Featured horse Moolah at Lollypop Farm in Fairport, NY. Credit Paige Engard
The ASPCA is promising to make a lot of noise throughout May, all on behalf of adoptable horses living in foster care, on rescue farms and in shelters. The organization’s first-ever Adopt a Horse Month will leverage the full weight of the nation’s first humane society against the stigma and the misconceptions about equine adoption. ASPCA’s Right Horse Initiative is coordinating the nationwide promotion, which launched formally on April 26, a date designated as Help a Horse Day.
Before there was The Right Horse Initiative, there was a commitment from the Arnall Foundation’s WaterShed Animal Fund to “create solutions that provide a new purpose for at-risk horses.” ASPCA was among the stakeholders participating in the Arnall Foundation’s 2016 pilot program in Oklahoma City, and soon afterward announced their intention to “massively increase horse adoption in the United States.” In 2019 The Right Horse Initiative became an official program under the ASPCA’s nationwide umbrella.
Last year Right Horse Initiative partners found new homes for 3,500 horses. And now a new facet of the program seeks to amplify this success. This innovative month-long promotion aimed at supporting the efforts of animal welfare organizations throughout the country offers them critical tools, such as: access to ASPCA’s national platform to showcase adoptable horses and galvanize community support and the My Right Horse adoption website; access to industry experts; opportunities to collaborate with equine groups near and far.
More than 170 organizations across the country have registered to participate in Adopt a Horse Month, according to Alexandra Garza, ASPCA’s Manager of Media and Communications. Lollypop Farm, Humane Society of Greater Rochester (NY) is one of them.
Creative Solutions Supporting the Promotion
“We have so many different types of animals here,” Ashley Zeh says. “We have cats, dogs, pigs, goats. Adopt a Horse Month is important because it’s a chance to rally the community, to make sure the horses stay in the spotlight.” Zeh is Director of Communications for Lollypop Farm, which is located in Fairport, NY. She says they are promoting Adopt a Horse Month through social media and their network of supporters and friends. “Our equine community expands past Rochester,” she says. “We get people from Syracuse and Buffalo for our fund-raising trail rides. Our footprint for equine events is much larger.”
Joanna Dychton, Lollypop’s Farm Director says they’ve created special programs in the past with Help a Horse day as the centerpiece. “When we’ve embraced the Help a Horse day we’ve done a number of events. One year it was ‘be a hero for a horse,’ which was really cool.” She says they are working toward helping people see these horses differently. “We’re kind of trying to help get rid of the stigma that a horse at a shelter or a rescue has issues or is not a good candidate for adoption.”
While the horses are available for adoption, she says, not all of them are suitable for riding, either because of age, or past injuries or arthritic conditions. Dychton and her team have created a program they call CARE, which stands for Compassionate Aid for Retired Equines. And they plan to center most of their efforts during Adopt a Horse Month around this innovative concept. Dychton points out that Lollypop’s CARE program is modeled on those used at other shelters.
“We’re just finalizing the preparations,” she says. “One horse already is in foster care and there is the potential for at least two or three others that may go into the program.” It’s foster care with an important difference, Dychton says. “The difference between this and our adoption program is that we retain ownership of the horse, so all expenses are tax deductions.” When the foster family pays for feed, hay, vet care, farrier care, etc., those expenses are tax deductible, since each foster family is assuming the cost of care for a horse owned by Lollypop Farm, which is a non-profit organization.
“The hope, especially with this CARE program is that all the horses are ‘adoptable’,” Dychton says. It’s a way to make it attractive to take on one of the horses that is basically retired and unrideable.
Good News About Potential Adopters
A study published by ASPCA in 2017 generated a lot of excitement among the people most involved in equine welfare. The research suggested that there are more than a million households in the United States with both the resources and the desire to adopt horses in need. “Estimates vary about the number of horses who need homes every year across the country, with the highest estimates edging at close to 200,000,” according to the report.
ASPCA’s goal to “massively increase horse adoption in the United States” thus has a precise target, and their strategies for hitting that target include the initiatives they’ve been rolling out for the past couple of years. Recruiting optimists like the people at Lollypop Farm and the other farms committed to this month-long promotion will broaden the reach and deepen the base of people who understand the gravity of the situation for horses—as well as the opportunities.
Dychton explains that most of the horses that wind up at Lollypop Farm are surrenders. She says the issues range from the cost of continuing to care for the horses, to the age of the owners. “Sometimes the horse is just not the right match for them.” But all of them want to make sure their horses are safe and go to good homes. “We want to embrace what The Right Horse Initiative is promoting, which is ‘Relinquishers Welcome’. You want people to have the best options possible,” Dychton says. “Give harder to adopt horses a chance.”
Potential adopters can visit www.MyRightHorse.org, the ASPCA’s adoption platform specifically for equines, to view adoptable horses. For more information on the campaign visit www.ASPCA.org/AdoptaHorseMonth.