Blessed

Some days a common phrase around the ranch is “I hate people.”  Those are the bad days.  The days when Angela finds a pup like Sawyer, “The Padlock Puppy,” the days when you hear about a mama dog being dumped on a rural highway with her puppies in a bag beside her, or when someone finally surrenders a dog because they really don’t know what to do with an embedded collar.  Sometimes we just shake our heads and say through anger or tears, “I hate people.”

On those days our friends, supporters, donors, and volunteers make an immeasurable difference, and I’m reminded the good people outweigh the bad, careless, ignorant, and just plain cruel.

This week a professional dog trainer, Deb, visited the Ranch and volunteered her services.  Our horse trainer, Jan Burnham volunteered her extra energy and time.  And yesterday was volunteer day.  Jamie and Sue arrived with bags of apples and carrots and gave not only the horses extra attention, but their pens, catching up on maintenance (beyond mucking) that the three girls on the ranch don’t always have the time for.  This is when I am reminded most people are good.

Last week we raised all the money needed for Rudy’s surgery and can’t thank all of you enough or express the difference your gift of giving made in the company of many prayers and so much love. 

General care and feeding on the Ranch runs us a $1000.00 a month, so extras like Dancer’s special medicine for the Cushing’s, Rudy’s surgery, or even Rasta’s 7 pups, rescued in August, stretch our resources.  Sometimes it’s scary.  In 2009, when we started this venture it was rough financially, even more so emotionally.  2010 didn’t let up, but sheer perseverance helped us get by.  2011 has delivered us to a new phase here at Rasta’s.  It’s not easy to ask for help, but we’ve learned it’s not for us, but the animals and there’s a world of people out there who want to help make a positive difference.

All of you make a difference in Rasta’s world.  You’ve made it possible for us to grow with your donations, you’ve sent love and prayers, and I am certain that has provided much of the healing and the good and promising energy that is flowing for the ranch right now. 

We have volunteers!  We have professionals offering their valuable services.  We have you and that’s pretty neat.  Sometimes it’s hard, but friends and family can make all the difference.  Today, Rasta’s has a family beyond the animals that reside here and the caretakers of the ranch.  We have a growing family of friends from almost all 50 of the United States, a friend in Finland, France, and Great Brittan and well wishes from many places in the world.  A gathering of good people believing in a common cause, the health and well being of animals.  We are blessed to have you and send our thanks and very best to you and yours.

Your help makes it possible to do what we’re doing advocating, caring for, and providing for those in need of a rescue. 

Thank you,

From the spirit of Rasta, the Guardian Ru, Maggie-May, Sam, Chloe, Savannah, Pirate, Bella, Sadie, Scarlet, Dancer, Duffy, Sgt. Pepper, Moon, Lily the Goat, Rain, Tigger, Red, Rasta’s 7, and the three girls on the Ranch.

STELLA!!!

A famed movie moment, Brando screaming “Stella!” at the top of his lungs, but despite my film degree, in this case we’re talking about a pit bull and a rescue facilitated by Rasta’s via Pin-Ups for Pit Bulls on Facebook.  Everyday there are posts and stories on the web and news about Pit Bulls.  Unfortunately the press is often negative and web posts are frequently pleas to save another pit from a kill-shelter. 

One of our co-founders, Chandon Banning, made rescuing pit bulls a cause in her early twenties when she began rescuing them with a friend in L.A., and this effort continues today.  One thing Rasta’s does is share the posts of organizations like Pin-Ups for Pit Bulls in efforts to find homes for the neglected, abused, abandoned, misunderstood, or just lost.  More often then not these canines are pit bulls and Stella was one of them. 

Stella!
Photo by Chandon Banning

After years of being used as a breeder, Ms. Stella was discovered wandering the streets of La Puente, known gang territory, and ended up at the Baldwin Park Animal Shelter in southern California.  One look into Stella’s huge eyes and Chandon made this girl a priority and went to work on her L.A. friends from our home base in New Mexico to find Stella a home.  Stella’s stars aligned perfectly as a friend of Rasta’s and Chandon’s stepped to the plate to care and provide for this incredibly sweet girl. 

Not everyone can take on an older dog nor afford the expenses associated with rescues.  Not everyone has the space, time, or energy, but when the time is right, the dog right, and the rescuer right something magic happens.  In Stella’s case it worked out perfectly, a safe happy home and an adoring human, doting I might say, but for Stella after years of litter upon litter, the care and affection she receives is well deserved and makes right of many wrongs, at least for her.

Pit Bulls, once renowned as the nanny dog have been vilified for years, to the point of being banned in some communities.  They are over bread, abused, and used for the gambling sport of fighting, and unfortunately part of their nanny dog nature to which they were once predisposed seems lost.  This is the doing of humans, not the nature of the breed itself.  One of our missions at Rasta’s is to change this before the “nanny dog” disappears through the calculated indifference of careless persons. 

Stella is the quintessential embodiment of the nanny dog.  She trumpets her hellos and snuggles close with waging tail.  She expresses genuine gratitude for the life she has now.  No, she was never used for fighting, but there’s a damn good chance many of her pups were.  In many shelters pit bulls make up 30 to 50 percent of the population, approximately 1 million are euthanized each year, 200 per day in Los Angeles county alone (2008), then are those not counted, abandoned on the streets where they die in accidents or from starvation, thousands on the streets of Detroit alone, and then there is dog fighting, of course, it’s illegal so real stats are non-existent, thus we’ll leave that to estimates, based on the above figures, we can guess it’s awfully grim.

During a recent visit to Twelve’s elementary school I noted a bulletin board outside her classroom.  Apparently the children were learning about charts, graphs, and statistics.  They gathered information from their schoolmates to compile their statistics and from these created pie charts and bar graphs.  Not surprisingly among the expected inquiries of sixth graders, like favorite sports, subjects, colors, there were several dedicated to favorite or most popular breed of dog.  Again and again the top ranked, most wanted, most popular, coolest, and most owned— the pit bull.  I doubted the boys selected the pit because of its long ago nanny dog title and wondered why the girls too voted it top dog.  For the pit in America it is currently the top dog, most popular, most over bread, most abused, abandoned, fought, used, and talked about.  Sometimes it’s great to be top dog, other times, especially in the case of pits, it’s a terrible position to occupy.  One of Rasta’s missions is to change that.

For Stella we helped advocate that change via Pin-ups for Pit Bulls and a ready and willing rescuer, but for thousands more and generations to follow chances of a good, healthy, and happy life are just one in six-hundred.  Being top dog has placed the breed at the bottom of the barrel.  If you’re interested in having a pit bull or know someone who is, there is one in a shelter nearby in need of a rescue.  Paying for a pup only perpetuates what has become a nasty trade.  If you know of abuse or suspect it, report it.  If you suspect a dog fighting operation or know of one contact local authorities.  Change is advocated for through actions and it’s time to return the pit to its proper heritage— the nanny dog.  In doing so, so much else will change too and for the better.  The world can be made a better place and, in this case, it’s one dog at a time—Stella is happily down with that.

Rasta’s Rescue Ranch, Inc. in Santa Fe, New Mexico wishes to extend much appreciation to Pinups for Pit Bulls and all those who share their posts, Jana Savage at the Animal Advocate Alliance, who shared Stella’s story beautifully, the staff at the Baldwin Park Shelter who posted a video of Stella on youtube that truly captured the spirit of this great dog, and Kate who stepped to the plate, giving Stella a world of love, treats, and her forever home.     

If You Build It They Will Come

Rasta’s Rescue Ranch is uniquely positioned on the scenic Turquoise Trail between the City Different and the historic mining town of Madrid.  When purchased in 2003, the L shaped property looked like little more than a lot of work.  Ramshackle run-in-sheds and thrown together fences speckled the back three acres in a haphazard fashion.  The barn at the very back, just beyond the corner of the L, looked as if ready to collapse, and still does.  The house, built sometime in the late 1950’s, sported obvious signs of neglect and oddly not thought out additions made over the years.  No, it did not look like much, but as the sun began to set and that peaceful orange glow stretched across the land a vision of something special began to formulate.  I didn’t know exactly what it was then, beyond a feeling, but that’s usually how most cool things begin. 

Photo: Benjamin Lucas

Over months an arena and horse pens were constructed under the guidance of two genuine southwestern cowboys.  They were real cowboys, the first I’d met in Santa Fe, Thomas Wingate and Frank.  They wore broken in hats, Levis or Wranglers, grew thick scruff on their cheeks, and Frank sported an elaborate mustache.  Both were veterans of the Vietnam era, loved the high desert, and understood the needs of horses.  Frank advised on the perfect arena, Thomas talked about pens with room, and then the two of them set to fixing railroad ties in the ground, stretching new wire at the back of the L, and securing horse panels about the arena.    

Over the course of several more months, I set to dismantling the old run-in sheds and fencing strewn about the property.  The sense of something special continued lingering, but I still didn’t know exactly what it would be. 

For a few years, as I continued cleaning up the property, we operated as a horse board and care, but that wasn’t the ultimate destiny, the vision that kept popping into my head as the sun would set and cast that incredible bold and golden glow across the land.  Seven years would pass before the vision clarified; sometimes visions take their time coming to fruition. 

Hints started in 2009 with two goats, Sergeant Pepper and Moon, and a horse named Brue.  Sgt. Pepper needed a new home and his best friend Moon and Brue, well into his thirties, needed a winter sanctuary away from pasture life.  Winters on the high desert can be harsh, a reality once unknown to a girl from southern California.  By this time two girls from sunny southern California were learning this lesson, but as a team they began refining the vision and by January of 2010 knew the destiny of this little L shaped ranch on the south side of Santa Fe.

Thomas Wingate, Lil, & Scarlet in the Arena

Rasta’s Rescue Ranch was born in honor of a Shetland pony and others who began to come in need.  After Rasta, came Chloe, then Savannah and Pirate, and two sheep.  If you build it they will come.  And still more came, Lily the goat, Maggie a wayward pit bull abandoned at a gas station, Sam, a silver miniature poodle, and Sadie a German shepherd dog mix and new pal for Rudy the guardian shepherd of the land. 

For the most part we’ve self-funded the operation with funds from a yome we rent out on the ranch, where some really terrific young people have stayed.  We’ve kept up as much as we can, but it’s been tough, financially and emotionally, one of the hardest undertakings ever, and truth is there is more to be done and many more in need of a rescue. 

We’ve outgrown the facilities built years ago, but there’s room for more as the vision grows and clarifies.  Looking across the land, I imagine a new barn and more spacious pens.  Closer to the house I see a dog park, where our rescues can run and play and friends from the neighborhood might join them.  In the future there is a space where the goats and the sheep can roam free.  I see children coming to meet the animals, to hear their stories and learn not just the ways of a ranch, but the difference we can all make in the world.  

It’s one step at a time, as it was in the beginning.  The new barn will be a little while yet, but a nice big fenced yard for dogs and additional pens are goals for summer.  Much depends on sponsors, every dollar coming into the ranch counts.  The Facebook “Like” campaign brought to life by a very generous sponsor raised $650.00.  That will feed the horses for the month of April.  Whew! 

There is so much potential, so many possibilities, and such a tremendous need.  During 2009 in New Mexico, out of desperation some people just released their horses to the wild to fend for themselves.  In this challenging economy unconscionable numbers of pets have been abandoned, some dropped at shelters, others simply left.  There is much to be done and a difference that can be made for the better.  Rasta’s looks forward to contributing to that difference one animal at a time.  We hope you’ll join our efforts. 

Photo: Benjamin Lucas

Again, every dollar counts.  $9.00 buys a bale of hay, $20.00 a bag of Equine Senior, heck, $ 4.00 buys a bag of cement for fence posts.  So you see, even the smallest of donations makes a difference on a rescue ranch.    Of course, we welcome larger donations too.  Those enable us to move faster and often we wish we could.  Sometimes a rescue needs to happen in an instant.

Thank you to our supporters for our page “likes,” your valuable encouragement, and for sharing us with family and friends.  Can’t wait to update everyone on where we are tomorrow. 

RASTA’S RESCUE RANCH, INC. is a 501(c)(3) public charity.  ALL DONATIONS ARE 100% TAX DEDUCTABLE (receipts are emailed to you or snail mailed if requested). 

DONATIONS CAN BE MAILED TO 3820 STATE HIGHWAY 14, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO 87508

OR

NOW YOU CAN PAYPAL A DONATION TO: RASTASRESCUERANCH@GMAIL.COM