More Than Just a Horse: Arrival of Buddy & Sunny

This blog is attempt to share the life changing experience that adopting Buddy and Sunny have had a significant effect on the outlook I have on life and the horse. After talking with many people about my experience over the past year, many close friends recommended that I provide a place where people can come and read about these life changing experiences for not only my family and me but for Buddy and Sunny. Additionally, I hope that this will help raise awareness for very dire situations that horses are put into more than the common person understands or conditions that can be fathomed.
I spent 13 years as a United States Marine where I experienced and witnessed things that will be memories for a lifetime that I wish for no person to experience or see. Veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom has left a lasting effect on our veterans that are brought back to society where they try to make sense of what did they just go through. Did they do something wrong? Did I make mistakes? I have to accept doing things because of a life or death situation… How do they cope with that. It is easy for people without the experiences we face to say just pick up and move on. But where do you find the sense of peace and security that helps you move on to the next day. After receiving an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps in 2011, my family and I moved to Riverview, Florida where I began to work as a contractor for the US military. I spent the first two years being a husband to my amazing wife Amanda, and our three children, Reagan (11), Rylee (9), William (7), (and one TBD in September of 2015). It is very busy times and we did the typical family things that often took us in different ways during the day just to wear us down to where we would get home to just rush to bed to do it all over again. Friends of ours often talked about their horses and how they have at the most life enriching experiences with them. I grew up around horses and understood what they were saying but never really got that attached to them. After inquiring with our friends about their horses, they directed us to a place known as RVR Horse Rescue. RVR Horse Rescue is a non-profit organization who intervene for mistreated horses. They Will rescue, rehabilitate and provide a safe place for neglected, abused, and abandoned horses. Many of which have been passed from owner to owner, never knowing love or consistency (from RVR Horse Rescue Mission Statement). This volunteer ran non-profit organization had policies in place at the time minimizing the accepted volunteers and we often stopped by just in hopes of brief interaction with the horses here and there. A short period later, Reagan and I attended the RVR Horse Rescue Volunteer orientation where we had our first glimpse of what a horse sanctuary really was. After hearing of the more than 40 horses on the property all with a unique near death story, to now running in the best of health across the ranch of more than 40 acres. This was definitely a place where we could spend time for a worth cause. We spent much of the summer of 2014 volunteering as a family at RVR Horse rescue. Reagan, who also plays travel softball, has always had a soft loving heart for horses and has developed a desire to help horses by using softball to pay for her education to become an equine vet. With this in mind, and minimal interaction that volunteers had with the horses at the time we started looking to sponsor to adopt.
We spent weeks trying to establish a relationship with horses that were in need of a sponsor and a future loving home. We had interests in a few horses that either required a handler with more experience or they already had a sponsor making them unavailable. This is where I started working closer with Shawn Jayrow (founder and owner of RVR Horse Rescue) to identify a horse that would be a good fit for Reagan to gain experience and an understanding for horses. After days of waiting Shawn provided me contact information for owners of two horses that were looking to surrender their horses to because they had to move and could not take them to their new home. I coordinated with the owners to visit the two horses at their property and visited them in Plant City, FL. Initial descriptions provided by the owners were that they were in great shape. Upon arrival, I was introduced to Buddy & Sunny and immediately identified this as a situation that was right what RVR Horse Rescue specialized in. My heart was in such pain to see such peaceful beings in such a sad state. Sunny had been chewing on the side of a mobile home and Buddy had been seeking food on the ground and eating his own poop. Understanding the agony they must feel the volunteers at the rescue immediately kicked it into gear and Buddy & Sunny were headed to RVR Horse Rescue which I like to call Horse Heaven. This is where our lives with Buddy and Sunny took off. It was at this point we knew there was something special about these two boys.