Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine August 2016 Vol 1 Issue 3

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine

blended families, children going through divorce and other life traumas. Through learning how to care for, ride, and connect with these horses, children learn to trust in the comfort these animals bring.

up. When I realized he started to trust me it was the first time in my young life that I can remember feeling such love and acceptance. Horses will always see, feel and respond to your true emotions. This action of love can be seen in horse’s direct response to the child in front of them. You will see a horse walk up to a child and gently lower its head to the child’s level or gently nuzzle a child welcoming them. Through their gentle nature horses have the ability to heal human hearts. Not only are children’s hearts opened to trust others, they begin trust in themselves. This leads children to begin the healing process as coping skills are developed through the uplifting ther- apeutic interaction. We couple this with the truth of God’s word empowering them and helping them with a renewed hope for their life. At the current time I am running Living Life Ranch out of my home. I have a few volunteers who help and bring hurting children to my home on the week- ends where we spend an hour here or there min- istering to them through hands on horsemanship experiences that I mentioned above. I feel at this time that Lord is calling me into the full time ministry of developing Living Life Ranch to its fullest potential. That is why I’m telling you my story. I need your help. At the current time my full time job is financing all the expenses and activities of the ranch. Continued on Page 28

Lobo in 1981 giv- ing my son Danny his first ride. I was 19 yrs old. Why Horses? It’s proven that abuse kills your true sense of trust. Often times these young people can’t discern if somebody loves

them or wants to hurt them. Horses communicate through body language and practice the social skills of acceptance, tolerance, kindness, honesty, pa- tience, understanding, forgiveness and compassion. Horses also read human body language. If you’re angry, impatient, grieving, stressed or worried---your horse will know. You can’t hide feelings from them. Take my horse “Lobo”: when I got him I couldn’t trust anyone. Lobo didn’t know me, all he knew is what he saw when we met. He didn’t want anything or ex- pect anything from me. I didn’t have to talk about my feelings and he was okay with that. He opened me

Joshua Rushing is a profes- sional farrier in the Mo-Kan region south of Kansas City. His 15 years of service has been spent working with mostly performance, ranch, show, and trail horses.

Featured Writer ~ Josh Rushing

EHALmagazine.com | August 2016 | © Everything Horses and Livestock 27 Although most of Joshua’s time is spent underneath a horse, he can often be found atop a horse training, competing in cowboy challenges or offer- ing horsemenship clinics. Look for upcoming article: “To Shoe Or Not To Shoe?”