Alesia Willard sometimes feels a little jealous of the unparalleled bond her rescue horse has formed with her fiancé but has also grown fond of watching their endearing relationship develop.
Thirty-two-year-old Ms. Willard was initially hesitant to introduce her fiancé, Brander Pacheco, to Rudnik, an American Quarter horse who was still leery and mistrusting of men.
However, in the summer of 2020, when Mr. Pacheco walked up to Rudnik’s fence for the first time, the stallion greeted him with a sniff—and the pair formed a seemingly instantaneous bond.
“It was actually quite fascinating,” Ms. Willard told The Epoch Times. “I just stood there feeling a little bit jealous, but Brander thought it was the coolest thing ever.”
Rescuing a Mangy Little Colt
Ms. Willard first met Rudnik, who was just 11 months old at the time, at a horse rescue in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, in 2019.“I had just gone to help a couple of friends find a new horse for themselves,” Ms. Willard said, adding that she had no intention of adopting a horse.
However, everything changed when she saw Rudnik for the first time.
“I saw he was just this mangy little colt off in the distance,“ she said. ”He wouldn’t really let anyone get near him.”
Even though Rudnik was missing patches of hair and had burrs on his tail and mane, Ms. Willard said, “There was ... a softness in his eyes that really drew me in.”
Not too much is known about where Rudnik originally came from, but only that he was dropped off at an Alberta livestock auction with his Quarterhorse paperwork all set up.
“He was quite frightened and scared at the time, which came across as him looking very wild to everybody there,” Ms. Willard said. “So nobody there really wanted to take him as a pet.”
With only a kill buyer interested in him, Rudnik was fated for slaughter. But someone from a rescue organization, from whom Ms. Willard eventually adopted Rudnik, stepped in and bought him for just a few hundred dollars.
When Ms. Willard wanted to welcome him into her family, she learned that a few others had already put in their applications to adopt him, but Ms. Willard still took a chance and within 24 hours, she received a call informing her that Rudnik was hers.
Ms. Willard soon realized that getting Rudnik to trust her or anyone else was a challenging task.
“I couldn’t get anywhere near him. I couldn’t touch him [or] put a halter on him. Even if I had treats in my hand, he didn’t care,” she said.
Ms. Willard who has worked with horses her whole life, found a “whole different level of mistrusting” and fear while working with Rudnik.
Despite feeling overwhelmed by the monumental task, Ms. Willard said, “I was fully committed to working through that with him, but there were many days where I definitely felt like I was in over my head.”
As she worked toward just learning to touch him and making Rudnik feel comfortable around her, she began to understand what he needed.
However, he was extremely reactive.
“If you touched his back seat, he would sit on the ground like a dog, and then if you touched his front seat, he would just drop himself right down to the ground and cover his legs,” she said. “So I don’t know if there was some trauma built around his legs being touched or what happened.”
As Rudnik started to show signs of trusting her, she discovered that his hooves were desperately outgrown and needed trimming.
“There was a lot of things, but it was kind of like a clock ticking,” Ms. Willard said. “[But] if we didn’t get it done and dealt with while he was little, once he got bigger, it was going to be a lot harder to manage.”
The Beginning of an Endearing Bond
It was around this time that Ms. Willard first met Mr. Pacheca while attending a get-together with mutual friends. After staying friends for four months, their relationship blossomed.Soon, Ms. Willard introduced Rudnik and Mr. Pacheco, and the rest is history. Since connecting with Rudnik, Mr.Pacheca has developed a whole new interest in horses.
Ms. Willard said they are like “long lost brothers from another life.”
The pair are often spotted hanging out, with Rudnik often showing his affection by butting heads with Mr.Pacheco. They enjoy running around and chasing each other and Rudnik often slows down and waits for Mr. Pacheco to catch up to him, Ms. Willard said.
Mr. Pacheco has discovered Rudnik’s bloodlines and learned that he comes from a line of cattle horses, so Mr. Pacheco sometimes pretends to be a cow for Rudnik to corral and steer into pasture.
“I think it’s just something so funny to watch them together because it just seems to come so naturally for them,” she said. “It’s crazy to see how quickly they connected, and even now, just how their bond continues to grow.”
