How do horses view the world?
March 29, 2021
How do horses communicate moods?
April 27, 2021
Allow me to introduce you to an amazing horse rescue foundation that offers specialized care and rehabilitation. First, when you open their website, you see this profound quote:
“In the end, we regret only the chances that we didn’t take.”
This quote embodies the spirit of Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation, which provides specialized care to horses. Founded in 2014, this organization aids in the rescue of neglected, abused and abandoned horses. Based out of Wanship, Utah, founder Barb Phillips embraces their philosophy: One Horse at a Time. At the onset, Barb rescued her first horse in 2013. And from there, she realized the impact she was making and that she could do so much more.
Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation was named for a special rescue, Gracie. As you can see below, this beautiful bay mare received a second life thanks to Barb and her foundation.
Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation’s namesake – Gracie
Today, Saving Gracie offers specialized and comprehensive care for 25 horses, 30 cows, chickens, goats, dogs and whatever else comes their way. Unfortunately, most of the animals that come under the foundation’s custody need a tremendous amount of medical care. To fulfill this, Saving Gracie uses the most current and progressive research to diagnose and treat their animals.
Since the foundation formed, Barb has built an infrastructure that takes exceptional care of their horses. On site, they have a full-time veterinarian with impressive diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities. They also have full time staff and volunteers that care for the well-being of these animals.
What challenge did the organization face?
A few weeks ago, I was introduced to this organization by way of two of the caretakers, Melissa Smolik and Sophie Dunkle. These impressive ladies were on the hunt to find a tool to support their care. And, managing their specialized care and documenting each horse’s story is core to the foundation’s objectives.
To add, Melissa and Sophie have a passion for the care of the animals. They meticulously manage the medications and treatments. They wanted to find a tool that could help them manage their day-to-day care, with the ability to share with veterinarians, farriers, and their sponsor. Further, they wanted reports that could give them details of care by horse.
In summary, having a tool that offers strong communication between themselves and their veterinarian was core to supporting their high standard of care.
Why did they select Equine Simplified?
In their search to find an appropriate support software, Melissa and Sophie tried multiple software applications. They found that of all the programs they evaluated, Equine Simplified best fit their needs. In all, they valued the following aspects:
- Feed charts. Because of the condition of their animals, they have some horses on many daily medications and supplements. Above all, they loved the organization of the feed charts and the ability to have unlimited grains, forage and daily medications/supplements.
- Pre-built activity and treatment lists. Within the app, they are tracking every health observation, therapy treatment, vaccination, medication, and worming. They found the pre-built lists usable and complete. And, if they want to add anything further, the customization was fast and easy.
Saving Gracie uses cutting-edge wellness and rehabilitation therapies
- Customization. Customization became very important. First, Saving Gracie moves their horses around amongst different stables and pastures. Further, they have new volunteers all the time, so they needed the ability to communicate the locations of the horses. Thus, they needed to customize the names of the barn and pasture locations, which is easy to do from the Settings screen.
- Reporting and communication. They required multiple users to access the system. In addition, they needed a mechanism to clearly communicate to staff members, volunteers and veterinarians the current status on every horse.
- Support. In their review of other software apps, when they reached out to ask questions, they received no support back. Conversely, when they contacted Equine Simplified, they received responses to their questions quickly.
In the end, Melissa and Sophie decided Equine Simplified was the right tool for them. In all, it augments their exceptional and specialized horse (and other animal) care, allowing the foundation to focus on their animals, not their paperwork.
How Equine Simplified is helping them going forward
This past week, I was fortunate to have a call with these wonderful ladies to talk about how they use Equine Simplified and answer their questions. Although, I am not sure who was more excited about our discussion. They wanted to discuss a few scenarios and give me feedback. I absolutely loved learning how they have embraced Equine Simplified to support their program.
In our discussion, they gave me some great ideas, and we have already started scoping them out for future deployment. Fortunately, all Equine Simplified users will have access to these new features.
Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation has set a new standard on animal care and I am ecstatic to be involved in a small way.
What can you do?
- Learn more about Saving Gracie Equine Healing Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) animal rescue and sanctuary, and follow the care of their horses on their website. You can see the specialized care received by these horses.
- If you find yourself in Utah, go visit their facilities. Also, on site, they have a sustainable vegetable farm that grows beets, cucumbers, kale, radishes, eggplant, tomatoes, turnips, chard, flowers and more. All farming is done by hand to preserve the integrity of the soil.
- Sponsor an animal. You can make a difference in the life of a horse. 100% of donations go directly towards the care of your special friend – hay, grain, medications, supplements, special shoeing, acupuncture, therapeutic injections, chiropractic care, etc.
- Get on their mailing list.
- Finally, this organization accepts donations, and all donations are tax deductible. If you are interested in donating, please click the following link.
If you missed other blogs:
