Students Form Special Bond with Rescue Horses

Our rescue made the front page of the Waxahachie Daily Light (the local paper) on Friday. We’ve uploaded the article to the rescue’s website, so you can check it out here:

Ferris High School students form special bond with rescue horses

Ferris High School, one of the local high schools, has a large agriculture and veterinary technician program. They are fostering seven of our horses for the next couple of months.

So far, this is turning out to be a great experience for the horses and the students. The school’s equine science class usually gets yearlings for their program. But this year, after learning about our rescue, they wanted rescue horses. The students in the class spend the semester learning about horse care, handling and training.

I went and visited the students and the horses last Thursday. The horses are getting daily interaction and attention. The program has been great for the horses so far. Some of the horses we sent were ones that were a little shy or skeptical about people. The consistent, daily interaction has been great and several of them already seem much more calm and relaxed around people.

One of the horses who is participanting in the program is Gingersnap, the skinny little filly we got in January. She already has made a ton of progress in the two weeks she’s been at the high school. I watched one of the students brush her as she stood falling asleep with her head resting on the fence. She was completely comfortable and calm with the whole situation.

Although we do plenty of training at the rescue, we do not have time to work with every horse every day. So, it’s great that the high school program was willing to help us with the basic training for some of these horses. It’s also really great because the horses get use to working with new people and in a new location.

At the end of the program, the students will have first choice to adopt their horses if they choose (and if they complete our adoption process and are approved). So, the best part is that a few of our horses might just find their forever homes!