HORSE SENSE: LaValle program uses horses to help veterans

LAVALLE — As the sun begins to drop behind the green rolling hills outside LaValle, Barb Knopf carefully shows Iraq veteran Matt Pavey how to lead a tall brown stallion around a grassy paddock.

Pavey grasps the rope tentatively, trying to remember Knopf’s instructions on how to make the horse halt and turn at his touch.

“Stop!” he commands, pulling down on the chain attached to the horse’s bridle and standing still himself.

For the most part, the stallion cooperates.

After a minute, Knopf lets Pavey lead the stallion from the paddock into the stable. She takes over when it’s time to lead the horse into its stall and locks the gate.

Though it might seem that Knopf is simply teaching Pavey a basic lesson about horses, the true benefits of his interaction with the stallion will manifest weeks, perhaps months, after this simple task.

Pavey is one of 15 veterans who have been served so far by Knopf’s new equine therapy program.

Called the Veteran Equine Trail Services, or VETS, the program invites veterans to relax and heal while learning about horses in a quiet and accepting environment.

Knopf has run a horse rescue program with her husband Joe for the last seven years. She tailors the experience for each veteran who enters her stables.

“We can actually take each individual vet and match them up with the personality in the animal,” Knopf said.

“They may handle a mare, they may handle a gelding, they may handle a baby. We kind of figure out where their weaknesses lie — if it’s PTSD, if it’s shutting themselves off from their family and friends, if they need more self-awareness — and can figure out how to help them with that.”

Almost all of the 41 horses on the farm are rescue animals, coming from elsewhere in Wisconsin and as far away as West Virginia.

Knopf said knowing that the animals have been rescued seems to help veterans connect with the animals.

“When we get one in, and she’s all skin and bones, and some crusty old Marine helps nurse her back, it’s incredible to watch them open up,” Knopf said. “They’re learning communication again, and they don’t even know it.”

The learning is self-paced. Some veterans, such as Pavey, are interested less in learning to ride than in learning how to help with the horses and inside the stable itself. Before leading the stallion inside, Pavey lugged 75-pound sacks of feed from a truck and stacked them in the barn.

Others, such as veteran London Marchant, want to ride, groom and feed the horses, and are willing to help out with manual labor.

Knopf said that’s part of the whole point of the program.

“It’s really tailored to what they want to do,” Knopf said. “You want to come out, but you’re terrified of big animals? You just want to set up a lawn chair and watch the horses frolic and watch the baby horse play with the dog? Cool, we can do that too.”

Judging from the view of horses frolicking at the high point of the nearly 100-acre spread — featuring a river snaking along the bottom of the small valley — just sitting for a little while might not be so bad.

Both Marchant and Pavey are fine around the large animals, though Pavey, who had never worked with horses before beginning at VETS, was a bit more apprehensive.

“I like being outside, and it’s a good stress reliever and I like helping out,” Pavey said. “But it (walking the horse) freaked me out a little bit.”

Marchant, however, has loved horses since he was young. He relished the chance to work off stress while brushing another black stallion named Junior.

“It’s the best therapy in the world,” he said. “It’s hard not to like something that will let you hug it and tell it your stories and it doesn’t care at all. I wish I’d found this earlier.”

That animal quality of never talking back is another one of the reasons equine therapy is so good for veterans, Knopf said.
 

"You can tell that mare anything,” Knopf said. “You can hug her, you can cry on her shoulder, and she won’t tell a soul.”

Knopf and her husband are veterans themselves, as is their son, and they’ve seen the power of equine therapy firsthand.

When their son came back from a tour of duty, he was withdrawn and angry and had trouble readjusting to civilian life. Though they knew he was having problems, Knopf said she didn’t realize quite how badly her son was hurting.

After three months, he told her working with the horses had stopped him from committing suicide.

“’I had to think ‘on my worst day, it’s not as bad as where these animals have been,’ he told me,” Knopf said. “And it started to make him feel better. After three months, he did feel better. He started opening up again.”

That’s why the Knopfs offer their services at no charge to any veteran who wants to attend.

Because the farm is run as a labor of love, any donations of money or volunteer time to the program are always welcome, Knopf said.

To learn more about the program or to volunteer, call or email the Knopfs at 608-985-8886 or send email to bobbie8632@yahoo.com. Monetary donations can be sent to: GSCCF/VETS, P.O. Box 544, Baraboo, WI 53913.