Atlas - A horse saved from the kill pen

Meet Atlas – Rescued From the Kill Pen

If you have been to the ranch, you have seen him. You couldn’t miss the big red horse, a Belgian draft we had in our round pen for a few weeks we were working with just to gain enough trust to get a halter on him. Then you saw him in the back arena still learning to trust us, all the while stealing our hearts. We don’t know his background, who bred for him, who handled him as a baby, who trained him to ride or drive or how he went from a gangling foal to falling into the hands of a kill pen buyer.

How did he end up at the age of ten where his only two options were to be purchased within 30 days or be crammed onto a truck with other disposable horses headed to certain death?

How did he end up at the age of ten where his only two options were to be purchased within 30 days or be crammed onto a truck with other disposable horses headed to certain death?

Unfortunately, when you sell a horse you forfeit your right to know its fate. Fortunately for Atlas, he was loaded on the trailer not headed to slaughter, but on one bound for Georgia and our ranch.

Atlas - Bearfoot Ranch Rescue HorseToday was a big day for Atlas. With the help of our vet, Dr. Calvird, Atlas was sedated just enough to get his feet trimmed by our farrier Kip Bishop and have a little dentistry done on his teeth all in a gentle non-traumatic way.   Somewhere along Atlas's life journey, he forgot humans can be kind and gentle with simple things like foot care, dentistry, and even grooming.  With this important but basic care finally accomplished, Atlas will make leaps and bounds with settling in and fulfilling our faith in his ability to become a therapy horse able to carry our clients that our other horses are not up to carrying.

Atlas - Bearfoot Ranch Rescue HorseWith this said, Atlas would not have accomplished this today but for our staff and our volunteers that have come by with gentle words, gentle hands, and a cookie or two. There is nothing better in life than acceptance no matter your background, your history, your disabilities, or because you are different. Bearfoot is a ranch of love and acceptance and today was a win for an animal who was so close to never finding either of these.

Finally, if not for the financial and material donations we receive and the money we make from our lesson program, there would have been no win today, no happy story. We could not have financially stepped into that 30 day grace period to purchase him and prevent him from that horrible last trailer ride.

Junior Girl Scouts visit Bearfoot Ranch and Volunteer

Your financial help changed Atlas' fate. 

Because you bring your children for lessons or perhaps treat yourself to a lesson or trail ride or you make an ongoing or the occasional monetary donation, we are able to change the fate of a horse like Atlas.

Because of you, Atlas will continue to be gentled and eventually trained to be a therapy horse.  As Atlas learns to trust us through his own therapy, he in turn will be the reason "no" is no longer in our vocabulary when we have a rider that is above our height or weight limit.  Atlas is our "yes" horse.  Where someone was about to shut the trailer door for the last time on this big red horse, he will open doors for people in need.

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