Bluebonnet is always busy, but this time of year is normally especially busy. Our Bluebonnet Horse Expo is just two months away, and we're busy getting ready for it. We also have a lot of neglect reports coming in. That's normal for this time of year. The grass has burned up and the animals are starting to get thin.

We've also been dealing with a lot of burn out - both on our board of directors and in our general membership. The BOD at BEHS works hard. They manage fundraisers, manage the fostering program, manage the adoption program, maintain the website, guide the organization and so much more. And the work is never-ending, so sometimes they get burnt out.

Unfortunately I fear that the burnout has trickled down to the members this time. No one is going around screaming, "I'm burnt out, leave me alone!" (although some of us might like to). It is filtering down in smaller ways: taking too long to answer emails, ignoring emails, short/curt responses, unwillingness to help out at routine things like booths and more. And those things make the members feel we don't care. And then they start feeling burnt out, too. And that results in a nasty cycle which ends with everyone feeling burnt out, everyone getting short and snippy, and no one volunteering and too few horses getting helped.

That's not the point of being involved in rescue. The point is to help horses, but the burn out has to be healed before any horses get helped. And this isn't a topic rescue people like to talk about, either, so that makes it hard to deal with. I've heard that you shouldn't talk about burn out because it makes you appear weak. I've been told you cannot talk about burn out because it opens the door to more complaints and pressure to change how you operate.

But if we don't talk about it and address it, then it is never going to get better. For this reason, we held a meeting July 31-August 1st to talk about how we could improve the rescue. We all agreed that we couldn't add new programs - they would just add to the workload and burn out. We wanted ways to become more efficient and handle what we and do it well.

For me, one of the best parts of the meeting with the non-meeting time. That's the time where we sat around and chatted - about the rescue, our own horses, life and anything else we felt like. It gives us a chance to catch up with each other, get to know each other better, and become a better team. And that's important - we must be a good team or we cannot keep helping horses.

During the meeting, our biggest focus was on manpower. With more manpower, we can lighten workloads and do more. To that end, we've created a volunteer coordinator position and have found someone to fill it. And we're meeting again in September to compile and prioritize our list of volunteer positions in the rescue so we can start seeking to fill those spots.

I came home feeling great - I like the fact that we can sit down and address our problems and work towards solutions. We're going to be working on this for a while and will have several meetings as we fine-tune our volunteer program and address other issues with the rescue that arise.

Working on tough internal issues isn't always fun, but I like that I get to work with a great group of people who are truly passionate about helping horses. I'm proud to have their support, and I hope everyone involved in rescue finds the place where they fit and feel the camaraderie and support that I do.

Now, we can focus some more effort on helping those horses who need us.

I'll say up front that I don't understand rescues that won't adopt out horses in their program. I am not talking about rescues who won't adopt horses out until they're rehabilitated and healthy. Until recently, BEHS didn't do that either. Now, if someone who is qualified to handle the needs of one of the horses in rehab. comes along and wants to adopt, he/she will be allowed to. The only exception would be if the foster home adopts the horse instead of if the horse is currently under medical treatment for an issue (especially one that's undiagnosed).

I'm talking about rescues who either don't adopt out any horses. Or ones who pick and choose: You can adopt horse X, but horse Y is not, and will not be, available for adoption. If someone in the rescue wants to keep horse Y for themselves, then they need to adopt him/her. They should not expect to get to keep the horse but have the rescue carry that horse's bills.

For me, each adoption is a celebration. I'm sad to see some horses leave my place as I get attached, but I am thrilled for the horse to have a chance at his own family and future. I love getting updates from adopters and see horses and humans happy together.

In fact, our adoptions were really slow for the first half of the year. And it worried and depressed me. Our foster homes were full, horses weren't getting adopted, and we couldn't help anymore horses. In the last month, our adoptions have really picked up. And now that adoptions have picked up, I feel much better about the rescue and life in general. We're doing what we're here for again - getting horses out of bad situations and getting them to people who love them.

Those of us in rescue need to remember our goal. We want to get horses out of bad situations (rescue them) and then get them the chance to have the life they deserve (adoption). Some horses may take a while to get up for adoption, but once they're healthy and you know what they know, they should be up for adoption - if not before. It allows you to help other horses, and it gives those horses a future full of love.

Thank you to everyone who has adopted a horse from a rescue - whether or not it was Bluebonnet. You have given a horse the life he deserves. And you've given us hope that we can find that kind of home for all the horses who need us.

All organizations go through growing pains from time to time. And right now, it is Bluebonnet's turn. I know this part sounds like bragging, and perhaps it is, but Bluebonnet is one of the best horse rescues in the United States. We've helped a lot of horses, we have a huge membership base, and we run like a professional corporation. I personally work hard to make sure Bluebonnet maintains high standards.

However, the last year has been a hard one for us. Last year, we took 127 horses, most of them were severely emaciated. Adoptions were down and less people were fostering because of the economy. Adoptions are slowly picking up this year, but we still rarely get new foster homes signing up. The cause is mostly the economy. People just cannot afford to adopt, foster or donate as much as they could in the past.

But Bluebonnet has also hit the point of growing pains. We want to help all the horses who need us, and we continue to expand our programs and try to do more and more. Unfortunately that's causing a lot of burn out right now. Volunteering is down, and we are forced to ask those who can volunteer to take on more and more. We're all getting burnt out, and when we're burnt out we cannot help any horses. And we end up feeling like we're spinning our wheels.

How do we fix this? Well, we do it by sitting down and taking a good, hard look at the rescue. The Board of Directors and some members will be doing this at the end of July. We're going to have a two day working weekend meeting. During this time, we're going to examine what BEHS is currently trying to do and identify which of those processes are critical (for example, getting horses adopted out into safe homes is critical). We're going to look at ways to improve those critical processes. We're also going to look at what we feel are our biggest problems (for example, lack of manpower) and identify ways to solve them. And we're going to look at what we're trying to do right now that isn't critical and identify things that we can put on the back burner until we have the resources to really focus on doing them well.

I've sent out a couple of questions to our members so they can help us decide what area(s) to focus on. If you are a current BEHS member and you didn't get the email, let me know. I want your comments.

Scaling back is not an easy thing for me to do. I like to grow and expand and do more and more. But I realize that we really need to focus on doing the critical stuff and doing it well. When we're doing the best we can absolutely do on those things, then we can slowly expand again. In the meantime, we'll keep on helping horses. That's what we're here for after all!

Volunteers are the lifeblood of any nonprofit. For Bluebonnet, they serve on our Board of Directors, foster our horses, help get horses adopted out, promote the rescue and carry on a myriad of other roles. Without the rescue's volunteers, we couldn't help many horses at all.

Nonprofits with successful volunteer programs often offer volunteer orientation programs. It is a good way for volunteers to learn about the history of the organization and meet some of the organization's supervisors or coordinators. One problem BEHS has is that we're so spread out that we can't easily have volunteer orientations. People would have to travel quite a distance, and the board members would have a hard time getting other things done between the traveling.

I've really worried for a while about our lack of volunteer orientation. We're a pretty big group now - we have about 600 members, and probably 100-200 of those volunteer at least occasionally. I think we have people join the rescue who would like to get more involved but they're a little intimidated because they don't know where to start. Since we do most of our communication via email, those who aren't computer-literate also have a hard time getting involved. We've been struggling with this.

At our annual board retreat/meeting, one of our board members suggested having monthly member conference calls. These wouldn't be as good as in person training, but they would give people a chance to call in, learn history of the organization, learn where they can get involved and have a chance for a Q&A session. So we're going to start these calls this month. I'm hoping these will help people get more involved and find their niche.

And I'm going to keep thinking of other ways to get training to our volunteers. I want our volunteers to be happy and enjoy their time volunteering with BEHS - and I want us to work together effectively to help the most horses we can.

If you want to work in rescue, you had better learn how to say the word "no". It is a hard word to say, and it is a painful word to say. I am so lucky that I ran the first rescue I was involved with for years before we had to say no. But that was a different time. To begin with, we started small and took in only 8 horses our first year. We were new, no one had heard of us, and rescue was even pretty unknown overall. We actually had a lot of time when we had more foster homes than foster horses in the early days. We even went to auctions a few times and bought horses who were at risk of going to slaughter - it let us save some horses and helped fill up those foster homes. The economy was better then, too, and not as many people were having to give up their horses. Also, many people sent them to auction - not knowing they might end up at slaughter. Now, people worry about sending a horse to auction or selling him outright. They worry no one will watch out for him.

Those days are long gone. When we started BEHS, we were in a different place. Many of the founders were well-known by law enforcement (for the right reasons!) and we got calls starting the month we opened BEHS. I also announced our formation at the 2005 AQHA Convention as a precursor to a talk i gave there. So our name was out in the horse industry in a big way. In March 2005, our first full month of operation I had to say no to law enforcement. A county in AR called us and wanted our help seizing 20-30 Arabs. I WANTED to help, but we did not have insurance. We did not have money for vet bills. We didn't have foster homes to take the horses. We hadn't received our IRS determination letter yet. We just weren't ready. I hated saying no and offered to help with advice and expertise. But that's all I had to offer.

After our first year of operation, we started saying no to most "donated" horses. These are the horses owner cannot keep and want a rescue to take. Some people call them "dumped" or "abandoned". In some cases, I really ache for the owners. They lost a job or have to move or are getting divorced and are really in a difficult spot. It is hard to tell them no. Other people just want to 'get rid' of a dangerous horse or ill horse they don't want to treat or euthanize.

Now, we turn horses away every week. We now have insurance and an IRS determination letter. We have money to pay vet bills. What we do not have is enough foster homes. We don't have a place to put these guys, and without that we just cannot help. We turned down a horse this morning. And we turned down one yesterday. And I'm about to say no to another. It is frustrating. And I know that the future for these guys is pretty dim if we can't help them.

We're not the only rescue in this position, though. In the past two years, I've seen several rescues shut down and I've seen others close their doors to any incoming horses. Because they realize they cannot care for any more.

I still see rescues who advertise that they will take any horse, any time. I find those rescues dangerous. Because it takes money, time and space to care for horses. And no one has infinite money, time or space. Too often the rescues who will take any horse, any time end up full and struggling to pay their bills. When that happens, the horses suffer.

Saying no is hard. Saying no hurts. Saying no can cause me nightmares. But if we extend ourselves too far and cannot care for the animals we have, then a lot more animals will suffer. If you want to run a rescue or work in a rescue, you must learn to say no. And say no often.

Since I'm getting back to the original intent of this blog, I thought I would talk today about another one of the many jobs I do for BEHS: promoting the rescue.

Years ago when I first got involved in rescue, I thought all I needed to do was find neglected horses, get them into the rescue, make them well and find them homes. I figured most of my time would be spent with the horses: feeding them, nursing them back to health and even training them. I didn't realize that the hands-on horse time would constitute such a small portion of the time I spend on rescue work.

I guess I thought if I created the rescue and saved the horses, the people would come. I didn't reckon on having to get out there and promote the rescue. And I do spend a lot of time doing that. I've gone and given talks at horse events - from national conventions to local 4-H meetings. I've been interviewed by numerous magazines, newspapers and TV stations about the rescue. I post Craigslist ads and send out emails about the rescue, and I run ads in horsey magazines.

Right now, we're really focusing on booths. We hold booths at tack and feed stores, horse shows, pet fairs, community fairs, and anyplace we think we might be able to talk to people about the rescue. The amount of planning that goes into putting on a booth is pretty amazing. First, we have to create the set up - we want an attractive booth that doesn't look haphazard. BUT we also don't want to spend a fortune on it (because we prefer to spend our $$ on the horses!). We've got to find a place for the booth and get registered and then recruit volunteers to man it. I have to schedule the volunteer shifts and make sure they have all the info they need. Then the volunteers spend the day at the event talking to people, handing out info about the rescue and hopefully having a little fun.

We've got several booths coming up, but we're always looking for more opportunities in both Texas and Arkansas. If you have suggestions, let me know!

I started this blog to talk about what goes on behind the scenes at a horse rescue. Other rescues have blogs about the horses and the neglect cases, and those are important. But there is so much that goes on behind the scenes at a rescue that most people never see. Because they don't see the extra work, many people think that running a rescue is all about saving animals: rushing in to save animals from mean owners, sitting on the ground holding an injured animal until the vet arrives, or even the joy of placing them into adoptive homes. Some people get hooked on the "high" that could come with any of those scenarios.

There is so much more to running a rescue than the very public animal saving and adoptions. Those things are important - and they're why we are all here. However, without the behind the scenes work that goes into running a rescue, no one would be able to save any animals. And no animals would make it into those great adoptive homes.

Bluebonnet isn't set up like a lot of rescues are. We don't have a farm or ranch, although we hope to have one someday. And we aren't all located physically close together. Our board of directors, volunteers and members are spread out across Arkansas and Texas with a few other members scattered across the US. We operate as a network of foster homes and volunteers, and most of our communication happens over the phone or through email. There are days I spend hours on the phone. I may be talking to our adoption coordinator about pending adoptions or checking in with our fostering coordinator about where we'll be putting horses. Sometimes I'm giving interviews for newspapers or magazines, and other times I'm talking to law enforcement officers about neglect cases.

When I'm not on the phone, I'm often reading email. Right now, I have about 250 emails I need to answer. Some of those came in today or yesterday. Others are older emails that require me to put in some work and thought before I answer. I spend several hours most days on email - helping coordinate neglect investigations and seizures, working with volunteer coordinators to make their jobs easier, corresponding with magazines for advertising and much more. Sometimes it is exhausting to think how much time I spend on email!

Many days I also spend at least some time advertising the horses for adoption. We run ads in different horse newspapers/magazines as well as online classified sites and Craigslist. Our goal is for each horse, donkey and mule to find a forever home, and it takes a lot of work to do that.

I also coordinate neglect case reports. I log them in, post for volunteers to help verify, make assignments and follow-up. I work with the neglect/abuse investigations assistant to decide which cases to call into law enforcement and to follow-up on.

I also spend a lot of time working with our volunteer coordinators (foster, adoption, inspection, district coordinators, etc.) to make sure they have what they need to get their jobs done, filling in when one of them has to take time off, and helping when they have more work than they can handle.

Lately I've also been helping with the website. Our website coordinator is tied up with work, so I've been getting horses up for adoption, moving horses to the 'adopted' category and the 'rainbow bridge' category, etc.

And that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few weeks, I'll try to share more of what goes on behind the scenes so you can get a better understanding of the work that goes into running a rescue.

Those of you readers who regularly follow this journal probably thought I had fallen off the face of the Earth. I've just been amazingly busy. The rescue keeps hopping and I'm having to run to keep up!

I'm pleased to say that 2009 was a record-breaking year for us. Some of our accomplishments:
- Biggest and most successful Bluebonnet Horse Expo yet
- 93 horses placed with adopters
- 127 neglected, abused or estray horses brought into the rescue
- Membership exceeded 500
- $15,000 grant to help pay the cost of vet bills for the horses in 2010

It is a relief to end such a stressful year on a high note - good adoptions, good grants, good events. Unfortunately, this year has started off with a bang. We've been called upon by many sheriff's departments, and we've had to tell some of them that we couldn't help them. We just don't have room. We have a potential case right now with 30+ horses, and unless we get more horses adopted out or more foster homes, we won't be able to help those horses.

Not being able to help really weighs heavily on me. It is easy to say 'You can't help them all'. It is much harder to be the person who receives the photos of dead and dying horses or goes out on the call to find horses have died because they didn't get help in time. And then to have to tell the sheriff's department that we can't help the horses who are dying - that's something that haunts me at night.

I'm hoping we can turn 2010 into another successful year. But it is going to take a lot of help and support from the public. I hope we can work with you for the horses in 2010.

It has been nearly a month since I last posted - and I'm not sure how I lost all that time. Well, it has been exceedingly busy...

We had the 3rd annual Bluebonnet Horse Expo. It was an amazing success! We had over 600 people in attendance and had some great demos and clinics. We had three horses adopted out the day of the Expo and received another 12 adoption applications. I think about 10 horses have gone home since the Expo and we have several more with pending applications. We also received 25 new members and raised nearly $25,000. That money helps offset a very expensive year and will give us a small cushion to enter into 2010 with.

We've also had more neglect case horses come into the rescue in the past month. Right before the Expo, we took in three horses from a neglect case. One little filly was only about 3-4 months old, but she had a wound to her nose that left bone exposed. We had to have surgery done to scrape the dead bone off of her face and graft skin there to cover the wound. The two adult horses are not halter broke, and there are more horses out there that we need to pick up.

We then got called last week to take in four horses from a neglect case near Austin. One is a pregnant mare who is due in about four months, and the other is a gelding with an injury that left exposed bone. He's being treated and lucky should heal ok.

We had another horse injure his eye and then get a fungal infection in his eye. He was under vet care for two weeks and then had to have surgery to remove his eye. His vet bill was over $4,000 and we could use donations to help cover that cost (if you make a donation, mark it 'For Santana').

We've received probably 20 neglect complaints in the past few weeks. We're working our way through those and also working on our budget and fundraising plan for 2010. So far, we have a gala in Corpus Christi on May 7th and our fourth annual Bluebonnet Horse Expo on October 16 in Austin.

Next week, I head to Corpus Christi to attend the Texas Animal Control Association's annual conference. I'm really surprised that when I attend these kinds of things, there are no horse rescues represented and very few small animal rescues. These kinds of conferences are great for networking, for learning better ways to handle neglect cases and animals, and for getting the word out about your group. The Texas Unites conference is in March of 2010 and I'll be attending it, too. Hopefully we can get some other rescuers there as well!

Event planning is a ton of work, and the Bluebonnet Horse Expo is no exception. It is our big annual fundraiser, and this year I'm praying it'll help put us in the black. Its been an expensive year so far and we haven't had many fundraisers this year.

We're just a few days away from the Expo, and it is an insane time. We've got last minute vendors getting their vendor applications in. And last minute sponsors that we need to touch base with. And the list of horses coming is constantly changing as is the list of volunteers.

An amazing amount of work goes into this - there's tons of behind the scenes work to get clinicians lined up, get the facility issues covered and find sponsors and vendors. Then we have members out asking for donations and people volunteering to help the day of the event.

We're hearing from a lot of people who are planning on coming - and a lot of people who hope to adopt their next horse. It is exciting.. but a lot of work.