Hello! I hope this email finds you not buried in snow and looking forward to more spring days ahead! In fact, have you thought yet much about how you will spend the spring and summer, especially with your beloved animal friends? Maybe this is the year you get a new puppy, kitty, fish tank, you get that horse you always dreamed about. I encourage you to consider this spring you make a renewed commitment to your current animals to reach new heights and prolong their health. For example, go on more frequent walks outside, have daily playtime, or make that commitment to brush their teeth every day. And if you have trouble deciding what to do, or, how to do it, I have tons of free videos on YouTube I have made just for you, to help you in your journey. If you have not done so already, please navigate now to YouTube and look me up, Jena Questen. There, you will easily find our channel @The1DrQ. Please subscribe today, it helps us so much and costs you nothing!. More subscribers unlocks many new opportunities for us to access funding for our rescue, so please check it out, subscribe, and tell your friends, thank you!
So now what are we going to do at the ResqRanch to rise up to the challenge of springing into something new this April? Keep reading to find out!
First, let me fill you in on the sage of the 2024 Rocky Mountain Horse Expo which is now behind us once again, and what a unique one it was, especially for us. Not only was I the on-site veterinarian for the event, but also a presenter, and we had a booth in the Expo hall. I was planning to haul horses to the event Thursday March 14th, and scheduled to present on Friday the 15th, the first public day of the event. However, you might have seen Janelle Finch, a 9 News reporter who came by the veterinary hospital to interview me about getting to the Expo before the big snow storm, on Wednesday when the storm was just starting to come in gently at first and then with a fury overnight.
Most of the people bringing horses to the Expo from out of state (and there were plenty), left early and arrived on Wednesday ahead of the storm. We were not able to do that because we had a very full day of appointments on Wednesday for folks who knew we were likely to be snowed in for a few days and didn’t want to risk not having their pets seen before that happened. So we worked late Wednesday, committed to our clients, and I plowed snow with my little ATV that night hoping I would be able to get us out in the morning and that the weather folks were over exaggerating the amount of snow predicted.
Well, unfortunately for us, the weather folks were right, and we got so much snow all throughout the night and day, (and another 2 feet of snow the next day), I buried my little ATV and got it stuck first thing, so then my kids and I spent the next 2 whole days doing nothing but shoveling snow, asking neighbors for help, and still could not get out of our driveway even with tire chains until late Friday night long after I missed my presentation time. There was little hope of extracting the horse trailer from the deep snow. Oh if only we had the funds for our tractor repairs! With our tractor we might have been able to get out on time.
Regardless, by Saturday morning we were out, and went early to the Expo, met up with our wonderful volunteers and set up our booth. I was so grateful we actually had our entire ResqRanch summer calendar done and printed to hand out to folks at the event. It is posted on our website for you so please check out our summer events! While they did that, I checked in with the stall office and discovered there was a lame auction horse I needed to examine, and ultimately, pull from the auction. As soon as I was finished with that, I looked at the event schedule and realized I was supposed to be on stage 25 minutes ago! I rushed around trying to find the Journey stage, and found a huge amount of empty chairs in front. With some trepidation, I put on my microphone, and just started presenting my information about why horse lovers should learn about and use positive reinforcement as the best training method for horses. It was a very odd experience, but within a few minutes many people showed up and listened to the last 15 minutes, so it worked out well after all!
Then it was time for another pass through the barn to make sure all the horses were doing well, a walk through the Expo hall to meet up with some old friends, and then, suddenly, it was time for my afternoon training demonstration. The trick is that we didn’t have horses to demonstrate with, so we had to arrange to borrow a couple of strange horses to do a training demonstration with! It actually went really well with me presenting the theory of training, while my daughter Zen was in the corral with the horse and its owner showing her how to get started using positive reinforcement methods. I am really proud of how my 14 year old daughter is able to handle herself in front of a crowd!
After that, the weather was so sunny, nice and warm, we thought we might be able to get the horse trailer out, and bring our animals down to the Expo for the night and have them for demonstrations the next day. So we left our booth in the hands of our trusty volunteers and headed back to the mountains to see if we might be lucky.
To find out what happened and read the rest of the adventure, please keep an eye on our website www.ResqRanch and subscribe to our newsletter, The ResqRanch View. With any luck, by the time you read this we will also have a video of the event on our YouTube channel for you to enjoy. That way you will be inspired to attend the Rocky Mountain Horse Expo next year, barring another snowstorm of epic proportions!
So make plans now to get the most out of the sunny, warm days ahead, and we can be of any help in your personal adventure, please ask!
As always, thank you for reading, and God bless,
DrQ and the Crew of Aspen Park Vet Hospital and the ResqRanch