In Middletown, these amazing horses help veterans cope with PTSD

There are a lot of organizations out there and even more people out there who care and want to help Veterans with PTSD. As this may cause some to scratch their heads and say how could an animal make a huge difference let me ease your mind. In high school we used horses to work with autistic kids. When these kids would come to us they would not talk, they would not look at you and it was difficult to connect with them. Oh how things change drastically and in a matter of seconds when they got around the horses. It was an amazing thing to watch, most of the horses were trained so well the kid didn't have to do anything and they couldn't care less whether or not they were being ridden. On the other hand there were horses that needed to be reassured and interact with the kids before they rode. I remember one horse was not very fond of anyone besides his owner riding him. He would not come up to people and had a serious trust issue. Well one day this kid came to us and we introduced him to the horse. at first both the kid and the horse were very timid and didn't interact. We asked the parents to step out of the barn so that we can get these two acquainted. Once the parents stepped out the horse started moving towards the child, he put his head over the gate and sniffed him. This kid smiled and reached his hand out as far as he could. Then the horse moved closer till his nose was in the kids hand. This interaction was amazing because without speaking a word these two interacted and built trust between each other. The difference they made in each other was crazy! The parents said they saw drastic improvement and we saw the same with the horse.

I have no doubt in my mind that veterans with PTSD can benefit from this kind of interaction. Trust is a huge part of interacting with a horse. So please if anyone is suffering from PTSD and they do not want to talk to someone then you should definitely seek this out. Im sure there are many places out there that do theraputic riding.