Tawnee

I was born in 1984 in California. My parents were raising Arabian horses, so I grew up on the back of a horse. I was riding solo by the age of 2. I got my first pony for my 5th birthday, a 5 year old Shetland gelding who needed a lot of training. My mother showed me how to train him and soon he was a good little pony.When I was 9 years old I met Jason, it was love at first sight for me and I decided that Jason was the guy for me. I got my first horse when I was 10 years old, a 4 year old wild Mustang from the BLM, that I trained to ride. Later in my 10th year, I received a letter in the mail from a horse rescue. The letter had pictures of horses that were thin and abused looking, and then it showed the same horse after they had recovered. I decided that when I grew up I was going to do something to help save horses and give them a second chance at life.In my teens I traded my Mustang for two ponies and began raising ponies. I got another horse, a 3 year old Quarter cross mare named Cherokee. I finished Cherokee's training and together we enjoyed trail rides, parades and gymkhanas. Due to financial obligations, I had to sell Cherokee and was horseless for once in my life..My dream of marrying Jason came true, January 19, 2003. For our honeymoon, we stayed at Tahoe in a honeymoon suite and hit the slopes snowboarding for a week, it was a lot of fun and a lot of cold air, it was great.In the summer of 2003 I learned that horses were still being slaughtered in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This broke my heart. I had heard that horse slaughter was illegal, which it is in California since 1998. Still, many California horses end up in slaughterhouses after being purchased at livestock auctions by transporters and people looking to make an easy buck. After learning that horse slaughter is still legal in most states, Jason and I went to a livestock auction in late summer and rescued a beautiful registered 4 year old AQHA Quarter Horse mare. We chose to call her "Skip." Skip was untrained and had never been worked with before. I began training Skip, who was a willing learner, and in one week we were going on trail rides together. I wanted to rescue more horses like Skip. What would have happened to Skip if we had not rescued her? I knew that Skip was well started and could go to a new loving home. With sorrowing hearts we sold Skip and with Skip's funds we were able to rescue 5 other horses that year. People started to call me a "Horse Trader." I was not doing it for the money, I did not want to be called a horse trader. I was just trying to give horses a second chance at life. In the winter of 2004, Jason and I decided to start a rescue for all equines: horses, ponies, mules and donkeys. We chose to call it "NorCal Equine Rescue." (NorCal is short for Northern California.) NorCal Equine Rescue would be a rescue that would strive to save equines from slaughter, abuse, neglect, PMU, abandonment, or worse. And would have opportunity to heal and gentle the previously damaged equines and then find suitable homes for them that would provide love and care.NorCal Equine Rescue has been able to save 89 equines from a unknown future and adopted them into loving homes. Were would those 89 equines be today if Jason and I had not started NorCal Equine Rescue? The rescue website is www.SaveTheHorse.com Jason & I had a little boy (Justin) on July 9, 2005, after 48 hours of false labor, 36 hours of contraptions, 6 hours of pushing and then a C-section. Do you think I wanna go through that again? I don't think so, not right now, at least. I think we may just adopt a child later to complete our family, but may be not, who knows.. maybe in a year or two I'll be ready to go through a pregnancy and a C-section again.Justin has been keeping us very busy. Running an equine rescue and caring for a baby can be very challenging. But I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. My life could not be better, I have a wonderful marriage, a cute little baby boy, and have saved almost 100 horses from a life of unknown.