Mya - Seen on Animal Planet

  Mya was adopted on the Petfinder TV show into her forever home, making Star the happiest little girl in the world.

  You can watch a great video of Mya at this Access Hollywood link. It's a recent film and you can see how Mya and Star are doing these days. It's wonderful seeing a horse that was slaughter bound beamed all around the world on international TV and Internet, being a beacon of hope for other slaughter bound horses.  Living proof that slaughter bound horses are not all bad, lame, dangerous, crazy unwanted old horses.

  When we first learned about Mya, she was described as a "Bay mare w/1 hind sock & blaze, very well broke to ride."  That was the description we got from the Feedlot she was held prisoner at, waiting for the truck to load her up and take her to a Canadian slaughterhouse.  Thanks to many generous donors, Mya was able to be saved from that horrible fate along with 9 others that rescue.  Mya was transported to our main rescue facility near Oroville, Ca. Mya was tired after her long trip from the feedlot to our rescue where she was placed into quarantine until we could determine her health status. When Mya had been here awhile our trainer came out to meet and ride the newly rescued horses. Mya was a very sweet girl and our trainers words were "This horse would make a great kids horse, she is so sweet!" 

  On Sep, 23, 2007 we received an email from Petfinder stating that a horse was needed for part of the Petfinder show. They were looking to provide a horse for a family to adopt in their show.  The horse would be primarily for a lovely 8 year old girl named Star who has been taking lessons as part of a therapeutic riding program for a couple years.   She had benefited tremendously from the program and would love to have her own horse. When we read that email, we thought that most likely they had already found a horse, and if we did reply it would be very unlikely that one of our horses would be chosen since we were so far away from the Hollywood area. 

   Monday, October 01, 2007 started out with a normal routine until Tawnee answered the phone and it was from Petfinder.com asking if we had any horses that could possibly be useful for a therapy riding horse and to be in the filming.  We discussed various horses we had available and determined that we had a couple that could be good candidates.  When Tawnee got off the phone we were utterly amazed at what had just happened.  Would we really be on Animal Planet?  Petfinder told us that Darlene from Ride Your Horse would be calling us to talk about our horses  We were on pins and needles waiting for that call!  Soon the phone rang again and it was Darlene, wow, this was really happening!  Tawnee told Darlene about the horses and she sounded excited.  Soon we had calls from several Animal Planet producers arranging a flight for Darlene to come up first thing in the morning.

   Tuesday morning Darlene from Ride Your Horse flew up to evaluate our horses and hopefully select one to be in the show!   Darlene spent several hours evaluating each of our horses, giving them intense evaluation, not only for gentleness, but also for how they react to sudden sounds, movement, and other environmental situations that could be encountered during a therapy riding session.  She fell in love with Mya and kept going back to evaluate her some more.  There was one other of our feedlot horses that had been transferred to another rescue that could possibly work as well, but as it was a couple hundred miles away.  It was arranged that we would pick the horse up on the way to Los Angeles.  Shortly after Darlene left to fly home we loaded up Mya and began the 12 hour drive south.  We made arrangements for care to be given to the horses left behind at our rescue and took one last picture of Mya, all smiles, before she was loaded up for her big adventure.  Around 1:30 AM we were able to bunk in the sleeping quarters of a horse trailer at the rescue that Cisco had been transferred to and were able to sleep for a few hours.  It was still as if we were living a dream, but it was really happening!

  Wednesday morning, a couple minutes after we woke up, still dark, we loaded the horses and headed down to Los Angeles.  We arrived in LA about 11:00 AM on Wednesday morning, having driven 480 miles during the night.  We unloaded Mya and Cisco, and got them settled into their nice stalls at B&B Stables, the home of Ride Your Horse.  They both enjoyed getting baths, being groomed, and then letting their legs rest from the trip.  It was nice  getting to know Darlene and her volunteers a bit.  One of her volunteers, Mona, was so kind and gracious she paid for us to stay at an extremely luxurious hotel the entire time we were in Los Angeles.  We can't thank you enough!

 

    Thursday we volunteered for Ride Your Horse and cleaned stalls and tack rooms, bought shavings, and generally tried to be as helpful as possible.  The vet came out and vet checked the horses and gave them a clean bill of health.  The farrier was the next person out to give them some trims and make sure they had happy hooves.  We enjoyed helping out and not having to be the one that tells everyone what to do!  It was neat seeing Darlene working with the kids in her therapy riding program.  She has such a gentle touch with both the children and the horses.  She truly has a gift!  Darlene chose Mya for Star, and was hoping to be able to adopt Cisco for her therapy riding program.

   Tawnee took her last ride on Mya before she was adopted by Star, and Mya was just loving all the attention she was getting from everyone!  Our hearts were so touched, here was a horse that was considered unwanted, no good but to be slaughtered for the meat on her bones, but now she was in LA ready to be filmed by Animal Planet and make a little girls heart jump with joy!
     
   Sunday was the big, final day of filming and Star would get her horse!  Please enjoy the picture narrative.

  First we got our booth set up so the filming crew, spectators and everyone would know who we were.  Thanks to our booth we were able to make some great friends and receive some much needed donations.

Mya looked gorgeous that day, lots of grooming and show-shine made her look like the million dollar horse she is.  She even had twinkle glitter toes!

Mya had to become familiar with the filming equipment and crowds of people. 
She was so calm, what a great girl!

Mya and Star are together for the first time!

Here are two happy girls!

 

Pretty much the end of the filming, Rob, the creative producer, is on the left, Darlene, Star and her mom on the right.  Mya got to go rest in her stall with lots of yummy food, peace and quiet.

The production company was so gracious, they had a great buffet picnic set up for all the participants to enjoy after the hard days work of filming was done.

 Donations were raised in our booth to cover the adoption fee for Cisco, so we got to surprise Darlene with Cisco.  The Sunday of filming was Darlene's birthday, and it was such a great gift! From there we headed out on our long drive back to our ranch, where life resumed normaly: saving equines from horrible situations like Mya was in, and putting them into the best of homes.  You can help us save more horses like Mya, every dollar donated goes to help save a life.  If it wasn't for donations, Mya would not have been saved from the feedlot.  You can help save a horse like Mya!