Hardy – 10 News is working for you to Clear the Shelters during our month-long adoption and donation campaign. This year we are proud to include the Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue in Hardy as one of our partners.
Cats and dogs aren’t the only pets in need of a home. The Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue gives horses and other farm animals a second chance.
At Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue, the sound of hooves is now a sound of hope.
Jason Muncy, co-founder of RVHR, said, “We are here to serve the community in taking care of abused, neglected, slaughter-bound, or otherwise unwanted horses. We work with animal control in most of the surrounding counties to give them a resource for when they have a neglect case with a horse and sometimes other farm animals.”
Muncy co-founded the rescue 23 years ago to provide a safe haven for horses. While these animals may not be the first that come to mind when thinking about shelter pets, the fields in Hardy are always full of horses and other farm animals in need.
“The animal will get into a situation where they’re not being properly fed, they don’t have proper vet care and things of that nature, and you know none of them deserve to be, to stand around suffering and starve to death. I mean you know granted there are, we’re an agriculture area, people raise cows for food and things to that nature and understand that, but there’s no reason for them to just stand there and suffer just because somebody doesn’t know or they just don’t want to,” Muncy said.
The rescue features survivors—beautiful, bright horses, each with their own personality. Muncy shared that they have already seen success from WSLS 10’s adoption campaign.
Muncy said A 10 News viewer saw a feature on a horse Miss and Hawk and ended up falling in love with two other horses at RVHR.
“We currently have 16 rescue horses on site. And actually, two of them are pending adoption. Just this past weekend, we had a couple come out. I think they’d seen some stuff on the news and things of that nature about a different horse. When they started checking out our website, and they came out, and they fell in love with Savannah. And then Gabby. So we just got word that they’re going to take both of them home.”
Adoptions are how the rescue makes room to help the next animal. It is a chance to replace neglect with care.
Muncy added, “It really is. It means that there’s somebody out there willing to take on that responsibility and step up to the plate and add a new member to their family because that’s what they are because they’re going to be around a long time.”