The Healing Herd program at Zuma’s Rescue Ranch in Littleton, Colorado, offers no-cost, equine-assisted therapy to anyone affected by cancer.
Singer’s days of moving freely are long over. Born with a club foot, the 20-year-old Quarter Horse chestnut mare now needs custom cushioned boots just to comfortably stand and walk short distances. Carrying the weight of a rider is out of the question.
However, Singer’s life has purpose and joy. Purpose because she works at Zuma’s Rescue Ranch alongside Misty Peery, a professional equine-assisted therapist, in the ranch’s Healing Herd program. Together, they help clients affected by cancer gain new perspective and skills for dealing with the associated trauma. Joy because her line of work comes with a lot of love and treats.
Singer and the other equines in Healing Herd make excellent therapeutic partners because they help humans better understand and deal with their own physical and emotional states.
“Horses are highly embodied beings, meaning they’re connected with their bodies. They can teach us how to be connected to our bodies, too,” Peery said. “They’ll call us out if we’re holding heightened response in our body, if we’re rushing from one place to another because we’re in hyperarousal, if we’re stressed out, if we’re depressed, if we’re moving through feelings of loneliness and disconnection.
“To come into deeper relationship with horses,” Peery continued, “humans must learn to recognize and work with our own states because horses don’t have all the masks that we do. If they’re hyperaroused, you’re going to see it in their body states, right? They’re going to communicate with you through body language.”
Horses can also help people learn to let go of seeing the world through their conditioned minds, which can lead to negative states such as anxiety and depression. Horses help them to instead observe the world more objectively.
“A lot of times we’re at war with the way we’re feeling and the things we’re experiencing, and we don’t want to feel suffering,” said Peery. “But are we looking at [our world] in truth?”
By way of example, Peery suggested that if you approach a horse and he walks away from you, you might automatically assume that he doesn’t like you. That’s missing the point, she said. Instead, equine psychology tells us that horses, like humans, are motivated to either get a need met or avoid pain. When the horse’s action is viewed through an equine lens, you understand that he could be walking away for any number of reasons.
“I want to give people what they need to move through illness and trauma in a way that they’re working with their bodies and understanding them….”
—Misty Peery, an equine-assisted therapist at Zuma’s Rescue Ranch
“I try to help our clients at Healing Herd bring that lens of nature back to their own lives, too,” Peery said. “Nature says that sometimes we get sick, so I want to give people what they need to move through illness and trauma in a way that they’re working with their bodies and understanding them through the lens of nature versus the conditioned mind.”
Horses can also work wonders by just hanging out with people. “We can just be in relationship,” Peery emphasized. “That’s where horses do amazing work. You don’t have to sit here and talk with me about the things that are hard to say. We can be embodied together.”
Sharing the healing power of equines
Covering 90 acres in the foothills south of Denver, Zuma’s operates as both an animal rescue and sanctuary. Out of the way in a good way, it’s a place where a person, like the animals, can live in the moment and find peace and stillness. It counts horses, burros, donkeys, goats, sheep, cows, and cats—all saved from difficult, often dire situations—among its residents.
I first learned about the Healing Herd program last January, when I visited the D’art Gallery in downtown Denver to see an exhibit featuring the award-winning work of Scott Wilson, a Colorado-based conservation photographer. As luck would have it, Wilson was at the gallery preparing for an upcoming event to celebrate the program’s one-year anniversary and raise funds for the program through sale of his photography prints.
During this chance encounter and a subsequent interview, Wilson told me about the program and how its genesis is rooted in his own personal experiences with cancer and horses.
Wilson lost both a brother, who died at age 2 before Wilson was born, and his mother, who died at age 59, to cancer. Years later, in 2016, Wilson himself was diagnosed at age 48 with stage IV colon cancer with liver metastasis. He underwent 40 weeks of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries.
Wilson explained how during his lengthy battle, he found solace in exploring Colorado’s diverse landscapes and photographing the wildlife. He was particularly drawn to the wild horses in the Sand Wash Basin, a dry, rocky region in northeast Colorado. Their strength, beauty, and determination to live in a harsh environment mirrored the survivor’s mindset he sought to develop to deal with the tremendous challenges of cancer.
Fast forward to today, Wilson is in complete remission and a dedicated wild equine advocate. Through his photography, he helps bring attention to the plight of wild horses and burros across the American West.
“In 2021, I stopped being a photographic artist looking at wild horses and became a photo advocate,” he explained. “The turning point for me was when the freedom [of the Sand Wash Basin horses] was threatened by a pending helicopter roundup in which hundreds of horses would be removed from their home. At that point, that sense of purpose and connection got absolutely very, very real. It’s like, well, how do I protect them? How can I stop this abuse or removal from happening?”
“Their freedom became my freedom…. When you’re diagnosed with cancer, your sense of freedom, living freely, is absolutely compromised mentally and physically. Literally.”
—Scott Wilson, a Colorado-based conservation photographer and cancer survivor
“Their freedom became my freedom,” he continued, drawing a parallel between the animals’ pending captivity and his experience fighting cancer. “When you’re diagnosed with cancer, your sense of freedom, living freely, is absolutely compromised mentally and physically. Literally. So knowing that their freedom was at risk made me need to burst out and help them in some way.”
Wilson also advocated for cancer patients and learned that like war veterans, people affected by cancer experience a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Wilson sought to unite his cancer and equine advocacy work by helping develop a therapy program that would share the healing power of equines with people affected by cancer. He reached out to Jodi Messenich, who with her husband, Paul, founded Zuma’s.
“I said to Jodi, ‘I know Zuma’s already has a fantastic equine program that supports veterans. Is there any opportunity to apply that model to cancer patients?’ She jumped in. I don’t mean in an abandoned way, just that this was something close to her heart. I think every one of us has been touched in some way by cancer, so the opportunity to help is fantastic,” said Wilson.
Providing emotional support to his and other children of cancer patients was a priority for Wilson.
“When I was diagnosed, my children were very vulnerable 10- and 14-year-olds with nowhere to go other than their parents, who were tackling dad’s disease at the time,” he said. “Giving children of patients an outlet to express some of their concerns … was my primary motivation from a personal perspective. But the program is by no means exclusive to families. Patients are front and center of a lot of the work that we’re now doing.”
Wilson, Peery, and Messenich collaborated with other Zuma’s staff and volunteers to launch Healing Herd in early 2025. To help fund the early stages of the program, Peery volunteers her time as a therapist, and Wilson donates proceeds from his photography. “Our intention is to provide this service to patients and family without adding to the cost burden of the cancer journey,” said Wilson.
“We work on relating the skills we’re learned with Misty to our daily, lived experience. We find calm with our breath, knowing our own emotions and state of mind can be contagious to others. We [are] out of survival mode, no longer isolated or paralyzed by the weight of a diagnosis. Healing Herd has offered some calm and peace to our weeks.”
—Excerpt from a testimonial by Laura, a mother of two, stage IV cancer patient, and Healing Herd participant
Building a healthy partnership
Shortly after the anniversary event at D’art Gallery, I visited Zuma’s to talk with Peery about her therapeutic approach and meet some of the Healing Herd equines. Besides Singer, a number of other rescued equines, including burros and donkeys, participate in the program. Like horses, burros and donkeys are highly skilled at reading human body language. However, because they’re smaller and less flighty, some clients prefer to engage with them.
Peery and I chatted a while in her office before heading out to the barn and paddocks.
“My mom was a jockey, and I was raised on a racetrack, so I’ve been lucky enough, honored enough, to always have horses part of my life from walking,” Peery told me.
As an adult, she became a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma and clinical neuroscience. She didn’t set out to specifically pursue a profession in equine-assisted therapy, but the work eventually “found her.” For a period, she helped traumatized youth and adults in community outreach and other mental health programs, where she often sent clients to volunteer at local ranches.
“A lot of people who I worked with who were experiencing PTSD or other forms of complex trauma had some very hard diagnoses. Relating with humans and doing traditional therapy work with humans didn’t work for them. So, I was connecting with a lot of animal-assisted therapists and programs,” she explained.
Over time, she became increasingly involved with equine-therapy professionals and programs across the Colorado Front Range area. In 2020, she met Jodi and brought her practice to Zuma’s.
Through the Healing Herd program, she teaches her clients everything she knows, including grooming, horse-handling, and riding skills.
“Everything we do is underpinned by safety—physical, emotional, relational, and psychological safety,” said Peery, emphasizing that she was referring to both human and animal safety. She gets to know each horse and won’t ask it to do anything it’s not comfortable doing.
“I think that what gets overshadowed with equine therapy is that we have a partnership. We have to consider the backstory of the being that we’re working with, especially if they’re coming in from a slaughterhouse or … a neglect and abuse situation…. The impact of those experiences doesn’t just go away. We have to create a trauma-sensitive approach to our work with the horses so we can come into deeper partnership with them and understand their behaviors, just as we would with humans.
“That presents us with amazing opportunities to learn good boundaries with the horses, learn good boundaries with ourselves, check our lens, check the stories we’re telling ourselves, understand that others might behave a certain way because of what they’ve been through. It translates to human experience so much.”
“Better versions of ourselves”
Peery was excited to introduce me to the equines. Most walked right up to us, pleased to see Peery and curious to find out more about me. It was clear that at Zuma’s, these animals had not only found a haven of a home where they are well loved and cared for, but also a new purpose in life—helping humans gain new perspective and skills for navigating their cancer journeys.
Thinking of the amazing ability of these creatures to help humans, I thought back to something Wilson said: “They’re a gateway to unlock suppressed fears and anxieties so you can have a conversation, whether that’s with the horse, Misty, yourself, or your family…. I have no doubt that the magnetic power of the horse and the physical and emotional connections you make with them, and the calming that it brings, are all crucial ingredients of being able to have the confidence to open up.”
As Peery suggested, by creating healthy relationships with horses and other equines, humans can create better relationships with ourselves and others. “[These animals] help bring us into better versions of ourselves. It’s all evolution … and I’m honored to be a part of it.”
For more information
- Learn more about Zuma’s Rescue Ranch, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and rehabilitating horses.
- For more information about Healing Herd, email Misty Peery, LCSW, at info@zumasrr.com.
- Learn more about Scott Wilson and his advocacy work and view his portfolio at PhotoAdvocacy. Wilson is a contributor to We Animals Media, the world’s largest animal photojournalism agency, among other animal welfare, conservation, and cancer organizations.