Aguilaworks

11/23/2024

Pasado's Safe Haven could use our help after recent cyclone damage https://bit.ly/PasadosStormDamage

11/18/2024

To all my dog loving friends

Just a little warning regarding the Christmas treat many stores are now starting to stock for dogs at Christmas. 😉 🐶🐈🐩🐕‍🦺🐕🦮

Many of these so called treats end up with the dog "enjoying" some time in a veterinary surgery over Christmas. The vast majority of these rawhide products and treats come from China.

The chews are made from cattle or horse hides and their journey starts with the hides being soaked in a toxic sodium sulfide to remove the hair and fat. More chemicals are used in order to split the hide into layers which is then washed with hydrogen peroxide to give the white "pure" look and remove the rancid smell.

Now comes the pretty festive colors and the glue to form cute shapes. On testing, these chews have shown traces of arsenic, mercury, chromium and formaldehyde.

If that wasn't bad enough, they regularly cause intestinal blockages, poisoning from chemical residue and choking.
The chews go slippery when wet and are near impossible to get hold of to save a choking dog.

Leave them in the shop where they belong or if some well meaning person buys them for your dog put them safely away for later, then dispatch in the bin! Please be safe with your dogs! ❤️❤️❤️

10/22/2024

A thought-provoking read.
By Jane Smiley

Most horses pass from one human to another - some horsemen and women are patient and forgiving, others are rigorous and demanding, others are cruel, others are ignorant.

Horses have to learn how to, at the minimum, walk, trot, canter, gallop, go on trails and maybe jump, to be treated by the vet, all with sense and good manners.

Talented Thoroughbreds must learn how to win races, and if they can't do that, they must learn how to negotiate courses and jump over strange obstacles without touching them, or do complicated dance like movements or control cattle or accommodate severely handicapped children and adults in therapy work.

Many horses learn all of these things in the course of a single lifetime. Besides this, they learn to understand and fit into the successive social systems of other horses they meet along the way.

A horse's life is rather like twenty years in foster care, or in and out of prison, while at the same time changing schools over and over and discovering that not only do the other students already have their own social groups, but that what you learned at the old school hasn't much application at the new one.

We do not require as much of any other species, including humans.

That horses frequently excel, that they exceed the expectations of their owners and trainers in such circumstances, is as much a testament to their intelligence and adaptability as to their relationship skills or their natural generosity or their inborn nature. That they sometimes manifest the same symptoms as abandoned orphans - distress, strange behaviors, anger, fear - is less surprising than that they usually don't.

No one expects a child, or even a dog to develop its intellectual capacities living in a box 23 hours a day and then doing controlled exercises the remaining one.

Mammal minds develop through social interaction and stimulation.

A horse that seems "stupid", "slow", "stubborn", etc. might just have not gotten the chance to learn!

Take care of your horses and treasure them.

10/14/2024

That face ❤️

10/09/2024

Sending prayers of protection and strength to all living beings, humans and animals, that are left to weather the hurricane approaching Florida. May you all have shelter and safety 🙏

10/02/2024

Bless the Helpers! Prayers for all those who have lost so much.

09/09/2024

Worthy of our support

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US IS FINALLY TRUE…

Shortly after the pen live I told Cody that I didn’t think we’d be coming back. I, and I can only speak for myself, was going to cave to public pressure.

Ally spent every night crying thinking about the horses inside that won’t ever be saved.

As much as Ally and I love what we do, social media comes with a price, and we’ve been paying it for the last three or so weeks.

And I was watching my kindhearted, compassionate wife take hit after hit with untruths about her, when all she wants to do is help horses.

Rescue is weird in a way.

It’s the only place where unsuccessful people are very loud about telling you the proper way to do things.

They’ll tell you they’re biting and scratching for donations and then tell us we’re the ones fundraising wrong.

They’ll tell you they owe $12,000 to their veterinarian, have no way to pay it, and then try to acquire more horses the next day, but we’re the “mass bailing” scammer.

They have the nerve to talk about CCR being a massive scam while never stepping foot on one of our properties or speaking to those involved, and having zero idea about how we actually work.

When someone does the same to them, they are indignant and accuse people of bullying and meanness because these random detractors on the internet don’t know them or how they work…they even bring up the high rate of su***de for social media bullying.
It’s wild.

Here’s the truth about Colby’s Crew.

Call any of our vets. Our bills are paid.

Call any of our feed, hay, or grain suppliers — call our trainers.

Call our quarantine providers.

Our bills are paid.

We’ve rescued 601 horses so far in 2024.

Our immediate euthanasia rate is minimal relative to the number we rescue. At 21 days it remains only about 8%, and at 45 days it raises to 25%. With the median age of horse we rescue as 25+ years old with at least one soundness or behavioral issue, this is impressive.

We maintain about 255 horses in quarantine and/or training status who have not yet been deemed appropriate for sanctuary or adoption.

We’ve adopted out 306 horses this year (and climbing) because our horses are phenomenal.

Call our adopters. They and their horses are happy and healthy.

Knowing we keep most horses for 4-6 months in rehab and training, a 50% or greater progression in adoption rate in equine rescue isn’t just impressive, it’s unheard of.

We’ve put over 3000+ individual updates on horses so far in 2024.

Consider the fact that the median age that we rescue is 25 years old. Most horses we rescue have 1-2 major medical issues that we can rehab. These horses aren’t dying immediately and we’re pocketing the money as some people have wrongfully stated. Many get 6 months or even a year’s worthof restful time in our sanctuary for hospice care—isn’t that worth it?

We are actively working to give them quality of life for as long as we possibly can.

We’ve spent over $1,500,000 in veterinary care alone in 2024 with our vet bills averaging around $140,000 per month at 7 separate clinics.

We sanctuary, quarantine, and keep over 100+ horses across 1900 acres in 3 states.

We employ 12 employees directly, and hundreds indirectly.

We work hard to do what we do. We are an entire ecosystem. And we help hundreds of horses a year.

Our original 2021 and 2022 990s didn’t accurately reflect our early years, so we had our books and tax returns audited and updated by our new bookkeepers and accountants. Our corrected 2021 and 2022 financials are now public. Look us up on GuideStar.

We also hired a company that specializes in Charitable Solicitation Licensing to make sure we are licensed in every state that requires one. They are working diligently to make that happen. And, right now, we’re in the middle of an independent forensic audit that we requested so we can be licensed in the states that require them and to post for you for transparency purposes.

And it’s STILL not enough.

I was thinking of a way to tell you guys this might be the end of Colby’s Crew as you know it then I received a phone call from Cody about an injured horse in the pen.

The horse died before we could even get off the phone, but he told me straight out, “I told my dad you guys might be done so he’s shipped a load every single week you’ve been gone. This month he will do two loads until the end of the year. With CCR gone, we’re gonna ship 200+ horses out of here a month.”

My ears were buzzing.

My breath caught.

How in the hell am I supposed to process that?

100 horses shipped to their death. 25-30 more leaving early next week.

The USDA is happy because the organization going inside blowing the whistle to horrific cruelty inside the slaughter industry is silenced. Now they don’t have to field calls on why it’s legal to treat livestock this way, nor deal with calls for the passing of the SAFE act or harsher animal rights laws.

Perfect for them.

Bruce is happy because we’re silenced. He can ship horses to horrific deaths and no one will know. No one is going to be there making sure these horses get medical attention or a chance to be saved. Rescues are finally ALL gone from the slaughter holding facility. For 40+ years, they’ve been going inside.

Today, thanks to the efforts of self-important people, there are none.

Just how Bruce wants it.

“Competing” rescues are happy because, according to them, if we’re gone there will be more donations for everyone else now that CCR donors will be looking for a new place to put their money. “Take out the mass bailers and money will just flow into local rescues doing rescue RIGHT.”

Girl, I’m going to hold your hand while I tell you this. It’s hard for us too. We just don’t blame other rescues for our lack of success.

Because any lack of success we experience? Well, it’s our own. If we aren’t having success fundraising, it’s because our message isn’t clear or interesting or provoking enough. It’s OUR problem.

Read that again.

It’s the best advice I’ll ever give you. A platform tearing others down is building the blueprint for your own demise.

Read that again.

Animals Angels is happy because now CCR isn’t “making money for Rotz” per their delusional view that we’ve “teamed up with Rotz” when in reality, he must be making more money now than he ever did off us.

Bruce never wanted or needed CCR. We were a nuisance to him at best. We were always negotiating to save the horses with the son, not the father.

Telling Ally and the staff about all those horses being shipped was brutal. We sat in stunned silence as we realized what the true cost of us leaving the pen would be. Hundreds, or possibly even thousands of lives lost. Brutally murdered in Canada or Mexico.

But because you’re not hearing about it anymore… it’s not happening, right?

Humans have a funny way of dealing with tragedy.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I know what going back would mean. Videos attacking us, untruths and a massive disinformation campaign continuing to be wielded against us. Ally continuing to receiving death threats, accounts being made telling Ally to unalive herself, and people showing up at public events and screaming, “scammer, go k*** yourself.”

My wife almost took her life over this intense campaign of hate in early August. Thankfully because of Sterling, she is still here. She does plan use our platform to do a series on anti bullying and speaking on her experience with cyber bullying but she’s not ready yet so please keep your comments below kind and with that in mind.

When you write cruel and vicious things on the internet about someone, especially if you are not one hundred percent sure of the validity, you can hurt someone very badly who is actually innocent of all the rumors and speculation you’re using to justify the fact that you’re just a bully.

I know because it happened to me. It happened to my wife. And it happened to our rescue.

Our entire platform used to be about spreading kindness, anti bullying and glorifying patience, compassion and love.

I plan to bring at least some of that back. The equestrian world needs it desperately. We are teaching our younger generation to spread the ugliness inside instead of reaching out to help them heal it.

A PR person reached out to me and said, “I’ve never seen such a violent disinformation campaign thrown at such a transparent organization where the answers to every question are online and ready for you.”

Ha. (Internal screaming.)

So, what’s it worth?

Do we go back?

Do we quit?

Can we even go back?

I know I can’t take another month of reading we’re in multiple lawsuits, our financials aren’t public, we don’t know where our horses are because we’ve advanced beyond an excel spreadsheet, we use donor money for our own show careers (lol), and on and on and on with the lies.

It’s all, excuse my French, bu****it. Completely made up lies. And if you ask them for proof, they’ll haughtily say, “check TikTok!” Which is known for being such a hotbed of peer-reviewed, fact-checked, high-level journalism. Nobody can simply take a camera, sit in front of it, and create opportunistic propaganda at ALL… (sarcasm)

It’s stopped being about the horses and started being totally about random people wanting to get in front of CCR’s viewership.

And horses have died because of it.

Their blood is on the hands of those churning out this misinformation and those consuming and perpetuating it.

I used to think this was on Colby’s Crew. For not being brave enough to risk the bonfire of going back…

It isn’t.

I called Cody.

“What will it take to come back?”

He sighed.

“Do you even have the people behind you to come back?”

That stung because I didn’t know.

Do I?

Ally and I would like to go back. 60-70 horses are inside right now waiting to ship to slaughter. They are imprisoned, tagged, weighed and paperwork done.

I just don’t know if you guys want to go back.

Will you be there when we call?

These horses didn’t do a damn thing to anyone. They just exist. And they will be shipped in groups of 20-30 to their deaths again and again. It won’t stop simply because Colby’s Crew doesn’t show up anymore.

It won’t stop until it’s made illegal.

They’re dying. Quietly. Behind a closed door shrouded in disinformation. And some people are okay with that.

Are you?

200+ horses a month, actively dying and suffering on the way out.

We can save at least SOME of them. Every horse we save is one less dying brutally on a slaughter house floor. We can be inside forcing better conditions, giving medical attention, and ensuring these horses at least know a kind hand.

But we won’t do it if you don’t want to anymore.

Let us hear your voice, CCR. Do we go back?

Do we save them?

Are you with us?

Being a hero isn’t easy. It’s standing up when no one else will. It’s fighting when people tell you there’s a better way by letting that one person or that one horse die, but *you* know it’s the only way to save those inside.

It’s running into the burning building while people tell you that one person, or that one horse doesn’t matter.

They do.

They matter.

And I’m the type of person who will try to save them. And I’ve surrounded myself with people who are the same way.

Are you one of us?

09/03/2024

Well done In the Spotlight by Shreyovi Mehta from India, capturing two Indian peafowl at Keoladeo national park, Rajasthan, was runner-up in the 10 and under section
Photograph: Shreyovi Mehta, Wildlife Photographer of the Year

"In the Spotlight." Shreyovi Mehta was walking in the forest with her parents when she spotted this scene in Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan, India. She ran back to her dad, who was carrying the cameras, then got down on the ground to take her photograph from a low angle. Renowned for its birdlife, Keoladeo attracts large numbers of water birds in winter. Peafowl are year-round residents that roost in large trees. They rest in the shade during the day and are more active in open areas at dawn and dusk. From: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2024/08/wildlife-photographer-year-2024-highly-commended/679646/

09/01/2024

Rest in peace Hvaldimir 🤍

The beluga whale, who was first spotted in 2019 wearing what looked like a camera harness, was seen floating in Norwegian waters on Saturday.