About Our Rescue
Our goals as a rescue are more sanctuary based. The horse rescue world is massive, heartbreaking, beautiful, and complicated. There is a huge need in this world for sanctuary homes for animals that are harder to adopt out. Our main goal as a rescue is to provide a true sanctuary and the highest quality of life possible for these animals.
Pasture and companion only animals. These both mean the same thing, it’s an equine that cannot be ridden and is only available as a pet. These animals have a very hard time being adopted out and often stay at rescues for years without adopter interest.
Donkeys and Burros. These amazing animals are being exported by the thousands at the moment in a very tragic exodus. If you’d like information on this, please research it online. They’re very much in need of any safe haven available.
Untouched, feral, and wild animals. These animals are perfectly healthy, but require time and training to be able to be handled. Most of the time they get passed over because they require so much time which translated to thousands in training and board per animal. Most trainers won’t take on untouched horses because of the extended time and effort of bringing them around. These animals might not be permanent residents here at LSGM, but a big goal of this rescue will be to work with as many of these as we can and get them homes through other rescues.
These are the earliest days of the rescue. We have just begun the process of growing from one to many. We are currently renting a barn in Landers, in the process of trying to buy land locally. Everything so far has been out of pocket with the exception of one $50 donation(thank you Eddie!). The expansion will be slow; and it will take time to get together the team, volunteers, and board members we will need to form a 501c3 rescue. This is a tedious process and one we are so incredibly grateful to be saddling up for!
Long Term Goals for the Rescue
We have so many beautiful goals as a rescue! The road to these goals will be long, and we like it that way! We need the experience that will be gained in the time it will take to reach these goals in order to properly execute them.
Local Vet care days and sponsorships. One of the biggest ways to stop horses from ending up in these horrible situations we see that break our hearts is to stop them at the source. By providing much needed vet care to locals with equines in tough financial binds, we can keep those animals from ever going near the slaughter pipeline - or more commonly seen out in this area - away from neglect and starvation. This can be anything from teeth cleaning, gelding, vaccinations, and a thousand other things. This is far from a new idea, many incredible rescues already have programs that do this and so much more to keep animals safe and healthy. We would really love to bring something like this to the locals in this community.
Mustang and ex bucking horse pastures. It will be a long time before we get the funding to do this, but this is one of the biggest goals of this rescue. Some rescues just aren’t ever going to be equipped to be ridden, or even be pets. Some animals want nothing to do with humans, which is understandable given their breeding and their past. These animals require space and freedom. But. To give these animals the care they need will require a chute system that enables them to get the vet and farrier care they need when it is required. This chute system is incredibly expensive. This is certainly not something we’ll be able to tackle in the younger days of our rescue, but it is something we are determined to do in the future.
Meet Our Founder
My name is Cassandra, Yucca Valley is actually my hometown! I graduated here, I grew up here. I feel extremely privileged to be starting a rescue here in my hometown with the community I’ve built here.
I’ve been infatuated with horses since childhood, longer than I can actually remember. They were magic brought to life that you could see and touch.
Through a completely bizarre slew of events that uprooted my life and plopped my right in the middle of a ragtag local rescue, I found Muji, my red boy. From there, it’s been history. He’s changed my life completely; and in working with these animals, I’ve found what I never could manage to find in 34 years of life - purpose and passion.
I know this will be an Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland level change in my world, but I’m moving forward with slow determination. It -is- a frustratingly slow climb. But the change is happening. I’m halfway down the rabbit hole. I’ve changed 3 lives already, and that is an incredible feat.
Get ready for a lot of blunders, honesty, sarcasm, tears, and as much goofiness as I can muster. Cheers to passion and not throwing away beautiful things.
-Cass
