The History
Shy Lowen Horse and Pony Sanctuary has been in operation since 9th November 1999 and became registered charity in February 2008. The sanctuary is situated at Buckley Hill Lane, Thornton, Liverpool L29 1YB. The correspondence address is: 18 Back Lane, Thornton, Liverpool L29 7WD
We are often asked why is it called Shy Lowen? The answer is simply that Shy Lowen means ‘Home of Happiness’ in Old English.
The sanctuary follows the kindest and most compassionate training and rehabilitation methods possible, many of which have been pioneered by Monty Roberts – an American Horse Whisperer. Monty has been involved with horses all his life and taught himself horse language or ‘Equus’ through observation of wild and domestic horses. This language is physical, not verbal and he successfully uses this body language to bond and communicate with horses.
Everybody at the sanctuary is familiar with these methods and endeavour to improve at them until we can 'hear' our horses whisper.
Our Mission and Methods
Shy Lowen rescues, rehabilitates and re-homes (where possible) any equine in need; and provides a safe haven for all those that are not re-homeable. We operate sponsorship and adoption schemes.
Sponsorship is available for the permanent residents of the sanctuary, the horses that cannot be re-homed for health reasons or because of old age. This gives people the opportunity to help keep a horse when they may never have been in a position to do this on an individual basis.
Adoption using a permanent loan agreement is available for the healthy, rehabilitated horses. We do this to ensure that the horse is never neglected or abused again, as we retain the right to reclaim the horse if we feel it necessary. The Trustees of the sanctuary vet all prospective adopters and we also inspect the premises where they will be kept. After the horse goes out on loan.
Looking after the horses in the sanctuary requires significant quantities of food. We use the large round bales of haylage and we use 624 of those each year.
Our hard feed is mostly horse and pony cubes and we use 1040 20kg bags of those every year. We also use 52 bags of Readigrass or Honeychop each year.
One of the things we are most proud of is the work we do with young people. The sanctuary is in an area where people would not generally get to spend time with horses. We have a young team aged from 11 to 18 who have called themselves Care Committee. They learn the day to day care of the horses, they are involved in the training and rehabilitation work and on the last Saturday of every month they have a formal meeting where they are involved in the management of the sanctuary and the strategy planning thus providing them with life skills.
Another big item on our 'Proud' list is that in 2010 we were Intelligent Horsemanship Charity Of The Year www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk
The sanctuary site at Buckley Hill Lane is leased from Sefton Council. When we got it there was 800 tons of illegally dumped rubble and rubbish on the site which we had to clear in order to secure the lease. We succeeded and patched up the tumble down buildings on the site to make a start. We are now just completing some wonderful new buildings consisting of four 6 metre x 6 metre stables, four 6 metre x 5 metre stables, a storage barn and a 12 metre x 6 metre Education Centre which is dedicated to providing information on the ethical care and training of equines.
The latest addition to Shy Lowen which started in October 2009 is the involvement of the horses and ponies in Equine Assisted Growth and Learning programmes and Equine Assisted Psychotherapy which allows the horses innate ability to mirror the human to give therapists and coaches clear insight into the needs of the human client. The horses just have to be horses. So now rescued horses are helping people too.
OUR SPONSORS
The Hire Station. 2 Brunswick Place, Bootle L20 8DT - 0151 263 9571 - provide us with the tools and equipment we need.
ID Coaching - A leading provider of coaching, consulting and training services specialising within the Legal and Customer Service professions.
Silent Whispers - Equine assisted growth and learning assisted by the Shy Lowen horses and ponies. How can a rescue horse help you?
