In the Spring of 2023, we began our slow, intentional search for our first horse. While unfortunately, horses in need of loving, stable homes are not hard to come across, we knew we had to find alignment between our first horse’s needs, and what we could provide. After connecting with many beautiful horses (many in need of medical rehabilitation), we finally found our match.

Mandy is an 8 year old Mustang who was born and raised wild. She was eventually rounded up and landed in auction. At some point she was likely “broken” (the commonly used term in the horse world for training), which is where her first owners found her, and helped her rehab to eventually find her forever home.

Because Mandy was not receptive to traditional training practices, her first owners began learning new methods to better support her. Through natural horsemanship and liberty-based methods, they began to form a healing relationship.

As our first Stable Grounds Sanctuary adoptee, we’ve been interested in learning her common stress responses, and what it looks like when she’s consenting and curious. Since she’s been living in a safer environment with her first owners, we can see she has a desire to connect with humans.

In our care, our first priority will be to support her nervous system to continue to settle as a goal to make interactions with us as joyful as possible.