12/03/2025
You may have seen our recent posts about the loss of Jesse, the barn owner’s horse, where we see equine assisted psychotherapy clients and hold workshops. It’s been a challenging couple of months; with the herd, our clients and ourselves having to adjust to the loss and change.
We also have a new horse we are working with to see if she could be a good fit for our program. She has shown some pretty high anxiety and we don’t know her well enough yet to know if this is her new normal, old normal or just temporary due to the changes for her. She had a close friend back where she lived previously, so she has to grieve also.
Needless to say we’ve been in the midst of some upheaval with lots of emotions flying around the arena and pasture. This is all normal when death, loss or change occurs, but it isn’t easy by any means as I’m sure you know too.
So what are we doing to cope and deal with all this change? We are taking one day at a time and trying to be aware and sensitive to the needs of each other and our horses. We’ve had some successes and some struggles, but we are all learning from it.
One success was when we kept our routine for the herd after Jesse left the barn. Nothing else changed. Diana showed up as she always does for care and feeding every morning, we met as a team on Monday, the day after Jesse left, because that is the day we always met. We spent special time holding space for Parker, Jesse was his best bud, and for the other horses too. Our goal was to just be there with them and remind them we are all still here for them. That day felt really good and I believe helped all of us know we would get through this loss together. But we were all feeling the loss, the empty space where Jesse used to be, both in the herd and in our hearts.
On a different day we were going to work with Breezy, the horse that is new to us. She was in the arena round pen and the other horses were out in the pasture. Breezy was a little anxious, but overall doing well. Then….Bella Star, the bottle-raised Texas Longhorn calf, who lives at the end of the arena with an area opening to a small pasture, came strutting into the arena and startled Breezy. You would have thought the now midsize calf had a MOOOO sound that yelled, “Get the heck out of my arena!”
When stressed Breezy can react like any of us and go to a nervous system reaction of Fight, rather than Flight. She needed out of the round pen and arena, and we let her out in the dry lot where she could run and kick it out to reset her nervous system. Then one of us worked on connecting with her so she could have a reparative experience, and one at a time we each went and connected with her briefly and ended our team work for the day.
All that to say…grief and change is hard!!!! It comes with small healing and reparative times and sometimes even big feeling times. Questions surface like how are we going to do this without Jesse? What am I going to do with this big hole in my heart? How can I hold space for others who are grieving too? And what do I do with big feelings like fear and stress responses that Breezy felt?
I was told years ago that grief is like soup. A bunch of different ingredients dumped in, all mixed in there together. Yeah, soup can be yummy, but you don’t know what ingredient or flavor is going to jump out at you when you take a bite. Emotions are like that too, although hopefully when you slurp the soup you enjoy the flavors that land on your tongue!
If you are grieving this holiday season, it’s ok if it’s not like others, if it’s different, if it’s more quiet, or just more internal. Be gentle with yourself and remember there will be successes, “I made it to the employee Christmas party and didn’t have a meltdown.” There will also be deep struggles, “I just can’t go to my family’s big Christmas dinner and see that empty chair.” It’s ok. Stay home, eat soup, and just take one bite at a time. We at Dusty Boots Barn are going through it too and we are rooting for you!
