Horses can help veterans heal from trauma

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Animals can feel anxious just like people.

[00:00:02]>> We want to make sure that folks understand what horses can do for them.

[00:00:06]>> The founder and president of Bonfire Ranch in Clanton, just an hour south of Birmingham, says they help provide peace, build trust, and many times military veterans are seeking both.

[00:00:16]>> We may not want [music] to admit uh in in a clinical environment that we might need some well-being activities. [music] But getting together as veterans uh on a peer-to-peer experience, then that helps [music] open the door for that.

[00:00:30]>> Dovetail Landing and Bonfire Ranch partnering together to provide a camp just like that for our vets.

[00:00:36]>> For a lot of military folks, myself included, sometimes it's hard to trust folks. And learning how to trust a horse, a 1,200-lb horse, uh and learning how to interact and communicate, [music] horses communicate many ways. They use non-verbals, and believe us believe it or not, people use non-verbals, too, as we know.

[00:00:55]>> Veterans were civilians first, but then they go in and serve in the military, they put on a uniform, uh take up weapons, uh in some cases go [music] into combat environments where that takes a toll on their emotional well-being.