Introducing our newest herd members, Tanis and Nico. Recently, a woman in her 80s passed away leaving 14 dogs, a horse, a friendly cat, and several fixed feral cats. SAFE was contacted to help with the horse. Working with a local small animal rescue, JustCare Animal Rescue and Sanctuary, who has been working tirelessly to help all of these animals, we made a plan and set out to pick the horse up. When we arrived she was in a pasture with a gelding who had a lot of nasal discharge and both horses were coughing. Both are covered in rain rot and full of lice. We asked if the current resident would let us also load the gelding, and that’s how we brought home a bonus horse!
Tanis is a mid-teen roan BLM Mustang from the Hog Creek Herd in Eastern Oregon. Her adopter bought her for her granddaughter and she lived on a property for the past 12 years with little to no handling. We suspect the rope around her neck is the BLM tag rope put on her at the time of her round-up, but that is not confirmed. It was a very strong rope to cut off, but Tanis was kind enough to let us do so shortly after her arrival at SAFE. At some point, we will try and shave her brand to see if we can read it and gather more information about her age and year of round-up. She is pushy and knows what treats are, but only goes where she wants to and does what she wants.
Nico is a sweet Buckskin gelding in his senior years.  He may also be BLM with some signs of a freeze brand under all that long hair. He is very sick with lots of nasal discharge, so we stopped on our way home to Rainland and were able to get a nasal swab to send out for testing. He has a good appetite and hopefully, with some much-needed TLC, he will feel 100% better in the weeks to come.

Watch Tanis and Nico when they first arrived at SAFE in the video below.