Just Another Chance Ranch has launched a NEW program this summer: our Junior Wrangler-In-Training program.  Briana, a super hard working and horse crazy gal who went through our Hands-On-Horses program last year, wanted far more than one ranch experience a week.  Here is what she would like to say about her experience this summer:

Briana

Hello my name is Briana, and I am Stacy’s first Junior Wrangler-In-Training.  What a Junior Wrangler does is learn how to care for, train, and to ride horses properly. We are also helpers with keeping the ranch cleaned up.  I have learned how to work with horses who have  fear of an object. For instance,  yesterday my friend Stephanie and I were bit training Trigger, a cute miniature horse. While doing this,  we discovered that he is afraid of  chairs when they make noise or get too close to his sides. So Stacy showed us how to start desensitizing  him to the chair.  First, we have him smell the chair, then we had the chair make noise by dragging it away from him and having Trigger follow. Next, we had Trigger walk around the chair so he could look at it from different angles. Then we had him stay put and move the chair to his side and gradually move it to where it would rub on his side so he could get the notion that the chair would not hurt him. We repeated that on each side so he would not get spooked by the chair. Trigger still has some work to do before he is ready to withstand being around the chair.

I have observed that no matter what the size of child or the experience a child has, the program horses Trigger, Sunny, and Samson have the endurance to listen to the rider to do what the rider wants instead of doing what they may want to do. Also, Stacy has the capability to work with a child who is rowdy, shy, or has health problems and still have fun in what she does. No matter what she will do anything she can to help a child in need of a place to learn how to take care of an animal or  be there when an animal or person is in need. This ranch has helped me by giving me a chance to do the things that I love to do that I can’t do at home. I can’t thank Stacy enough for how much she has taught me about how to take care of a horse and to ride. One thing that I can tell you is that Stacy is the best teacher for working with horses that anyone could ask for.

When I go back to school and everyone asks me what I did  this summer,  I am happy to say that I was working at Just Another Chance Ranch where you can have a second chance at learning how to be responsible and that horses get a second chance at life without neglect or abuse. I would recommend to anyone who was looking for a place to volunteer, donate, or learn to ride Just Another Chance Ranch because I think that they have the opportunity to become big. Having more horses so that more children can have lessons on how to ride is also important. It would mean a lot to me if I was one of the ones who helped hundreds of children love and respect horses and ride like a champion.

We are happy to announce our third year partnering with BMAC’s Youth Employment program.  This year we are blessed to have a super sweet and hard working gal by the name of Stephanie.  Here is what Stephanie has to say about our Ranch and what we do:

Sampson is “helping” to scrub out his water trough!

Hi! I am Stephanie,  one of Stacy’s helpers here at the ranch.  I am part of the BMAC employee program which helps out local non-profit organizations by paying us to work for them, and this program gives young adults a head start getting the experience working in a professional work place.  I have earned my high school diploma in Job Corps.  Working at the ranch  I learn something new every day, and I’ve been loving working here. Having the interaction with the animals I love it and it keeps me busy.

Let me tell you a funny story about Sampson.  Just the other day I was outside cleaning the main water trough and all the horses were watching me.  When they were watching me, Sampson thought that he was going to be nice and help me clean it.  At first I was using a brush to clean the bottom of the trough and Sampson would use his teeth and I thought it was the funniest thing.  After a little bit, Stacy walk over to me and ask how I was doing and I told her that I had a little helper.  If you look to the right side you will see the picture of Sampson grabbing the brush and then started cleaning the water trough.  I was happy that Stacy was able to get that picture of Sampson helping.  Horses just want us to think they don’t know how to clean! Ha-ha.

One way that the animals keep me busy would be is grooming them after they have been playing in the mud. One of the horses named Sampson has an unusual quirk. When I groom him I guess I get

Stephanie writing her post.

that really good spot and he leans right into it and he moves his upper lip in the air. I laugh every time I see this!  Then there is the time where I would help bit train Trigger with Briana.  We are starting to desensitizing  him from mostly everything to get him ready for him to eventually pull  a cart.

Not only do I come and take lessons with the horses, but two of my younger siblings do as well.  It is really quite interesting to see my little brother have his first lesson and when Stacy told him to tell the horse to move back he acted like the horse was a car and looked back to see where he was going, as if he had to watch for oncoming traffic or something! I was laughing so hard when he did that!

When my sister comes for her lessons its quite cute to see her trying to groom the horses back because the back of the horse is really tall.  There was this one time that I was looking at my little sister and then I look up from my phone and I see her facing the wrong way on the horse, and it made me crack up so bad, because I thought she did not know how to sit the right way in the saddle.  It ended up that they were playing a game called “Around The World,” where Stacy calls out a direction like “south,” or “west,” and the rider has to sit in that direction.   The game was apart of learning your balance and sense of direction, getting comfortable maneuvering around in the saddle.  Riding and taking care of the horses also teaches the kids to have patience with not only Stacy and the animals but in everyday life when they are at home as well.

When people ask me what I think, I would be proud to recommend  volunteers for Just Another Chance Ranch and to work with Stacy.

We launched our first annual Family Fun Day, which kick-started our summer youth mentor program, Hands-On-Horses. It was a beautiful and sunny Saturday, and we had a great turnout.  In fact, our volunteers were hopping so much from activity to activity, that most of the families did not get their pictures taken.  However, we still had some cute ones.

Dress-Up Photo Fun

What is Family-Fun-Day?  It is an open invitation for the community to come and meet us, to sign up for our summer youth program if they wish to, and to have a blast!  We had water balloons, western cowboy and cowgirl dress up for pictures, face-painting, hotdogs, snow-cones, a bean-bag toss game with prizes, a craft table, and more.  Don’t take our word for it.  Let the pictures speak for themselves!  Briana is our first Jr. Wrangler-In-Training, and she helped us out a lot. I asked Briana what her favorite part was and she said with relish, ” Making sure Mr. Just did not burn the hotdogs!!” Her second favorite thing of the day was seeing all the kids have so much fun and helping them interact (meet) the horses.  My favorite activity was the face-painting. We had tigers, puppies, blue kitties, and all sorts of little “creatures”  running around with their faces done up.  Laughter, giggles, and delights of surprise abound.

We plan on having this event annually the last Saturday in June! Take your shoes off, set a spell.  Y’all come back now, yah-here?

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