go into the herd where most days they spend the day moving and behaving the way nature intended.
Having twelve horses from so many different backgrounds come together as one herd is a testament to self preservation, and if we can provide them with the right environment in a domestic setting they will thrive.

02/20/2025

I did a couple lives yesterday, but I'll sum up yesterdays events in a post.
First of all I'm obsessed with the weather, like any diligent horse person, and that saying, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, clearly came from someone from the Olympic Peninsula!
8 AM - checked weather no rain, high of 50 possible afternoon breeze predicted at 12 mph.
- fed horses, checked everyone, did chores, worked on computer.
Noon - Took Stella to the mouth of the Elwha, warm, sunny, clear, absolutely gorgeous, NO WIND!
2 PM headed back to the sanctuary, a few minutes into the 10-15 minute drive I started seeing limbs falling out of the sky, another few miles down the road there were cars stopped, tree in the road, there was a full on windstorm raging!
Within the next few minutes I passed another downed tree in the road, big limbs snapping and falling in the road. Damn.
2:15 PM Total carnage - all the horses were standing as far away from any trees or structure that they could. Three of our shelters uprooted and flew into the trees, panels, T posts and all.
Two of them were previously damaged and repaired after the big windstorm we had earlier this year.
I've lived here for 10 years and I've never experienced these freak wind events like we've had this year, sure, there's been big winds and damage but this wind came in like a wrecking ball midday, wreaked havoc, took out power lines, and then just like that it was gone, like someone flipped a switch.
Here's my, how it started, the unexpected midday carnage, and how it ended.
And most importantly, family and friends! Thank you REST for offering to come out and help 🙏🏽 and a huge thank you to my son for coming out and helping me once again, dismantle and move shelters and panels, I think we're down 4 out of 5 frames, we're hoping to piece together 2 solid frames out of the carnage.
Tried and true, shelter logics will only survive if they're attached to a whole damn round pen with heavy steel panels!

02/18/2025

Ask the white house not to euthanize the wild horses in BLM holding pens. In your own words please. Make it short. Please SHARE this post.

Share your thoughts with President Donald J. Trump.