Senior Horsemanship - Tips to Help Us Enjoy Better Years with Horses and More of Them
The podcast name is changed to Senior Horsemanship and I’ll be building the senior horsemanship website over the next few weeks.So why the change? Probably the most important reason is that I’m certainly a senior horseman at age 71 with three horses. I’m very interested in riding, caring for, and training my horses as long as I can. I’m also very interested in making as long as I can to be as long as possible.That’s my goal in horsemanship. I don’t have any goals in the competitive arena, Not that competition is bad, but I just want to enjoy my horses. If you compete, then I hope you do it for the joy of working with your horse.So what will we talk about? How about the following.I’d like to talk about horse training, first because a well trained horse makes life safer and makes our time with our horse more enjoyable. A well trained horse also has better prospects for a good home if for some reason, we can’t continue to keep our horse. So for the good of ourselves and our horses, horse training for seniors is a great topic.I’d like to talk about horse care. I care for my horses myself and I’ve learned some things in the process that I’d like to share. I also hope to learn from others about ways to make horse care better and easier as we grow older.I’d like to talk about riding fitness and safety around horses. I’ve lost about 40 pounds over the last year and a half and it’s made riding easier for me and my horses. But with the weight loss has come a loss of some strength. I’ve also suffered from my share of horse-related injuries over the years including a broken arm, broken ribs, several concussions and most recently broken toes. What can we do to be safer with our horses. I’m not as nimble as I once was.I’d like to talk about the mental aspects of horsemanship because we need to rely on the mental more than the physical as we get older. When I was younger, there were ways of handling horses that could be characterized by “make them do it” and “don’t let them get away with it”. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that there are better ways and I’ll talk about them.Finally, I’ll talk about how horsemanship can be much more than riding a horse. I’ve been a volunteer with Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society here in Texas for a number of years and there are some volunteers who could be examples for all of us. Several volunteers can’t ride anymore, but they foster horses and give them a great start on a new path in life. Other volunteers work on the admin side to give the organization the ability to help as many horses as possible. All of those activities count as horsemanship. We’ll talk about those and more.Again, I appreciate all of the topic ideas I’ve received from members of the Equestrian Seniors Facebook group. I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead.Thanks for listening.
Senior Horsemanship - Tips to Help Us Enjoy Better Years with Horses and More of Them
Top Reasons for a Senior to Volunteer with Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society
There are many good reasons for seniors to volunteer for Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society in Texas or at similar horse rescues in other areas. According to Dr. Jennifer Williams, Executive Director at Bluebonnet, the top reasons are:
- Seniors fostering horses can do that for a limited time and get a fostering stipend to offset some of the costs of having horses.
- Seniors volunteering in other ways can be involved in promoting the welfare of horses without the responsibilities and costs of owning horses. If you have a skill or interest, there's probably something you can do to help horses in rescue transition to a new and better life.
If you're interested in supporting Bluebonnet in some way, please visit their website at Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society.
Welcome to the Senior Horsemanship Podcast. I'm Paul Sherland, and with me is, Dr. Uh, Jennifer Williams, who's the Executive Director of the Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society here in Texas. And we're gonna talk a little bit about volunteering, what you can do as a, as a horseman or a horse woman, volunteering for a rescue, like Bluebonnet. So thank you for joining us Jenn.
Jennifer Williams:Thanks for having me here, Paul.
Paul Sherland:So what do volunteers do for, uh, for Bluebonnet? And I know it's more than one thing.
Jennifer Williams:That is definitely true. So we only at Bluebonnet have two employees and we have uh, anywhere from 50 to a hundred plus horses in the rescue at a time, plus, uh, over a thousand horses who have been adopted, who are with adopters. So there's a lot to be done and only two people can only get so far, So our volunteers and, and, and I'll say we have volunteers of all ages down from, um, some of the kids whose parents volunteer, who are my daughter's, eight, up to um, some volunteers who are in their upper or middle, middle eighties. So like everything in between, we are a wide ranging group of people and our vol volunteers do a wide ranging group of things. One of our most needed probably volunteering positions is as a foster home because we don't have a farm facility, so every horse has to get to a foster home. And, um, we've got foster homes who are also at all ages, and it's a nice, it's a nice way to get involved without the, to be around horses and to help without the full-time permanent commitment, both financial and even just physical of, of owning your own horse. And we can talk about that a whole lot more later cuz I could talk a lot about fostering. But so that's one thing that that volunteers do. Volunteers also help check up on our fostered and adopted horses. So once a foster home or adopter gets a horse, we come out and do a couple of home visits. And our volunteers are the ones who do those, because, um, our admin assistant and I can't be all over the state of Texas. Our volunteers also help move horses from place to place. So even if you don't wanna foster and maybe going out to do home visits isn't your thing, if you have a truck and a trailer and some time, we need help picking up horses from owners or from law enforcement agencies who call us and getting'em to foster homes, sometimes from foster homes to veterinarians or to an event. And so those are volunteers as well. We have volunteers who don't have horses at all, um, and don't either want to or plan to, but they write thank you notes to donors, they help list horses, um, for adoption on websites. They might volunteer in an event to talk about Bluebonnet and to introduce the rescue to new people. Pretty much, and we, we've got highly skilled volunteers like, uh, who, who share their expertise maybe, um, like in the form of podcasts or, um, helping make videos about the horses who help with things like PR or accounting, um, database management, pretty much. Um, A nonprofit is a business and all the things I have to go on to make a successful business have to go on behind the scenes to make a successful nonprofit too. Plus, our board of directors are all volunteers and they bring their experience and skills to the organization. So pretty much, if you can dream it or think it or have some experience in it, we can probably put you to work as a volunteer
Paul Sherland:And, um, one of the things, things that, uh, volunteers are really heavily involved in is the Bluebonnet uh, Training Challenge and Expo. And, and, uh, you have that coming up October 7th and you're gonna be calling for, for volunteers to help with that event, I guess, right?
Jennifer Williams:We will, it takes between, um, our, our Expo is a one day event, but we spend seven to eight hours on Friday setting up. And we spent a couple hours at least on Sunday, tearing down plus, um, last night, or last night, last year there were four of us there until 10 o'clock the last couple hours, just four of us cleaning up. So we can always use more help at the end of the day to pack things up and, you know, everybody's tired and they wanna go home But um, it's gotta get done. So we have volunteers doing that it's somewhere between 75 and a hundred volunteers. Some volunteer two hours. On one or the other day, some volunteer from noon on Friday till 11 o'clock on Sunday, you know, just all the way through. It depends on everybody's schedule and, and what they're comfortable with, but it takes a lot of people to put that on. And there are a lot of different jobs there from, um, taking tickets to helping sell tack to getting the horses where they need to go or assisting the clinicians. Um, again, a wide range of volunteering opportunities there.
Paul Sherland:And the, uh, the Expo, expo is kind of like in the center of Texas, so, no matter where you live in texas? Texas, it's, it's probably within reasonable driving distance.
Jennifer Williams:I think so. So it's in Taylor, which is, um, off of I 35, which hits a whole bunch of Texas, makes that really accessible to tons of people. And even for those of us, like in the Houston area, it's three, three and a half hours I think to get there. It's not, you know, in the state of Texas, three, three to four hours isn't, you know, nothing of a drive Yeah. You're still barely out of your, you know, your region. it's, it is, it's a, it's a good central location. We get people from all over the state who come because they, we are the only horse event of our kind in the state. And we've been putting it on for, um, well over 10, almost 15 years now. Yeah, 15 years now. So we have lots of experience. We have a really good event. We have people who come back every year.
Paul Sherland:And, um, you know, you and I were talking about some of the of the volunteers that we know who are seniors and have. Folks who have long experience with, with horses who, you know, maybe they're not riding anymore but, they can keep horses and their they're fostering or doing something like, that. And, and then there's some folks who can't, who maybe, don't have have the, property property anymore, can't, keep horses but, they're still volunteers and they're applying their, their expertise and their knowledge of horses in various various ways as, uh, volunteer, um, volunteer members, I guess.
Jennifer Williams:Definitely. Um, we've got a lot, really, a lot of senior volunteers. Some who foster and some who don't. I always say that volunteering with Bluebonnet, whether you're fostering or doing home visits or trailering or any of it, is a great way to meet other people who love horses. Whether or not that's where you are in life, you know, having horses, we have volunteers who've never owned horses and don't plan to, they just, they love them from a, a distance and so they help, you know, make sure that they get the help they need by doing home visits or coming out to the Expo for a couple hours to volunteer. We also do booths at events, um, where we go talk to people and hand out information about the rescue. And those are great volunteer spots too,
Paul Sherland:Uh, yeah, I was reading something here recently that, uh, that said that one of the ways to, prevent. Uh, memory loss and dementia is to, uh, be involved in community. And Bluebonnet is a community that you can become involved in doing something that, that you really enjoy, working with animals that you love, uh, even if you can't keep a horse anymore.
Jennifer Williams:Definitely, I always say we're a. We're a great team, a great family, and I've watched a lot of really great friendships develop through volunteering at the rescue. And, you know, um, we come together, a lot of us, a couple hundred of us at the Expo every year, and. And, you know, it's almost like a family reunion, you know, oh Paul, I haven't seen you in a couple years cuz you missed the last Expo. Or you know, uh, how's the ki how are the kids or the grandkids or you know, the horse you adopted three years ago or whatever. So it is, um, I always say Expo's my favorite weekend of the year cuz it's full of horses and it's full of people who love horses. And I get to see all my friends
Paul Sherland:Well, I, I really appreciate it. Uh, uh, you know, certainly being a volunteer for Bluebonnet. If you're in the state of state of Texas, uh, it's a great way for seniors to remain involved, in horses in various ways and if you don't live in Texas. I'm sorry, but, but there are, there are certainly probably some volunteer opportunities with, uh, reputable horse, uh, rescues in your area. And, uh, Jen has volunteered to, uh, talk with me in a future podcast about how to find a, uh, a reputable or a good, uh, equine rescue in your area, you know, things to look for. So, uh, thank you very much, Jen. I really appreciate the information and your time.
Jennifer Williams:Thank you, Paul, for letting me come talk about, uh, something I'm passionate about.
