I may be a total glutton for punishment, or possibly bordering on animal hoarder, but last week we welcomed Atticus to our farm. He’s a castaway Amish buggy horse who spent 17 years transporting humans quickly down long roads to be sent to auction because he was not able to keep up speed for 15 miles straight. Y’all know I am a sucker for rescue, and I’m an even bigger sucker for eyes that speak to me (our rescue dogs Drake and Gus were random “saw them on the internet” and my heart knew they were mine). I met him at the rescue while looking at another horse, and something about his calm demeanor and kind eye told me I should adopt him. And while I might be totally crazy- seeing he’s mid-teens already, doesn’t know how to ride, and I have zero experience training a horse…. I am excited for this experience. (And Amelia is convinced this is a perfect opportunity for her to build her “horse gentler” skills)
We are taking it really slow with him… building trust in me, in humans (he didn’t know how to take treats from hands when he got to the rescue, but now will buy grimy take apples and grain from our hands!) and I doubt he’s ever been shown human affection, but we are going to change that.
I’m nervous about this project I’ve taken on… nervous I’ll fail, or I’ll do something wrong, or I’ll mess him up…. but I also know it could be the most rewarding thing ever, and should I find myself stuck, I know enough amazing horse humans in this area that I can find help. (I also joined a few Amish/Standardbred retraining groups on Facebook and feel SO hopeful at their stories…. and am excited to get to know this breed!)
Wish me luck! I’ll try to keep updates coming. We are already seeing little bits of progress already.
(Also: I keep remembering this post on IG from @ruthannzimm that spoke to me. She wrote about how we’ve started to believe we need to “hire a professional to do anything we’ve never done before. She said “experience upon experience builds skill. It doesn’t have to be a successful experience to be beneficial to building your skill. In fact, our failed experiences add a bigger deposit into our skill bank than a successful experience.)
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