More Than Rescuing Horses: The Quiet Work of Sanctuaries

Petie comes to us at about 12 years old… carrying a history that lives not just on his skin but somewhere deeper. When he was young, he was used on a ranch that trained cowboys to rope cattle…And since calves grow up and don’t stay small forever, it was cheaper to rope Petie… a mini who never grew out of being a target…So Petie’s formative years were spent with bigger horses thundering toward him, men throwing their ropes, dragging him, tying him, practicing holding him down…Over and over…Day after day…For years… 

 He wears the story in white scars that curl across his face and neck…a halter once left on so long it became part of him…It’s hard to say how long…Months…Maybe years. As best we can tell, Petie has had five owners in ten years. Five beginnings...Five chances to belong that never quite held…Now, when he sees us, he runs…He hides in the farthest corner of the pen, his back turned but his ears still listening…He flinches at hands that only want to touch gently…He doesn’t trust them…Why would he?

Becca is about 22…She’s been with Petie for most of his life. She has her own quiet ghosts…Some show up in faint scars, some in the way her muscles tighten when someone moves too quickly…Most of her story lives between the lines…in the spaces no one can translate…The woman who surrendered them loved them deeply. She cared for them as best she could. But she’s 75…Her husband is 85, and living with advanced dementia…She had to let go of the home they built, the life they knew, the horses she loved. She didn’t let them go because love faded…She let them go because sometimes love doesn’t save the world…It saves what it can…And sometimes what it can save is the future of the ones we love most…

People talk about rescuing animals. But sanctuaries…the real ones…rescue humans too…Quietly…Behind the scenes…In that moment when someone hands you the beating pieces of their heart and walks away…We hold what they can’t hold anymore…We promise their animals will never disappear…And something inside them exhales…even as it breaks…

Three weeks ago, the trailer door opened and Petie and Becca stepped in without a second thought. No ramp to make it easier…Just two small leaps of faith from horses who hadn’t left their property in over two years…And in that moment, we thought maybe they were ready to move on…

We knew they were shy…We knew at least Petie might need some work…But what we didn’t know…what we couldn’t quite see through the halters and the calm faces…was how deep their wounds ran. Halters can give the illusion of trust. On the lead, horses comply…They follow…They wear the mask that kept them safe…But when the halter comes off, their truth comes out…

Petie is terrified…Becca keeps her distance, always watching, always ready to decide if she needs to run…They are not the easy arrivals we imagined…They’re more fragile…More damaged…And yes…we were disappointed…Not in them…In the quiet ache of realizing how much farther they’ll have to travel before they feel safe.

But here’s the thing…They’re home…Right where they belong…

Here, there’s no clock…No expectation…No performance…Just the slow work of trust…

We’ve walked this road before…Four years ago, Sunny arrived with the same shut-down energy. It took three and a half years before he began to trust human hands again…Now he’s the sanctuary’s court jester…curious, playful, always plotting some tiny crime. When the farrier comes, Sunny sneaks over and steals every tool from the toolbox, laying them in a neat little row like he’s helping.

This from a horse who once believed his only purpose was to carry men on his back while they chased cattle across a prairie…That’s what healing can look like…Not dramatic…not instant…but real…

I can feel that same quiet possibility in Petie and Becca…Becca’s curiosity flickers through the fear, and I suspect she’ll find her way into our Reading with Rescues and Forever Seen programs. Petie…I don’t know…Maybe he’ll live out his life in quiet safety…Maybe he’ll surprise us, the way Sunny did…

Either way…this is where their story changes…This is where it softens…They’ll never be thrown away again…Never tied-up…Never used…No one is waiting for them to perform or prove their worth…Their worth is not up for debate.

So we sit with them…Quietly…Every day…Sometimes for long periods…We don’t move…We don’t reach…We just let them learn that not every human is here to take something…Some of us are here to just give something back…

Every horse who comes here writes a new chapter in what healing can look like…And every person who’s ever loved them gets to know, the story didn’t end the day they let go…It just turned a corner…

And sometimes…when the dust finally settles…the hardest goodbyes are the ones that make room for a better forever.