Healing Hearts with Horses

Healing Hearts with Horses: an amazing program for not only troubled teenagers, but for troubles horses.

This is a farm owned by Deb Hoyt. She set up this program in 2000, after she had been a foster parent for ten years and had a love for horses. Deb felt the need to reach out to kids like her own that she had fostered. Associations like Equine Assisted Psychotherapy have helped her get started in the mental aspect of the project. She has to get the kids to open up, which is easier with a furry buddy that won’t judge you for your past.

Many of theses kids were taken away from their families due to bad situations. Including abuse, drugs, and other unhealthy situations. These, kids, teenagers, are broken hearted. Some travel from foster home to foster home, and a place like this little farm in Runnells, Iowa, is a way to escape the harsh world as they know it. Here they can find someone to talk to, someone to love and be loved by. These horses had just has troubled lives as these kids. Some were abused, starved, or just unwanted because of conformational faults. Either way, when one of these students hears the story of a horse in the same situation as them, it’s a perfect match.

The kids are able to take lessons, riding and ground work, with Deb. Since Deb has been riding for quite a while, it’s easy for her to share her knowledge with the kids. Though most of them will never be professional, it’s a fun way to erase the worries of the world. The horses enjoy it too. They just want to be loved. When you walk up to the fence all of them whinny at you and hope you are coming for them.

This program is such an amazing program! Its great to see people who care about a cause so strongly that they put all their time and money into it. It takes alot to keep the place running, and its all based on donations! Deb, you are changing lives! Thank You! For more information please visit their website: http://www.healingheartswithhorses.com/hhh/