Our hearts beat a little faster when we think about adoption. It’s near and dear to our hearts with six adopted children, and a farm made up of various rescued animals. We see value and life in everything, and hope. But one animal we had never adopted was a horse, even though we always hoped we could. We just honestly did not know of any local rescues or have any connections. That is until this past fall when I got an email from Julie Goodnight promoting the ASPCA’s Right Horse Initiative. In the email, she included an article about the horse she was working with named Doc Gunner from  the ASPCA Regional Support Center, and encouraging others to get involved. Thankfully, that email had a link that I quickly clicked on and was able to search for adoption groups in my area. I had no idea that there were rescues in my area, let alone such big beautiful facilities with so many well cared for and loved horses!

I called Horses Haven and set up a field trip to go see this rescue and see what we could do to get connected and partner with them. We met and fell in love with a new horse the director had recently brought back from the Kentucky Equine Adoption Center, named Dante. He was gelded a few months prior and had been completely unhandled, having been removed from the wild. There was something about his extremely quiet and trusting temperament that completely stole our hearts. We marveled at what a perfect fit Dante was for us, and how we never would have connected with him had Horses Haven not transferred him to their rescue. We are forever grateful to both rescues for working together to help each horse find their forever home. Whether that’s local to the rescue, or several states away.

After we adopted Dante, we lined up a trainer to help us with training and wished we could adopt more horses with his temperament. He is just one of a kind! Two months later, the director at Horses Haven was again in Kentucky and happened to be looking at one of Dante’s sons, named Lance. He was removed at the same time as Dante, and part of that same herd. I had just sent her a video of my 12 year old daughter riding Dante, and we had no idea that there were some  of his offspring in Kentucky still. When she responded to my video saying that she was just looking at Lance, and that he had the same great temperament, I begged her to get him for us! We just couldn’t believe it! We not only get to adopt one incredible horse, but two! To reunite a herd was extra meaningful too.

We couldn’t wait for Lance to come home and join us, and we all were anxious to see how Dante and Lance would react to seeing each other. From that first moment, they absolutely recognized each other and have been best friends since. They are finally in their forever home and reunited. Never to be separated again. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for bringing us the horses of our dreams! We will continue looking to adoption when we look to add new horses to our family. There are many wonderful horses are waiting and needing a second chance.