Co-owner Renee Lackey is flanked by two mustangs, gelding Storm Cloud and mare Naylei Thursday near a pond on the DLR Mustang Ranch in Salineville.

Co-owner Dale Lackey and Remington. (Photos by Stephanie Ujhelyi)

However, DLR Mustang Ranch is somewhere that mustangs cannot only be tamed but be adopted to private individuals.

Dale Lackey and his wife Renee purchased their 18-acre ranch in July 2019, seeking to use the property to heal hearts — especially those belonging to veterans and first responders.

“Mustangs are keen in helping veterans cope with PTSD and other issues caused by their time of service to our country,” Dale Lackey explained. “By building a relationship with the mustang, the (participant) can learn new ways to communicate and overcome obstacles they face daily.”

To some degree, wild mustangs are kindred spirits to veterans. Also displaced from their familiar environment, they also have to assimilate.

In addition to servicing veterans and first responders, the ranch offers programs for anyone suffering from PTSD, mental illnesses or just needing a place to escape.

Renee Lackey was quick to point out how it can help youth. “The relationships with horses can help them to build a sense of responsibility and empathy,” she added.

DLR Mustang Ranch’s six-week intensive program offered annually has been on hiatus due to Dale’s health issues, but they are looking to change that.

Several years after acquiring the ranch, the couple contracted COVID, impacting Dale the most seriously before he then was diagnosed with cancer.

“Had it not been for The Lord taking care of us physically, emotionally and mentally we would have failed,” he explained.

Certain horses appear to relate to people depending on the issue they may be battling. For example, Miss Ellie,” her deceased sister-in-law’s horse, tends to reach out to visitors needing comforting for their grieving a mutual loss.

“The horses seem to absorb and then release (the human companion’s) tension,” Renee Lackey said.

Through their offered six-week intensive program the participant is paired with a wild mustang that they select personally from a sale of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages the mustang population.

DLR Mustang Ranch buys the chosen horse, which usually runs under $125, and the participant learns how to train the wild horse after befriending it.

Upon graduation, the participant is given the opportunity of adopting their gentled mustang free of charge.

“When we started the ranch, we had very little funds. We just had the desire in our heart placed by God to serve his veterans,” Lackey, who himself is a U.S. Army veteran, shared. “The first year went pretty good. We were able to do an Extreme Mustang Makeover in Texas, where we took two of our youth trainers with a mustang. While we didn’t place high in the ranks, but we still consider it a success, because of all the connections we made.”

Eventually they found this property in Wayne Township, where the Lackeys then built this retreat where visitors find a place of peace and tranquility either with the human occupants or any of the other many animals on the premises.

That can include dogs, cats, two wild burros, peacocks, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and turkeys.

Among their two herds are two wild burros, five domestic horses, one paint horse, one quarter-horse and one Tennessee Walker. The rest are all mustangs in various stages of training.

When Lackey isn’t working on the ranch, he works several days a week as a paramedic at North Star Critical Care in Calcutta.

Lackey acknowledged the journey has not been easy but thanks to generous donations they have been able to not only build a barn but a training area.

Most recently Eleanor Acres in Lisbon is making the not-for profit beneficiary of its proceeds from a 50/50 being held at its May 10 craft and vendor show.

For information about DLR Mustang Ranch, either reach out via Facebook direct message or call 740-491-7427 even if needing to just talk.

sujhelyi@mojonews.com