Choosing a counsellor

The other month, I started to write a book - a book which I feared would be needed, but was hoping wouldn't be. 

I haven't yet finished it because - well, 8 months of rain does cause a lot of jobs to be done ... and makes daily jobs harder to do, so book writing kind of falls to the wayside. 

But, yesterday, it broke my heart to read that yes, it does need writing, it's too late for some but hopefully not for others. And it has spurred me to consider the conclusion and how to write it. 

But it will be written with the photos of those ponies who were abused at a petting sanctuary supposedly offering equine assisted therapy, and yet were starved and neglected in this place of what should be beauty and sanctuary. 

Now, don't get me wrong, this year has been brutal - the number of times I've said "right, that's the last roundbale before spring" and two weeks later been back on the phone to buy more as the grass wasn't growing and the horses eating gorse bushes (ok, the horses eat gorse bushes even when there's loads of hay AND grass, but more than normal!) but that's what having horses means - it means that you feed them when they are hungry not just when the calendar says you should and then leave it. You provide shelter and a place they can be dry in - and you give them somewhere dry that they can stand - even if it is your hay field and your farmers heart breaks at the damage they are doing - because that damage can be fixed and more hay bought in - but the horses are more important. 

I remember twice an issue coming up with the pony my dad got for the kids - the first one had to go back to the young girl who previously owned him - he was perfect in every way, but he was lonely and, worst still, he and the girl both grieving for each other that the parents called dad after a week and asked if he'd consider selling him back to them. The second was when someone cut through the fence to let the "poor pony into the field next door coz the grass was better" - resulting in the "poor pony" who was already fat thanks to the porridge he got fed every morning in the kitchen, being taken to what was dubbed in those days a "starvation paddock" to lose weight to save his hooves and legs from the ever present worry of Laminitis. 

We can only offer equine assisted therapy when the horses are happy, fit and well - if we do not look after the horses, then we can not look after clients and there's no point in offering it. They are the centre and soul of what happens here and the most important aspect of the work. 

So please, just please, when you're looking to have therapy with horses - be it counselling or coaching - please find out what their ethos is around animal care - and choose wisely and carefully and pick the ones who have the horses' interests and welfare right at the centre and the horse is a valued and cared for being - not just a tool to be used for cash. Watch the people around the horses, see how the horses respond and react - and how well they are, how bright they are - and most of all, that they aren't, in any way, neglected. Ask their stories and what they are like - and do they match this - what funny quirks they have - anything that indicates that they are intregal to the whole - the most important - the beings of the enterprise itself. 

Because any less you're doing yourself a disservice as well ....

And let's never ever again see horses being pumped for cash and neglected in what should be a wonderful place for animals and humans