They knew the kill buyers were there to purchase the beautiful horses for slaughter.
But Jim Gath, the owner of the Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary and others had a different plan.
Save them.
After some savvy maneuvering and compassion on the part of some involved in the auctioning (many horses came from the wild) 23 were saved from slaughter and one of them, “Journey” has lived her life at the Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary for more than ten years.
Her colt, “Jumpin Jack Flash,” lived happily for a time at Tierra too, and the two were inseparable.
Unfortunately, “Jack” succumbed to a devastating condition (a twist in his intestine) and didn’t survive.
This would not be Journey’s only devastating blow as a dam—losing her baby, Jack.
Soon after Journey’s rescue, they discovered she was pregnant.
The day of the baby shower at the sanctuary, Journey went into labor—sadly—after complications, her newborn foal died in utero. Journey had tried to deliver but the foal became stuck in a bad position and Journey was quickly rushed to the hospital for life-saving surgery.
According to Susan Dodge, a longtime volunteer at the Tierra Madre Sanctuary who probably knows Journey best next to Gath—Journey and her colt Jack had been rounded up from the wild when they were saved from slaughter— both were inexperienced with humans.
While feisty little colt Jack took to humans quite quickly, Journey did not, that is, except for the slow and patient determination of volunteer Dodge.
But it didn’t happen overnight.
After Journey’s losses, she became distraught and depressed and this is when Dodge, little by little, made her way into Journey’s stall to try and comfort her.
Dodge told Northeast Valley News she had fallen in love with the wild girl early on and was determined to commit the necessary time and effort to get her to a place of healing.
After months of working with the heartbroken dam, Dodge’s devotion began to pay off.
“It took months really,” Dodge said. “She was a wild-eyed frizzy haired mess you know, but I would just get in her stall and stand by the rail and just talk to her and she would look at me with a side-eye as though saying, ‘don’t you try to come over here’ so it took months you know to get close enough and then to start touching her, and then it just progressed from there.”
Dodge said Journey stole her heart and she was “honored” when Gath made the decision that she should probably be the one to bring Journey around.
Gath and other volunteers at Tierra saw and felt the connection between the two of them, even if Journey was a bit reluctant at first.
“She finally let me hook a rope on and walk her around in her stall and then Jim (Gath) felt comfortable enough to let us come out to the arena and start walking— and it wasn’t flawless, one day after months with her, she got spooked, she bolted and ran straight back to her stall and foolishly I tried to hold on to her and talk her down—but no, my thumb was broken, (laughing) other times when she would run she would let me go out and get her, but that day, no—but today, she’s just so calm, you would never even know she was ever like that.”
The love between human and horse only grew from there.
“Then I began doing liberty training in the round pen with her,” Dodge said.
Liberty training is a method designed to bring a horse a sense of freedom and safety without halter, tack and ropes with the goal of increasing the horse’s desire to interact by creating a deeper bond.
“I had to get myself in the right place to do this because the training begins with shutting my mouth, I’m very talkative, that’s how I communicate, I like to talk a lot and I had to learn to be quiet.”
“That’s not a horse’s way of communicating—of course Journey does respond to verbal commands but that’s not the way to break into a relationship with a horse, too much talking, it is much more a heart thing and a soul thing and mind thing—they say horses have a third eye, they’re very intuitive, they know intention.”
For at least ten years Dodge (Susan) and Journey have shared a special bond.
Dodge, for her part, feels a connection like no other.
For Journey—as volunteers at the sanctuary tell it—well, Journey knows the very sound of Dodge’s car from a distance and when she arrives at the sanctuary, Journey’s ears perk up and she quickly moves toward the front of her stall to greet her.
