assessing their condition and trying to piece together a history of the herd’s lineage based on age and markings. It was apparent that the stallion had sired all of the horses and probably the unborn foals in the pen. All of the young horses carried some recognizable feature of the stallion’s uniqueness.
The herd again responded to the human
presence with fear, and they distanced themselves as far as they could from the intruders. The next day, Tom, Shir- ley, Jamie, and Susan herded all but five of the precious cargo back into the trailer, and it departed for several oth- er stops in California. The mares would be dropped off at their new homes until the rescue mission was complete. The stallion and four of his offspring remained at Dream- chaser.
Love is more personal when the nameless become named. The Dreamchaser family and friends always named an un- named horse when they received it, and it was always fun for them to do this. The group decided on an Indian in- fluence for each of the new horses. The first to be named was Jamie’s stallion. He became Ate (Ah-tay). The three fillies were then named Wakina, Tanka, and Niyaha. The colt was named Chante. Following the selection of names, the group knew they needed some time to socialize and celebrate the successful rescue of the herd. During this happy evening, someone realized that the Stallion’s name Ate sounded like the coffee drink “latte.” This led to an as- sociation of “latte” with the Starbuck’s coffee houses that popularized the drink. In jest, someone felt that the horses should be named The Starbuck’s Five, and that Ate’s four offspring should be named the Starbuck’s Kids. The names stuck, and from then on the four young horses were re- ferred to individually by their new names or collectively as the Starbuck’s Kids.
Gentling Wakina The Starbuck’s Kids were born in the wild, and the young
horses were not familiar with the activities of the strange two-legged humans. To them, humans were a threat. The natural instinct for the horses to run from a predator would be a major obstacle in how these horses developed during the next few years. After all, humans had denied them of the herd’s freedom by placing them into trailers against their will and taking them to a new place. This was without a doubt a very unwanted transition for the four Kids, for they missed the free spirit of the wandering herd. Ate’s initial acceptance of Jamie and Susan showed that he remembered the goodness of the human world. But the four youngsters had never experienced caring hands guided by a loving human heart. The challenge for Susan, Jamie, and their Dreamchaser staff of volunteers was to provide security, bonding, and human leadership to the
Starbuck’s Kids. Their goal was to guide each horse toward full acceptance and trust of the human environment and then to place them with caring people who would continue to nourish the horses through endless love. Only then would the gift that God had placed in the horses’ hearts be fully received.
The Kids truly missed the inherent security of their herd, but they slowly began to accept that living in this new captivity with fences was safer than the nomad wandering that once was their only existence. The humans were keeping their distance, so there was no need to revert to their basic instinct of running quickly from a threat and staying within the security of the herd. Accepting the human touch would take many more months, and not even the smallest measure of rehabilitation and training could occur until a trust between horse and human was created. The Starbuck’s Kids would require the love and patience of many Saints. Dreamchaser had the right people to do this.
No training was even attempted during the first six months. This time was need- ed to allow adjustment into the human world. After this initial acceptance peri- od, the Dreamchaser team built four adjoining stalls for the horses. Once herd- ed into separate stalls, the process of gentling them to human touch began. This was dangerous work, and Susan would not allow anyone other than herself to enter a stall with one of the wild horses. Having removed the instinctive security of the herd, the horses understandably were terrorized by the human presence in a confined space. A horse reverting to fear such as this will do anything to get away from whatever is threatening it.
The Kids would continually run, would
try to gather up and jump the wooden panels of the stall, and would rather hurt themselves or Susan than submit to human closeness. Regretfully, there were times when days of progress with one of the Kids would be inexplicably erased by a flashback to fear. Susan knew how to work with the horse’s fear and use it productively, but at the end of the day she would often cry in frustration and wonder if her efforts would ever be able to bring the Kids through the agony of human neglect they had all experienced. But she was not about to give up as she courageously worked with each horse.
A wild horse must learn that human touch is not threatening. This is the foun- dation to all horse and human interaction. Teaching this while preserving a safe distance was the first order of business for Susan. To do this, Susan would enter the stall, stay in the middle, and reach out with a “touch stick” on the horse’s back. To Tanka, Chante, and Niyaha, the mere touch of the stick was unaccept- able, and they reacted with extreme fear. But it soon became apparent that Wakina was different. She was the one that seemed to take to Susan the easiest. She calmed down a bit faster and stood still, trying to understand that the stick would not hurt her. It was almost as if she had inherited the human trust and so- cial graces of her father Ate. This is not to say that her training was not without
20 FEBRUARY / MARCH 2018 I HORSE & AG MAGAZINE
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