Changing Minds. Changing Lives.

It takes more than a key to unlock some doors: you have to unlock minds first.
The last few days were given over to a rescue that was both challenging and complex. The animal/s never pose any problems; the humans who own them do. It often takes so many people to undo man’s cruelty to just one animal. It’s like a tug of war; there may be more people on the rescue side but the stubbornness and cruelty of one owner is a fierce force in itself. It’s never an easy win and losing is something you have to suck up pretty quickly sometimes.
Negotiating is sometimes as exhausting as the fight, and maybe I should learn to just skip the part I often try: ‘let’s talk about it’. Talking is futile when some people’s minds are locked and set in their ways. So during the week, two rescues and myself stood together (probably in shock) as we faced a person whose next words would decide the fate of the animal you have by your side, waiting to leave.  And sometimes you run out of ‘cards to play’, your mind searches for something, anything, that will ensure the animal’s freedom. Yes, sometimes what you say can be a gamble: it might win over one person, and make an enemy of another! It depends on the mind doing the processing!
Yes, the rescue was successful, but one rescue like this can often lead to people saying, ‘wait till I tell you….’ It’s those telling tales that haunt you and tinge the successful rescue! I think we all felt like we had been hit by a machine gun of words – such was the affect on us all and in particular one. We are all exhausted, and my poor nephew yesterday tried to hold open my eyes with his little fingers to watch his favourite programme with him! That’s what was important to him!
And to the good news, four little rescues from Clare made their journey to Wales safely where they will live out their lives together with three lovely ladies but prior to that, they will spend time with the knowledgable and kind-hearted Helen to get them ready for their new home! One remains so nervous even after two years of being rescued! Time does not erase some ‘human inflicted’ mental scars. Again the pictures tell you some of their back story!
It was wonderful to see Rory, one of the ponies that was on the Winter Feeding Programme last year, looking so well with Forgotten Horses. I think the before and after picture says it all. Sometimes when you’re feeding these horses, you throw out a net of words, hoping that some of them might just release the horse to you. In Rory’s case, they did. I can’t put into words what it does to me when feeding these horses everyday that are tethered. There is something about that rope that kills their spirit and their hope. It’s that rope that ‘ties’ them to you. You can’t get them out of your mind. As the days went on, Rory’s head barely lifted when I arrived with feed. Yes, it is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with: loving a person or an animal that can never be yours. The heart finds it hard to accept the aching message the mind reluctantly sends it: ‘let go’. Rory is one of the lucky ones. I have failed many many others. I’m so grateful to Forgotten Horses Ireland for giving Rory this wonderful life whilst he awaits a new home.
The last few days of Facebook’s newsfeed doesn’t give you much hope for mankind’s nature and care for animals! A foal maybe two days old navigating his way through urban life in Dublin. A woman walking her dog in the park but walking back to her car with the dog by the throat! And so many dogs stolen from loving homes and families. Horses and foals without water and kittens running onto motorways in search of their mommies who left them to keep them alive to get food. It’s sometimes too much for us to see: imagine what it’s like for them?
And the good news…a very spirited and determined woman I know has set a goal: to open a horse sanctuary. She already has one of her own but this would be akin to the scale of the donkey sanctuary! If you visited her own rescue/sanctuary, you would feel a real sense of healing, help, and hope. Perfect paddocks with horses who share one thing in common: they were all rescued from some of the most terrible of places. But here, they all get that golden ticket ‘to begin again’ and it’s as if this woman unties their pain body and leaves it outside the gates to this haven for animals! Yes, her dream may be BIG, but the horses who are being let down by their owners and authorities need something like this because rescues are full to capacity and some horses can never be what they once were, and sometimes the wounds and emotional scars that their owners inflicted on them means the only solace is sanctuary.
Please support her dream for these horses (See the link below).
My ‘letting go’ of my former life meant surrendering three large bags of clothes to Madra’s charity shop in Galway City yesterday! Letting go of the clothes is easier than letting go of the memories that might never be again. But as a lady said to me during the week, ‘of course you will never have those times back, but there is nothing stopping you creating new ones!’ I just won’t be doing it in sequence or sparkle!!  Which reminded me of a quote I read when visiting a person in recovery, ‘we can’t go back and create new beginnings, but we can start today to create different endings!’
No, we can’t erase the terrible beginnings rescues endure, but in rescuing, we change their endings. That is a guarantee. x

https://www.gofundme.com/horse-and-pony-sanctuary-ireland?teamInvite=8lHbRguY6Uw9tgR21UVkpWcKonvPRKuTQMnz462YrQDXnRaYTc98qO8sxE0g44IP

Thank you to everybody who helped get the ponies to Wales & Pat for helping with my jeep! Pascal for transport this week and to him and Margaret for foster care!