POULSBO — The Horse Harbor Foundation, a nonprofit horse sanctuary located in Poulsbo, is set to host its 22nd year of Summer Horse Day Camps. Children aged 6 and below who want to learn about the world of horses and the responsibility that comes with them, can do so in the four-day session.
Allen Warren, founder and chief executive officer, said his nonprofit is all about caring for horses and making sure others know how to best care for them, too.
“As a rescue, we take in horses that are being neglected, that people aren’t taking care of properly,” he said. “So many people today buy horses, or they acquire them, and they have no idea what they’re getting into. You ride a horse for two or three hours a week maybe and you care for it 24/7.”
The horse equation, as Warren describes, is essential for knowing just how much responsibility one horse takes. For example, an adult horse eats about 25 pounds of solid food per day, drinks anywhere between 10 and 12 gallons of water and, of course, that creates waste that needs to be cleaned up to help maintain the animal’s sanitary environment.
Most people who buy or acquire a horse do not fully understand that they are farm animals and not pets, he said, which is sort of how he initially started the Horse Harbor Foundation.
“The horse rescue thing started almost by accident,” Warren said.
He had three horses of his own when an older disabled couple asked if he could take in their horse. So, he agreed to take in one more horse. But then, animal control called him to ask if he could take in two more.
“Somebody else brought me a horse [because] of terminal cancer they couldn’t care for,” he said, “and suddenly, I had four rescue horses and my own three. By golly, I’m a horse rescuer.”
Back when he was a young boy, Warren knew his passion was to be a horseman. However, he didn’t come back to that realization until years after working in the corporate world of New York while traveling four hours per day.
“I was coming home on the bus one night … and I realized I walked away from the only thing I ever cared about,” he said. “It took a while, but that started a migration west.”
After a couple stops in Montana and eastern Washington, he eventually came to Poulsbo in 1984, and he’s been here ever since.
The annual summer camps put on by Warren and his wife, Maryann Peachy-Warren, who took over as executive director, also help pay for the 30 or so horses currently housed at the sanctuary.
The camp takes place August 12-24.
Last year, the foundation also started hosting weekly clinics for students from the Kitsap Mental Health Services Madrona Day School Program.
“These are kids that are essentially having problems at school and usually with home-life situations,” Warren said.
With the help of a grant, Kitsap Mental Health and the Horse Harbor Foundation put on experimental clinics last year on a weekly basis, allowing kids to come out with their counselors and learn the fundamentals of riding.
“There’s a special magic that happens,” Warren said. “Those counselors who work with them every day in school say they [sometimes] have disciplinary issues, but those disappear when they walk in the horse barns.”
