Silent Wave Horse Rescue

09/01/2025

Can anyone in Southern CA help? Big Heart Ranch in Malibu
Just posted on Cowgirl 911

08/01/2025

Evacuation and shelter Information for those affected by fires in LA County.

08/01/2025

The Rosebowl stadium has been removed as a safe large animal evacuation site 😭
Prayers for everyone—especially all the poor critters in danger. So wish we were closer to help
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

🔥UPDATE: EATON FIRE - The fire is now 10,600 acres, The Rose Bowl has been removed as a large animal shelter. Unfortunately, this fire has claimed the lives of at least two people...

08/01/2025

😢

08/01/2025

Sending our most desperate prayers to Southern CA. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

01/01/2025

Wishing everyone a beautiful new year. May we make 2025 a kinder year—kinder to each other and kinder to all animals.
Happy New Year from all of us at Silent Wave Horse Rescue 💖🥳🥂
We wish to thank the amazing professionals we are honored and blessed to work with including our absolutely incredible longtime primary trainer Charlene Mehl of Lone Star Ranch Training and Rescues in La Pine, OR, our beloved wonderful intrepid trainer Kylie McElligott of Eastern Oregon, our exquisite and superb veterinarians Dr. Colleen Taugher Robertson and Dr. Jandy Torland and their staff of John Day River Veterinary Center, Dr. Sarah Sammons and Dr. Chris Ryan of Lavender Equine Rehabilitation & Veterinary Services who travel far out of Molalla, OR, and Farriers Jeff Larson, Roger Jordan Lee, Adam Williams, and Ashley Brandsma—we could not perform the high quality rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming services that are our standard without these incredible professionals saving lives, training, and maintaining our horses, donkeys, and mules galloping. We are very blessed. Thank you to all. Heartfelt gratitude goes to our longtime sponsors and/or monthly donors. Thank YOU to each and every one of our supporters who enable us to pursue our mission of giving a voice to the voiceless. We’d be nothing without all of you. Our Deepest Gratitude 🙏🏽.
Pictured: Geri Donkey, Spirit, Desperado, Clementine, Oso, Rosie, Blossom, Phoenix, Many not pictured who live in loving foster homes and are still a part of SWHR’s herd including Suzi, Wally, Harley, Buckwheat, Jumbie, Bo, Holly, Dunnie, George, and Gracie II, and many horses who benefit from our outreach programs, belong to an owner who cares but is suffering hardships, or are wild—-SWHR supports them in some way to keep them fed and on four healthy hooves.
We lost our beloved Mikey Mule this year and a couple horses whom we loved and cared for 🌈. Running on green pastures without pain now, and never forgotten.
Thank YOU for supporting SWHR.

28/12/2024

25/12/2024

Wishing you a joyous Christmas from all of us at SWHR 🎄🐴🎄

Found on Google from pinterest.com

24/12/2024

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to Everyone!
🎄🕎💝✡️🎄

21/12/2024

Horse Shooters convicted. Animal cruelty and violence leads to violence against humans— there’s never an excuse for animal abuse or violence against animals.

Horse Shooters Sentenced

Hanover, Va. – December 20, 2024 – The Hanover County Sheriff’s Office is providing an update on the sentencing of Jacob Brady and Robert Kelley Jr., who were convicted of the October 2023 shooting of a horse on Cauthorne Road. Jacob Brady was sentenced on December 9, 2024, while Robert Kelley was sentenced in October of this year.

Jacob Brady, 21, of Richmond, was sentenced to 37 years, with 12 years to serve. Robert Kelley Jr., 19, of North Chesterfield, was sentenced to 36 years, with 3 years to serve. Both men were convicted for their involvement in the shooting of a 19-year-old American Paint horse named Jake. The incident occurred on October 17, 2023, when the horse was shot in the face, between his jaw and eye, while grazing on his owner’s property in the 11200 block of Cauthorne Road.

In addition to the horse shooting, investigators were able to solve a series of mailbox shootings that had been reported on Greenwood Road in Hanover County. The convictions of Brady and Kelley provide closure for both the animal cruelty case and the vandalism incidents in the area.

Sheriff David R. Hines stated he was proud of the effort put forth by investigators and the collaboration with several local regional partners. Hines also expressed his gratitude for Mackenzie Babichenko and the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office, especially Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Kara Eichenmiller, who prosecuted this case. This case is a reminder of the importance of our community working together to bring about a successful prosecution. We are grateful for the public's support and the tireless work of our law enforcement partners in securing these convictions.

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18/12/2024

15/12/2024

Happy National Day of the Horse!
What magnificent creatures we’re blessed to
share our lives with 💖

Happy National Day of the Horse! We love this little hunk, Desi❤️

12/12/2024

It took us 2-1/2 years to work Oso towards being ridden. His trust had to be built from the ground up because of the abuse and trauma he’d suffered at the hands of humans after his capture from the wild. We had to be sure he’s sound after his horrible accident of falling out of a trailer. And he’s such a brilliantly smart boy, we wanted to be sure that he was on our page too, that we weren’t throwing him into a cesspool of expectations which he couldn’t meet. Thanks to our two very gentle trainers, Charlene Mehl and Kylie McElligott, they worked with him at what some would term a snail’s pace, but what we termed “Oso’s pace” so that ne’er was a step backwards taken. This is how it should be, for all wild horses and burros.
paypal.me/silentwavehrgmailcom

We Just Can’t Do It Anymore😔

~The evolution of wild mustang competitions~

A hundred wild mustangs in a 100 days with 100 trainers.

It was a brilliant idea🧐. Innovative, creative, exciting and challenging. Plus, the added bonus of showing the world just how trainable and amazing the American Mustang is.
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And it was amazing. It worked great for about the first 10 or so years. See back in the beginning you were a huge success if you got your horse around the courses. They were not too complicated. You could win your freestyle if you carried a tarp around and taught them to lay down.

Then the trainers got better.

The competitions got harder 😳and what we expected of the horses got to be monumental. In order to stay competitive you had to work your horse every.single.day. A lot of top trainers worked their horses all day. I know of some who didn’t take outside horses when they did the makeover so they could just concentrate on that one makeover horse.

🏆Winning was everything and we lost sight of the goal.

Horses were auctioned off who were dangerous but promised to be “solid, broke horse for anyone”. Some ended up in kill pens, some went from home to home to home. We lost sight of the why. The why we are doing this in the first place.

When horses are trained to win at a freestyle, many essential pieces are missing for a good transition to domestic life and a new home. They still need those holes filled.

A lot of wonderful trainers 🤠did all they could to encourage buyers to keep the horse in training and give them more time before taking them home. Many tried buying their horse back to keep training and have a say in placing them in the right home. This can be quite costly and let’s face it, mustang trainers aren’t exactly bringing in tons of money 💰training mustangs.

Good trainers got burnt out🥵. Good trainers heart’s 💔couldn’t take the grind and what was necessary to be competitive. Made no sense to put all that money into getting to the show if you couldn’t at least be competitive. Most do not have the bank accounts to be purely philanthropic yet got shamed by the public to simply want to survive financially.

A change was needed.

🥳A change is here.

The powers that be have taken notice. The new competitions offer more time ⏱. One of the reasons I have always loved the Magic. It gave 120 days rather than just 100 and those extra 20 days were huge.

But it still isn’t enough for most mustangs.

That is only enough time for a select few who can handle the stress of rapid training. Most mustangs are not like that and even then you are asking too much. They are generous and forgiving creatures, but it is too much 😞.

We are headed to the time of the majority of the competitions offering from 6mths to almost a year. This is incredible 🤩and the essential evolution of the mustang competition. It is more in-line with the rest of the equestrian show world as well. Check out what Mustang Heritage Foundation and Mustang Champions are doing breaking new ground and making huge changes.

These competitions are also allowing trainers the option to select the homes the mustangs they train go to. This helps the trainer as well as gives the mustang the best possible chance to not change homes or end up at a kill pen somewhere. That level of training, time invested, money invested and control of the person who knows the horse best (the trainer) helps push everything towards the best possible outcome for the horse.🐴

There is this domestic horse formula meme floating around FB right now:
📍Takes 1 year to get them broke
📍Takes 2 years to train one to a discipline
📍3-5yrs to season one
📍10yrs to truly finish one

Expecting wild mustangs to rise to a different time line is unfair and breeds for some rather unsavory 😬practices to result.
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We feel it takes 1-2yrs to get them even domesticated, then they can truly START on the timeline above. Sometimes they can do it concurrently.

We expect too much of them and then throw them away 🗑when they don’t meet that accredited timeline.

They deserve better from us. Let's treat them at least the same as we do domestic horses.

Give them time.

I recently pulled Sandia from the Mustang Magic - Ft Worth 2025 competition. She is a lovely mare but was not handling the stress of this timeline well. Her last video and why we pulled her from the competition was just posted to our YouTube channel.
Link in the comments.

Edited to add: To all those new to us. Isidro doesn’t do any of our social media. It’s me, the other half of IEH - Amber 🙂 though we do share sentiments and point of views on what’s posted here.

05/12/2024

Critical Donkey Fact 💜

Donkeys are not horses, and they do not have the water shedding hair function that horses do.

Remember, they are adapted to desert life.

Because of this, they need a shelter, etc to stay dry, or they run a very high risk of developing pneumonia.

Trees and shrubs are really not an adequate shelter for these creatures like they might be for horses.

You need to know, a donkey is a very stoic creature. Often you won't see them shivering, even though they are down right miserable.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2017-11-donkeys-winter-horses.amp

https://forum.chronofhorse.com/t/new-vet-study-donkeys-need-more-protection-from-winter-than-horses/439901