Mustangs of Service
Veterans Equine Program

Touchstone Therapy LLC and the Mustang Adoption Academy have teamed up to create a program that simultaneously serves our country’s veterans and horses in need.

 

Our Mustangs Of Service (MOS) Program uses Natural Lifemanship and Equuscience techniques to help veterans and their families with reintegration into the community, decreases PTSD and/or depression symptoms, and improves quality of life. In this program, we will bring the adrenaline and excitement back into our veterans’ days and make them a part of the solution once more, under the watchful guidance of our licensed mental health professional, who herself is a Veteran.

​

Mustangs are overpopulated in the western United States as they have no natural predators, but they are also protected from slaughter and hunting by federal law. When land set aside for the mustangs becomes too overcrowded, many are rounded up and become available for adoption. While this is done in an effort to save their lives, it often inflicts more trauma on the horses and forces them to move into a domestic world they never would have chosen. The alternative can be equally devastating for their wellbeing, leading to scarcity of resources and unnatural levels of aggression between the animals.

​

We see a striking number of similarities in our mustangs and veterans: once they learn to live in the wild, using their basic instincts and gut to keep them alive, it can be very difficult to reintegrate into the domestic world. It often fees mundane and as though they cannot relate to others. Relationships feel scary and veterans may keep those they love at an arm’s (or hoof’s) length. Many choose to redeploy soon after their return in order to seek the relative safety of how their brains now know to live, but this only serves to perpetuate the trauma creating the problems we seek to resolve.

​

Unfortunately, like the mustang, our veterans may not always have a choice in the matter. When that time comes, the Mustangs of Service Program seeks to re-engage veterans with feelings of control over themselves and safety in the domestic world.

 

Our veteran volunteers will participate in the gentling process with the horses from Day 1 and offers help to both horse and human to learn to re-regulate their brains and bodies. We reintroduce connection to another being who understands their state of being and allow them to show one another the path forward.