Here are some of our heartfelt stories we like to share …

BETTY’S GIRLS

BETTY’S GIRLS go into history as the Godmothers of Silent Voices.

Bets Kammer, a local horse lover, single handedly funded the rescue of 20 brood mares with 5 foals by their side. All horses were heading to slaughter in the summer of 2008. All of them were in horrendous physical condition and had had essentially no interactions with humans, including no medical care or basic maintenance.

Betty’s son Skip and his wife Tami Kammer housed and cared for the horses.

Within the following three months, through focus, dedication and true friendship, each horse was physically healed and trained and new homes were found for all of them.

With volunteers showing up each day on such short notice, this prompt team effort on such a scale was powerful to experience!

Thank you, Bets, Skip and Tami!

DOLLY AND PAULINA

One of our very first rescues was “Dolly”, a severely crippled and starved mammoth donkey. Dolly had lost her entire hind hoof due to a long-term untreated infection. Despite her extreme level of pain, her unexplainable desire to stay alive became clear when she surprised us with the birth of “Paulina” shortly after her rescue.

With constant and daily care of her condition for over a year, Dolly’s stump eventually healed and she enjoyed raising Paulina. Browning Prosthetics eventually designed and donated several prosthetics with tireless effort. Our deepest gratitude goes out to the company to this day.

Despite daily massage and special care, Dolly’s hip had deteriorated significantly from having spent her life on three legs for so long. Her physical condition remained challenging and painful. Dolly left us in January 2012 and we miss her still.

Paulina continues to be a vital part of Doro’s family and this community. She manages to draw attention to her sweet nature and incredible intelligence and is adored by everyone!!!

Koko, her 30 year old companion has been by her side since her birth. The two of them are inseparable and give us another example of true love :-)

MAURICE

This is the condition we found Maurice in. He had a dislocated hip, large rocks grown into his crippled feet and the rest of him was severely starved and neglected. He was in extreme pain and unable to walk.

Local authorities, being friends with the local rancher who owned Maurice, refused to enforce animal cruelty laws and place the donkey into our care.

Maurice disappeared for several months until we found him again. Still in the same condition of being useless, the rancher was willing to sell him now. It was a painful journey but Maurice recovered and was placed into a wonderful new home and life.

THE Wild Horse Project

By the end of the summer of 2009, this photograph prompted Silent Voices to initiate the rescue of 21 mustangs from the recent BLM Challis, Idaho, Roundup.

In a tremendous joined effort with the Bureau of Land Management 21 un-adoptable wild mares were placed into our care that fall. Followed by a half blind gelded stallion who had been hit by a car in search of his 3 mares and foals. With no outlet for him through the BLM, we decided to add him to the herd. It turned out that we had adopted his mares and their foals had been taken and placed for adoption.

We named him NELSON, in memory of Nelson Mandela who was a black freedom fighter and he was vision impaired. Nelson’s and his mare’s reunion was one of the most touching things we had ever witnessed.

The following spring, 11 foals were born! Some of them required our initial constant care to catch up on their resilience. The pregnant mares had lived through trauma and their pregnancy had not been able to follow their natural course, to say the least. With the tremendous support of Glendale Farms and endless volunteer help, as well as continuous funding, we were able to care for the "Challis Sisterhood" for over 3 years.

Doro, who was the horse’s daily caregiver, refers to that time as her “most profound horse education”…

“It was the most powerful connection I have been allowed to experience in my lifetime with horses. I am deeply grateful for the time I was invited into this pure world of clarity and humility. My time in the “sisterhood”, as I call it, profoundly impacted the way I experience horses today and the way I approach their learning. This has evolved into a more genuine and intuitive connection with horses than I had ever hoped for.

I believe that I would never learned what I know now in any other way.

Silent Voice’s mission was to preserve as much of the herd’s natural behavior and dynamic as we were able to. The herd, as a whole, was eventually returned to protected freedom into a 7000 acre private sanctuary in Northern California in 2013.

Since the departure of the herd, we have scaled down the size of our projects.

We continue to follow our mission as large numbers of horses continue to find their way into a brighter future with our assistance.

WE REMAIN GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT THROUGH INVOLVEMENT AND DONATIONS.

THANK YOU FOR BEING A VITAL PART OF SILENT VOICES!