“Mom, there’s a BLM horse adoption in Flagstaff this weekend.”
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) held adoptions for captured wild horses throughout the Southwest. The adoption events had been too far away to bother with, especially since I’d been told the horses lacked quality.
“Can we go? It’s at the feed store.”
Since I’m an advocate for learning something new and we lived in Flagstaff, I could hardly say no. “But we’re not adopting a wild horse,” I said.
“I know, but can’t we just go see them?”
I should’ve known better than to give in to my adult daughter, Alisha. Long ago, we banned her from visiting animal shelters. She always found that special dog in need of a home.
But soon we found ourselves parking in front of the feed store and wandering behind the building. Snorts of horses and the odor of fresh manure had transformed the small business into a gallery of wild horses. We walked through an aisle dividing a dozen small pens set against the backdrop of a huge livestock semi and San Francisco Peaks.
Each pen contained three to five horses or burros. Dust puffed from the hooves of a tall, older mare who paced with gaunt flanks as if she’d not drunk water, something common with a nervous horse. Even domestic horses stress over travel to a strange place. Strain showed in the younger wild horses through listless eyes and drooped heads. Only a few curious creatures watched as we moved from pen to pen. Periodically, a metal panel clanked when an aggressive horse threatened a timid one.
Some horses had globs of winter hair hanging from their bellies and dreadlocks in their mane or sections of their manes rubbed out. All the horses had scrapes and minor injuries, and some had a slight discharge from their nostrils. As a group, though, they showed more quality and balance than I’d expected. The colorful coats of roans and buckskins were sure to draw attention. In the end pens, cute burros with enormous eyes and long ears peeked between the panel slats. Every animal had a thin rope around its neck with a plastic ID tag, and all had brands.
We perused the pens while discussing who might adopt a wild horse in Flagstaff. Few people viewed the horses. One or two Native American families from the nearby Navajo and Hopi reservations congregated around the mare pens, and three boys from Teen Challenge tried hard to get the burros to eat hay from their hands.
We’d planned to learn about mustangs, not to adopt a horse. With eight of our own at home, today we’d mill around as sightseers and tire-kickers. But on our second tour around the pens, Alisha pointed out a yearling she liked. Number 1007 might have passed for a Thoroughbred, and he drew us to his pen multiple times. Not because he acknowledged us, which he didn’t, but because Alisha admired his long legs, elegant neck, and pretty head, and he seemed calmer than most. Four white stockings and a blaze stood out against his walnut bay coat. Cowboys call those white markings “chrome.”
There is a huge disconnect between the Bureau of Land Management and the horse-loving public. In 1971, Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, declaring that “wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene” (Public Law 92–195). Horse lovers want to see the horses live their lives in the wild.
But the BLM, tasked with managing and protecting the horses, is pressured by two industries that are subsidized by the American taxpayer. One industry wants the land’s fodder to graze millions of cattle and sheep. The other industry wants the water for mining. The public is told the horses are starving or dying of thirst and need to be removed. Because they gather thousands of these wild animals, there is not the time or talent among BLM agents to treat the horses gently.
I asked a man with BLM embroidered on his shirt why most of the horses in the pens had jagged edges and chips on their hooves, while others appeared polished. He shifted his jeans at the waist. “Well, ma’am, we put those horses in a squeeze chute, tied their feet down, and sanded the hooves off with a power tool.”
The image made my stomach squirm. BLM adoptions should display a banner saying “If you can’t handle the answer, don’t ask the question.”
I don’t know when we transitioned from lookie-loos to potential adopters, but we climbed into the Jeep with an application and an information booklet in hand. We debated the qualities of our favorite horses on the short drive home. Of course, this was a theoretical conversation since we had no plans to adopt.
Later that afternoon, unable to stay away, we returned to the adoption center for another perusal. Number 1007 still stood out to Alisha. At twenty-three years old, Alisha had thirteen years of experience with the United States Pony Club and two years in England with the British Horse Society. Although her interest lay with our big Thoroughbreds and event horses, I trusted her horsewoman’s eye and judgement. If we adopted a wild horse, he would be my project, and #1007’s size suited me.
By the next day, we’d grown attached to #1007. My resistance to adoption had held up overnight about as good as an ice cream cone in an Arizona summer. We returned to the center two hours before the scheduled bidding.
The horses acted differently this day. The older ones milled around in the pens, looking toward the mountains and ignoring people who evaluated them. Youngsters huddled together. The sharp odor of sweat, urine, and horse manure now reeked. Did the horses know their lives were about to change again?
The discharge from #1007’s nose had gotten worse since yesterday, and the horses’ continual movement in the pens coated the slime with dirt. I shook my head at Alisha. “I don’t know about this. Do we really want a sick animal? What about our other horses?”
“We’ll keep him isolated, Mom. I think we’ll be fine.”
The closer we got to bidding, the more we wanted to snatch “our” horse out of his cramped space and hurry him home. When crowds larger than yesterday congregated at the pens to see the horses, we feigned disinterest, hoping no one noticed our choice. The BLM agent announced the adoption rules at 10:40. Each pen held a clipboard for bids. The bidding started at 11:00 and lasted for thirty minutes. At 11:00, Alisha wrote $125 on #1007’s clipboard.
We loitered near the bleachers, trying not to draw attention to #1007’s pen, hoping we’d not lose him to a higher bidder. At 11:30, only a single bid had been written on #1007’s clipboard. We’d adopted a mustang for less than the cost of a pair of brand-name running shoes.
Twelve animals out of forty-five received homes. The one adopted burro stayed in Flagstaff, and nine horses headed for the Navajo Reservation. The animals not adopted would load back into the livestock semi and relocate to a layover site, waiting. If the horses had no offer of homes after three tries, they’d go to long-term holding with thirty-eight thousand other wild horses.
When the time came to load #1007 into a stock trailer, we stood aside and held our breath while the BLM deftly separated our yearling from the others in his corral and chased him into the aisle. A handler waited for the signal to move the horse on. Next, a man chased him into the holding area at the end of the pens, then into the chute.
The horse fought to escape. My stomach tightened each time he banged or crashed into the narrow metal containment. Gnashing his teeth, #1007 lunged into the air to leap over the six-foot-high side. Failing, he assaulted the metal walls with his hind feet. A BLM agent climbed the chute from the outside and waited for the opportune moment to slip a halter on the horse. Then she unclipped the ID string from his neck. The trailer gate opened, and #1007 bolted inside. Alisha and I jumped into our Jeep and led the way home. As we pulled away from the adoption center, I choked back tears, wishing I had room for all the animals.
Ten minutes later, the scraggly yearling who entered the trailer as #1007 flew out as Reno’s Legacy, in memory of his wild heritage in Nevada. He gave his shelter a bewildered gaze, sniffed the water tank, and chomped a mouthful of hay. For the first time since his capture, Reno had his own food and water and a space where he was not shoved around by another horse.
And then he got sick. Snot dropped in globs from his nose, and he wheezed so badly I worried he would die. How do you give antibiotics to an animal who didn’t eat domestic horse food? The next morning, his breath roared and rattled through packed nostrils. We couldn’t haul him to the vet or even have the vet come out because he wasn’t halter trained. We had to do something before his health deteriorated more.
The veterinarian prescribed a powdered antibiotic. I shook fine alfalfa leaves into a bowl and added the antibiotic and a few dribbles of water to make the powder stick. I removed all his other food. What a relief when Reno ate the alfalfa mix from the bowl in my hands.
As much as I longed to pet and soothe Reno, I knew he’d meet human touch with revulsion. I imagined stroking his silky coat with my fingertips, washing his encrusted nose, doctoring the sores on his head, and scratching his back the way horses do with each other. In time, he’d feel safe in his surroundings—and with me.
I talked with him for hours every day while I cleaned his pen or sat on the ground. He’d watch from a distance, only coming close for his bowl of medicinal food. A week after Reno arrived, his cough had cleared, and he allowed me to rub the soft white marking on his forehead. I derived as much satisfaction from that minor accomplishment as I did from any championship horse show trophy I’d won.
Reno differed from other horses. He had no reason to want my attention. He’d lived through one of the most grueling, life-threatening experiences a horse can endure. His hooves stood up to galloping over sharp rocks and frozen ground in early January weather. Wild colts stay with their mothers until they are yearlings, but Reno coped with forced weaning at six months old. He managed traveling in a crowded stock truck to the processing facility where he endured a mechanical squeeze chute for vaccinations, freeze branding, tests, deworming, and gelding. He lived for five and a half months in a crowded feed lot without shelter from the wind, snow, or rain. Then on June 24, agents chased Reno into a livestock semi with forty-four other horses and burros to travel seven hundred miles from northwest Nevada to Arizona.
There is no more powerful tool for control than having your freedom jerked away. I knew that myself. Years in a past abusive relationship gave me hands-on experience with isolation from my family and friends and with control over where I went, what I ate, what I said, and how I reacted. I learned to accept force from someone who was bigger and stronger than me. Years of being told I was worthless and couldn’t survive on my own and being forced to agree left me ashamed. And angry. Afterward, I lived with crippling self-doubt and emotional scars that made me afraid of people and of living with joy. Deep inside, I identified with Reno’s experience and his fight to survive. Hope and trust were tough for us both.
But the hours I spent with him helped us bond, and slowly our relationship changed. We connected on a level deeper than familiarity. Reno had a lot to learn, and so did I. While he needed manners and socialization skills, I had to unlearn most of what I’d gained from fifty years of handling domestic horses. I quit reacting and became an observer and a listener. I tuned in to Reno’s needs, and little by little, he rewarded me with trust. Instead of tensing and moving away when I touched him, he softened and moved toward me. When I approached his pen in the mornings, his ears perked forward over bright eyes as if to say, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Like a friend, he wanted my attention. These offerings gave me confidence, healed wounds, and showed me a unique beauty as his personality blossomed.
Reno still reacts like a wild horse, and he always will. The first time a cat crept through the barn, he startled like he’d seen a small mountain lion. From the beginning, Reno needed to investigate and inspect things until he knew they were safe. Even today, he wants to know what grooming tool I intend to use to brush him.
He accepts discipline but not violence. For instance, if he misbehaves on the way to the paddock, rather than yell at him, I return him to his stall. The next time, he walks out with good manners. Reno is one of the smartest horses I’ve known.
He’s tough and mentally strong. Instead of panicking at new situations, Reno observes. He’ll stand still with his head up, not moving for the longest time while he surveys an area or watches something I can’t see. This kind of wild creature instinct kept his ancestors alive. Rather than try to force him into a mold, my job is to let him be who he is.
It’s a big responsibility when a horse chooses a person as his own.
His choice caused a few problems. At first, he had trouble sharing me with other people and bit at anyone who came near me. While knowing my horse preferred me to everyone else might flatter, I couldn’t accept his behavior, and since he didn’t want to share me with people, he objected to other horses entering our personal space. If another horse approached me, Reno pinned his ears and bared his teeth, ensuring the horse backed away. If I worked with a different horse and then entered Reno’s stall, my normally friendly buddy would turn away as if to say, “I have other things to do too.” But Reno has mellowed and learned as he has grown.
We’ve developed a unique relationship. I gave in to his preferences in equipment. In the past, I used the closest brush for grooming. Through sniffing and his expression, Reno made it clear he disliked things that had another horse’s scent. He wanted his own brushes.
If I wiggle a finger, Reno responds. He taught me to how to notice the little things—a huff, a twitch of his nostril, his eyelid fluttering. Time spent with Reno rejuvenated and healed me. Loyal, forgiving, smart, and honest, he has the qualities you look for in a best friend. His wild heritage makes him strong both in spirit and in body.
A dozen years have passed since our friendship began, and when I walk out my door, he pins his gaze on me. He looks forward to seeing me, whether I’m happy or need to lean into his broad back and cry. And I always look forward to seeing him. His presence lifts my spirits and helps me cherish the good things in my life. And by the way, he has the best manners of any horse on the farm, even around other people and horses.
People might think I saved a wild horse, but the truth is we saved each other.