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equine assisted therapy

Senate Must Adopt House EAT Provision for US Vets!

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The following is from the American Horse Council:

American Horse Council Action Alert

Congress Considers FY21 Spending Bill, Must Adopt House EAT Provision

As Congress convenes the “lame duck” session following the election, lawmakers will consider federal spending bills for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, including funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and other agencies.  As you recall, in late July, Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) inserted an amendment in the House version of the FY2021 spending bill for VA that would allocate $5 million dollars for Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) programs within the Adaptive Sports Program at VA.  If enacted into final law, this would more than double the resources for EAT allocated within the context of past spending bills. 

Because the Senate version of the VA spending bill does not include an equivalent provision for EAT, lawmakers must adopt the House version in the final spending package.  Contact your senators today, and urge them to adopt the House provision of the FY 2021 spending bill for VA which supports EAT for U.S. veterans.

Tim Hayes Harnesses Equine’s Healing Touch

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The following excerpt  is from an article by Ken Picard published at Seven Days 

animals1-1a-979f4b17ef160b5dTim Hayes first recognized horses’ power to heal when he saw a burly gang member from South Central Los Angeles come face-to-face with a wild mustang — and his own true nature.

It was 1996, and Hayes, then a TV commercial producer in New York City and amateur horseman, had traveled to a federal super-max prison in Florence, Colo., known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” He went to observe the Wild Horse Inmate Program, established in 1986 by the Bureau of Land Management and the Colorado Department of Corrections to “gentle,” or tame, free-roaming horses from the American plains before they’re put up for adoption. The recidivism rate of WHIP inmates is half the national average.

Hayes watched Morris, the former LA Crip who’d never been around a real horse before, confront a thousand-pound snorting, kicking and thrashing beast. In that moment, Hayes remembers, Morris seemed to see himself in the mustang’s wild eyes: not a violent, rage-filled killer who’d once crushed a man’s skull with a car door, but a terrified creature who had to fight just to stay alive.

“They act tough, but I think they just scared. Yeah, they ain’t mean,” Hayes recalls Morris telling him afterward about the horse — and himself. “Maybe once you get to trust ’em, they trust you.”

Hayes spent a week with WHIP inmates. In that short time, he witnessed an incredible transformation in Morris and other men whom society had written off as beyond redemption.