A Horror Harnessed
“LONDON, ONT. A helicopter
flies across a blue eastern Ontario sky, &
Master Cpl. Roger Boudreau is suddenly transported back to the dirt roads of Afghanistan…
Boudreau,
49, now living in Petawawa, fell through the cracks. Not until he found solace
through horse therapy, on a Pembroke-area farm, did he start to feel like
himself again…
Boudreau…said traditional therapy didn’t work for him…
Boudreau
had been seeing a psychologist before he heard of the War Horse Project in
Pembroke, near the Petawawa army base northwest of Ottawa. The volunteer-run project pairs
wounded soldiers with horses, to help them heal.
‘Horses live in that particular moment.
They don’t worry about what you did yesterday. They worry about what you’re
doing now,’ Boudreau said.
Those with
PTSD are often stuck in the harrowing past, said Alison Vandergragt, a
Pembroke- area woman who brought the War Horse Project to life, using a
volunteer team & relying on donations.
Participants like Boudreau get together once a week outside a barn on a
range...
… ‘The
horses are actually teaching us to come out of the past & back into the
present’…
Horses are
different from animals such as dogs & cats because they’re not predators
but prey, said Morrigan Reilly-Ansons, a London
clinical counsellor.
‘That
means they approach the world differently. The approach it always with the
No. 1 question: ‘Am I safe?’ And that makes them really in
tune with their environment…
Riding the
horses is an important part of the project, which tries to help soldiers find
inner peace & social interaction…
So far, 36 soldiers have completed
the program…
The program
costs $16,000 a session to run for 10 participants. So far Vandergragt &
her team have put in 1,800 volunteer hours, & most of the money is raised
through private donations.
Boudreau said he hopes other veterns
get the chance to take the program. ‘It’s incredible how far I’ve come in such
a short time’.”
Emanuela Campanella
THE LONDON
FREE PRESS
In The Gazette, Montreal
July 4/2015
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