 Hi, Longmont. My name is Karen Stallard. I'm the membership director with the Longmont Area Chamber of Commerce. The Longmont Chamber has been working hard to support our local businesses and connect the community during this challenging time, because we don't think that being physically distanced means that we can't still socially connect and support one another. So I'd like to tag in Jessica Wanasek, the Chamber Event Director, to tell you a little bit about what we've been up to. Hey, everyone. So the Longmont Chamber of Commerce has been hosting daily Facebook Live events Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. over on our Chamber Facebook page. We are featuring a local business or a nonprofit while having fun interactive activities, giveaways, and just connecting with our community. We wanted to share the fun with you after the facts, so we are airing all of our episodes from last week with you here now so you can enjoy. And we hope that you see some familiar faces from around Longmont. And remember, if you ever want to see the live thing, just tune into the Chamber Facebook page at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Or check out a themed list of businesses over on our Chamber website. www.longmontchamber.org forward slash llama is open. And find a business that you would like to support. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody. Hello, hello. Welcome back. We're happy to have you guys back with us today. We're just going to give it a second or two and let the audience come in, come in and get comfortable. I am super excited about today's little episode. We have some four-legged friends that are going to join us in a little bit. So you guys are going to want to hang out for this live stream today. It's pretty cool. When you guys come in, let me know. I can see little heads popping in my feed, but it's always nice to know that I'm not in here by myself. So put something in the comments. Say, hello. How's your day going? Just something to let us know that you are here with us today. And one lucky winner in your comments today, we're going to have a little quiz like we do every day, and somebody's going to win a really cool prize that's being donated by our special guest today. So make sure that you guys are hanging out for the rest of the stream and tuning in and playing with the contest with us. So hi, Karen. She's my partner in crime hanging in here with me. I am excited, too. I can't wait for this one. It's really, it's going to be super cute. So as you guys are coming in, comment, let me know that you're here. If you guys want to see the list of businesses that we are showcasing each day of the week, go over to the Longmont Chamber Facebook website. Sorry, Facebook website. Our website is www.longmontchamber.org forward slash Longmont is open and you'll see the categorized list of businesses there. Hi, Sarah. Good to see you. Come in. Come in. Say, hello to us. Okay, we're going to get going. My name is Jessica Wanasek. I am the event director with the Longmont Chamber of Commerce. We are doing these Facebook daily lives for you guys so that you can see what the amazing businesses and nonprofits are doing in your area. And as some of them start to their reopening strategies and stuff, we're here to help you guys figure out what's the best way that you can support these businesses and nonprofits. So today is our thankful Thursday. This is the day that we highlight charities and nonprofits that are working their little tail offs in the area. And so I am with that. I am super excited to bring in our special guest today and bring her in here in a second. I would like to introduce you guys to Grace Degnan. She is the marketing associate over for the Colorado Horse Rescue. How are you, Grace? I'm really good. It's been a beautiful day out here on the rescue on and off, unpredictable rain. Right? It's always when we're going to get ready to go live that this stuff is happening. Exactly. Right? Yeah, but so today you have myself and one of our equine trainers, Susan Chandler. Hi, Susan. Hi. Everybody in the comments, you guys say hi to Grace and Susan. Let them know that you're here. We are live with the Colorado Horse Rescue today. So we are going to get a little feast of some horse stuff, some horse related things today. Right? Okay. So I like to kind of ask you, you know, some people may know all about you and some people don't. So I like to kind of start off these streams with you guys telling a little bit about yourself. So can you share how long Colorado Horse Rescue has been operating? Yeah, we were founded and started our operations in 1986, actually. So we have been operating for over 30 years, about 34 years now. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And can you tell everybody where you are located? Yes, we are located in Longmont, Colorado, on North 65th Street. Very cool. Kind of on the west side then of Longmont, right? Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Tell us what you guys are doing these days. And I know you guys have been closed down, but what does your maybe possibly your reopening strategy look like? Or share with the crew what you guys are doing these days? Yeah. So our coming into the whole pandemic situation, the COVID situation, we really knew that we needed to hone in our like top two priorities. Our first priority is always maintaining the health and safety of our horses. We have a herd of 60 horses at any given time. That's our capacity that we run at at all times, pretty much. So our number one priority is always making sure that our horses are safe and healthy and getting the top care that that we provide for them. So our second priority to support that has to also be supporting our team and making sure that our small staff and limited volunteer, based during this time, also is able to stay healthy. So we're pretty bummed, but we had to take our normally over 100 person wide volunteer program. We have over 100 volunteers who help run the daily operations of this group every week. And so we had to scale that all the way down to about 10 people per week. Yeah, so it's those 10 awesome, so amazing, vital volunteers and then half of our staff. So we have a staff of nine and there are five of us on staff here with the volunteers helping just run the daily operations. Yeah, so that's really our main priority right now. We're committed to staying, keeping our doors closed to the public through May, and then we're going to reevaluate, see where Colorado's at with all of this, see how to go about next steps. We are, we did just open up to adoption appointments, but only by like strictly scheduled appointments and it's all one-on-one pretty much with one of our trainers and yeah, we're just doing our best to disinfect everything, wear the masks and just do our part to our community safe. Taking care of those little four-legged babies out there, which is awesome. I love horses, but I am, I have such an allergy to them. The first time I ever rode a horse, I looked like the Staypuff Marshmallow Man and I had tives from head to toe and my folks ended up, they didn't know what was going on with me so they threw me in a swimming pool just to get it washed, you know all the dander or whatever washed off and yeah, but I love them and I'm fascinated by them. They're such gentle giants. Yeah, they really are, they really are. Right? Yeah. So I had some notes written down. You had, you have a couple of programs that you guys are working. Do you want to share a little bit about those? Yeah, so one program that we're really passionate about is our leg-up program that I'll mention. We really prioritize, we want to be a source of help and a big resource to the equine folks in our community. So that program, again, it's called the leg-up program, is a program where we have devoted funds in that program to support horse owners in our community going through a temporary financial struggle. So especially in this crazy time that we're going through right now, we've seen definitely an uptick in surrender applications and adoption applications, but that program, as long as the individuals qualify for it, it has, again, it's going through a temporary, you know, situational financial struggle time for that owner. Yeah, but that program really, really helps us to support horse owners in our community and help keep horses who could fall at risk if they didn't have access, if their owners didn't have access to that program. It really helps them to stay in their homes for the long term. And that was the leg-up program you said? Yeah, the leg-up program. And they can, oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say, so if somebody had questions about that, they could find out more about that on your website. Is that right? Yeah, definitely on our website. Okay, and we'll put that website in the comments as well, but you guys can see what they're doing over there. It's www.chr.org, right? And then, yeah, is there another program or was that just the only one that you guys were doing right now? Definitely that one. And then also just in general, our training program in general, we have two full-time trainers who still in all this chaos are actively working with our horses and to help them get, gain vital skills that help them be really great equine citizens of the horse community. Oh, right? We are limited. You guys are, it's, well, it's not working. It's a working farm, right? You guys are working. Yeah. How can you hear us break into your working day, right? Yeah, we are in the middle of our volunteer shift, but I, so we have two shifts a day. Oh, that's cool. We have some volunteers still on site right now. But yeah, definitely our training program. And then lastly, I would definitely emphasize our foster program right now. We recently put out kind of an ask to the community, to our community and beyond, for foster homes. I have a little baby running in the, running in the back. Oh, my goodness. We'll introduce her in a bit. She's pretty fun. But yeah, so with the increase in surrender, in surrender applications that I mentioned, and we of course want to be able to take in as many horses as possible during this time, that may be at risk of a vulnerable situation. And the only way we can really do that is to continue moving horses out of our gates so that we can bring more horses in. So our foster program is definitely one that we're expanding at this time in different ways. And yeah, so if there are any horse people out there who have an extra stall or some extra land and maybe already have horse, horses of their own who need another companion or something. We're always looking and especially now. Awesome. Awesome. Well, well, hopefully, hopefully this live will send some people your way even, you know, about the programs, how they can help. And then, you know, foster to that hopefully this this will do some good for you guys. I am kind of reading in some of the comments Karen says she thinks horses are allergic to her they smell fear, which I have to agree. I agree Karen. True true. Okay, so I am actually going to we're going to we're going to put the spotlight a little bit on you and Susan. So I'm going to shrink myself down and you guys are going to take it from here and show us some fun stuff that you're doing. Take it away. Awesome. But yeah, we thought that it would be fun if we just introduced a couple of our horses out here. So I'm going to flip the the camera on our horse trainer Susan. Hi, Susan. This is Bristol and Bristol. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Bristol was actually a part of an animal control seizure. She came to us. It was a Mustang operation gone hoarding situation. So yeah, she is about four years old, I believe. Yeah, three or four. And yeah, she's just adorable and sweet. Yeah. But yeah, so she is one of our companion type horses. She again is super young, but just because of some conformational things about her, the way her body is and everything, we all have our things. She is non rideable, but we work really hard to strike a balance here between rideable and non rideable horses. We definitely think every single horse out there deserves a safe pathway and a safe landing. So we Yeah. So we work really hard to prioritize both those companion type non rideable horses as well as rideable and working horses. So oh, she's a beautiful horse. Yeah. And Susan, do you want to kind of talk about like what you still do with her as a non riding horse? Yeah. So one of the biggest things that we've become recently very passionate about is liberty training. So that is training without the use of halters and physical restraints and using more like basic communication styles within like an apple orchard to kind of communicate what you want to do with your horse. And Bristol is a good example that just because she's not a riding horse doesn't mean she's still not useful to us as a companion. Oh, absolutely. So so what I'm kind of doing today with her is teaching her some tricks, doing some fun things. And she especially loves to pick up her feet and she kind of does it on her own. So sorry. So I want to be able to just give her a cue so that she can kind of pick up her feet elegantly. Oh, cool. Fancy later down the road. So I'm just going to read that with her really fast so she'll kind of follow me. Can you come back? Good girl Bristol. We'll see if we can't get her to work a little bit. I do use a lot of positive reinforcement. That's using freaks to reward behavior. It's much like dog training a lot of ways. So you'll see me when she does what I want. She looks like she's checking everybody out. She's like, what are you doing? It's showtime Bristol. Trick pony. Oh my goodness. She's so sweet. When she does what I'm asking her to do, I'll say the word good and that's her cue that she's getting about to get a treat. Hi Bristol. Oh, I wish I could pet her little nose right for the TV. So I'm just going to use some pressure and release to kind of get her back in where I want her. Oh, you're coming so hard. I gotta get it together. Okay. So what I'm going to do is just kind of use a physical tap on her legs to see if she'll just pick them up and then we'll reward for that. Almost there. Yay. She turns her head away because I don't want to reward any biting. It's all about manners. Yeah manners like a lady. Oh, that's awesome. She starts to inspire herself, which is fine, but we want to give her a physical cue so she's not just pawing all day long. Right. Actually behavior that she started to give us all on her own and sometimes you could see that behavior as a naughty behavior, but we wanted to use it as a way to kind of reconnect with her a little bit and give her something fun to do. Can we get on the other side? Oh, she's so pretty. Yeah, she is beautiful. So this is a great opportunity to just have fun with them. Like, you don't need to have the expectation to get on a ride to have a good time with your horse. Oh, look at her. She's so cute. We are getting a few questions while you guys are doing your little demo here. Julie Kristine says she looks like she has a sweet disposition. It's a giant dog and big heart. And she's also asking, do you guys need volunteers currently? I can flip it around and answer that. Currently, like I kind of mentioned before, we are just because of everything going on. We are keeping our volunteer base that are on site with us still, just down to that number of 10 volunteers who we know really well and already have a ton of experience with. But absolutely feel free to apply to be a volunteer. We have a volunteer application on our website and a bunch of information about our volunteer program there as well. Yeah, I would definitely recommend applying because once we do open up and open up back to the normal volunteer shift and everything, we'll definitely be in need of volunteers. Good question, Julie. Yeah, great question. We absolutely love and adore our volunteers. They make this place go round. That's awesome. Yeah. She's such an overachiever. She's like, look at me. I know what I'm doing. Yeah. Well, Susan, do you think we should go meet the other one? All right. Yes, please. Bristol, a big hug. She is super cute. We love her. She's a good girl. So over, we just have her loose in our outdoor arena right now. But we have a very sweet hole. I guess she is a yearling now. She just turned one year. The star of the show. She's running over. She's like, it's my turn. Yes. So this is who we're about to meet. Her name is Daffodil. Like I said, she is just about a year old right now. Yeah, we actually we actually rescued her from a local livestock auction in Portland. Yeah. So when she was just 12 days old. Oh my goodness. She's so cute. This is Daffodil. Yeah, Daffodil. So when she was just 12 days old, her and her mom were actually kind of discarded at a local livestock auction, which is an issue a lot of the general public doesn't know about. It's kind of so cute. Yeah, it kind of goes unnoticed in the community. But it's a big, big part of the at-risk course issue in Colorado and all around the US really. But yeah, so at these livestock auctions that again, we rescued Daffodil and her mama at courses really either go to a rescue or a or just to put it frankly, a meat or slaughter buyer is what they're called. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. She is adorable. I know. Yeah. She is adorable. No. At what age do you start training her then? Are you working on that now? So we all let Susan take that since she's the trainer. Daffy, we don't want to barf them under saddle until they're probably like three to five depending on their size. But even on their babies, that's a great time to get them introduced to a lot of different stuff so that they're not fearful when they get older. Gotcha. Kind of just exposing them to every situation. Yeah, so we definitely make sure we want our horses no matter what age they are to just be set up for success once they're placed in their adoptive home. And so Daffodil, she clearly loves people. Oh, she is adorable. Yeah. And so she knows all about wearing a halter and things like that and just kind of basic things that are really no matter what home she goes into. Since we know she has a really solid like early on foundation here, we know that she she'll just be less likely to be at risk of any bad situations in the future. Yeah. That's definitely why training is a huge part of our operation and something we really prioritize. Oh, that's awesome. Well, we really appreciate you guys sharing Bristol and Daffodil with us. Yeah. Karen's excited. She says, baby horse in all capital letters. And she's so thankful that you guys are there to help all these beautiful horses. So we second that. That's amazing. Super cute. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. That is really cool. So I every day, I'm going to bring me back here. Tell Susan and Daffodil, thank you so much for showing off a little bit. That was pretty cool. So every day, Grace, we've been doing like a giveaway. And I said a little bit at the beginning of our live stream that we usually ask a question to the viewers and they have to answer it in the comments in order to win. So we'll see if we can get anybody to log on and win with us. I am thinking of a question. I'm trying to think. I think what I will say is, okay, so that to the viewers out there, what was the name of the first horse that Susan and Grace showed us in the other pin? What was her name? And while you guys are thinking of that, I just gave it to you a few seconds ago. So hopefully you guys are listening. But while they are thinking of the correct answer, Grace, is there anything else that you feel like the audience needs to know? We definitely just love to let you guys know how you can support us and support the work that we do. Even in this time, we know that so many people are in tight financial situations and we absolutely rely on the generous donations of the people in our community to keep this place running, keep our operations going and save the horses that we are able to save every home. But yeah, we definitely only want people to donate if they feel that they can and if they're doing all right financially right now. And there are so many other ways that you can support horses like Daffodil and I won't say her other name. It starts with a B. I'm going to give that hand because nobody's coming in yet. What was the horse's name that Grace and Susan just showed off? Not the baby horse, but the other horse. If you were watching. Yeah, definitely there are so many ways you can support us and organizations like us. You can always follow us and share our content on social media. We are on all platforms pretty much. That's part of my job to run those. Yeah, that definitely supports our organization a ton just supporting that social media platforms. But there are tons of ways to support these organizations. Just really get the word out. So many people just don't even know that there is a horse issue or a need. Yeah, adoption in Colorado. Absolutely. Yeah. So any any opportunity you have, even if it's just, Oh, I watched a cool live today. I saw the coolest horses today. Okay, so it looks like people might be struggling a little bit with remembering the name. So I think we might just have to do a random drawing. Let's see, Grace, let me see here. Okay, so the question was what was the horse's name, not the daffodil, not the baby horse. We are I'm going to just pull a random Grace. Can you see any of the comments from where you are? No, I can't right now. Okay, so I'm going to just go ahead and pull a random one and we're going to say Julie Christine. Julie Christine, if you are still watching, I just randomly made you today's winner. I know we may have stumped some of you guys, but Grace, what was the horse's name? It was Bristol. Bristol, yep. Bristol, Bristol. Super cute horse that she showed us before daffodil. So maybe I threw them off showing the baby horse it may have distracted. She's pretty polarizing, so. Right, right. All right, so Julie Christine, you are today's winner. I will get in touch with you when the live is over. Grace, do you want to share what Julie won today? Yes, you won a Colorado Horse Rescue ball cap that I do not have with me at the moment. That's okay. That's okay. Really good. High quality ball cap. Awesome. I'm sure she'll be super happy and we'll have to have her take a picture of it and send it when she has it on. We'll have her send it into it. Awesome. Well, at this point, I would really like to thank both you and Susan for taking you guys time out of your busy day. I know the audience just loves the little horses. I do too. My sister-in-law is an equine trainer as well. So we always love to see horses of any size and shape. So we really appreciate you guys. And if you guys want the viewers, if you need to go check out their programs or if you'd like to donate, go see Grace and Susan over at www.chr.org and check out all the amazing stuff that they're doing over there. So with that, Grace, I'm going to give you a virtual high five and thank you so much and you guys have a good rest of your day. Okay? Yeah. Thank you so much for having us. You bet. Take care. Take care. That was so much fun. So, yes, Bristol was the first horse that was showing some tricks of lifting her feet on command. So that was pretty cool. And I may have stumped you guys out there watching, but that was the answer to today's question. And Julie Christine, you are our today's winner. I will get in touch with you. Baby Daffodil is a year old and you can see all about both of those horses over at the ColoradoHorseRescue.org website. Now, you guys, if you want to see the businesses that we are highlighting each day during these daily Facebook lives, go over to www.longmontchamber.org, forward slash, forward slash. Longmont is open and it'll show all the lists of businesses that we are working with. Tomorrow. Now, I'm going to tell you all right now you're going to want to come back here at four o'clock with a cocktail in hand because you are not going to want to miss our next Feel Good Friday episode, which is tomorrow. Karen, my partner in crime, is going to be doing some fun, fun stuff that you guys aren't going to want to miss. So tune in right here four o'clock tomorrow. Until then, be well. And I will be here with my cocktail in hand, ready for tomorrow's Facebook Live. Love to you guys. Be well. Bye.