OklahomaHorses Magazine July 2023

20 OklahomaHorses • July / August 2023 A Slight Shift “We originally planned to stay for a temporary period of time, but after seeing many of the same themes as in Texas, we anchored down and decided to run this pilot program for at least three years,” Persechino said. “When horses fall into these at-risk situations, they become a burden on the community, and we want to help remove that through this program.” Through brief surveys, the team discovered that horses were landing in those situations for one of three primary reasons: (1) owners were aging and didn’t make plans for horses when they couldn’t care for them anymore; (2) owners relocated and were unable to take horses with them; and (3) horses did not meet owners’ expectations for various training, behavior, or discipline reasons. During their time in Texas, the team members provided veterinary services and sent the equines home with their owners, humanely euthanized them when that was the most appropriate option, or sent the relinquished animals to their ASPCA adoption partners. “We realized that we were sending some horses to those adoption partners that needed training, behavior modification, or medical services that were hanging them up in the adoption process,” Persechino said. “In November 2021, we expanded from our original model, and we began keeping a subset of the horses that were brought in that we believed fell into this difficult- to-adopt category. We began working with them to find out how we could help them move more efficiently through the rehoming process.” A full-time trainer was hired to work with those horses through the transitional period of their lives. When ETAC was started, it reached into only the 10 counties surrounding Oklahoma City. It has since become a statewide program. Now that ETAC has helped more than 500 horses, mules, and donkeys since launching in July 2019, it’s abundantly clear that Oklahoma and ETAC need each other. The Incubator “The cool part for me as an Oklahoman myself is that we’re using Oklahoma as what I would call an incubator for the program,” Persechino said. “It’s neat to be using Oklahoma as the place where we can shine a spotlight on these programs that are necessary for communities across the country. We’re pushing everything that we discover out onto a national scale in hopes that similar programs will be implemented elsewhere.” The ASPCA and ETAC are already helping other groups to establish similar programs through different state and national grants. Working with Oklahoma’s secretary of agriculture, Blayne Arthur, to find even more ways for the entire state to support the program will only benefit the ETAC. “Horses that fall into these at-risk situations are not at fault, and they are almost always capable of transitioning to a new home. They just need the opportunity,” Persechino said. For horses who can transition, it all begins with the understanding that they have value and can successfully change to a completely different life. Garnering partners who back that view is a driving force behind the current and future success of the ETAC. Two of the ETAC’s partner organizations are also based in the Oklahoma City metro — the Pinto Horse Association of America Training deficits and the need for behavior modification can prolong the adoption process, which prompted the ASPCA Equine Transition and Adoption Center to address that issue at its facility in El Reno.