One of the important clauses in our adoption contract is the stipulation that, should the unexpected happen and the adopter can no longer keep the horse, they are returned to the rescue. We tend to have a protracted adoption process, partially because keeping a horse should not be undertaken lightly, but also because we want to ensure that the adopted home is likely to be for the rest of the horses life. However, with horses living longer (we have four at or about 40 and we don’t specialize in older horses) and with an aging owner population, the chances of further upheaval for our adoptees is becoming greater.
Family and financial or moving problems are the most common reason for adoptions to end. Older family members may be unable to continue keeping a horse and other family members unwilling. Whatever the cause, the end result is inevitably a loss of the horses home, or the wherewithal to board and maintain. The impact on families is, of course, extremely traumatic, but it is also traumatic for the horses as well, who have no way of knowing why their people have apparently deserted them.
In the past two years we have had two returnees, now we will be taking back two more, Chance and Tilly, with possibly a third in a few months. Chance and Tilly are lucky, they have both been resident on this farm and know many of our current horses, so acclimatization should not be too hard. However, there will be a period where the loss of the family that have been with them day to day will be hard on them, and it will be our job to make up for that loss.
Both of them are adoptable, and their full histories will be available on our adoption listing in the near future.