Project ComeBack

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Project ComeBack Our mission is to rescue horses, to patiently reeducate these horses, and connect them with people who have endured trauma, primarily veterans.

Rescue Horses Rescuing People

Through veteran partnerships our horses find peace & healing.We are one of the largest mustang rescues on the east coast, provide lifelong care for all breeds of horses (focusing on the ones who aren’t ridable / adoptable). From this experience we hope to help both horse and human develop tools that will improve their quality of life.

Yesterday was unimaginably horrific. My phone rang around 10am, it was our SC herd manager. She never calls unless it’s ...
10/13/2026

Yesterday was unimaginably horrific. My phone rang around 10am, it was our SC herd manager. She never calls unless it’s bad. My heart sank.

“Kai, Eden, and Reign are dead” I heard a shattered voice muster through tears. With broken hearts we worked through what she was seeing and tried to figure out what had happened.

All three next to each other, in the middle of the field, no visible injures, and what looked like instant passing. The vet confirmed what we thought, they were struck by lightning in Sunday’s storm. We’ve included this photo in the comments since it’s graphic.

Kai came to our rescue in April of 2020. His time with us was spent avoiding most humans besides a select few veterans he connected with willingly (last photo). He’s one we had to warn people to stay away from, he wasn’t scared to tell you he wanted space. He wasn’t mean, he wasn’t a “jerk”, his trust and body had been broken at the hands of humans. Kai was taken from his herd, his mother and father, and forced into an inmate program as a YEARLING. With bones still fusing and body still growing he was “broke” to carry a full sized man and sold at their auction. He had every right to want his space & body protected, and we honored that.

Kai spent most of his years with two other mustangs, MoonShadow and Altivo (last 5 photos). They were quite the trio. Until the day he met Ivy, Eden and Reign. That day he truly stepped into his inner “stallion” and made a band of his own with his 3 new mares. Watching Kai step into himself like that was an honor I will forever be grateful for. To see him get to mimic what he would have had in the wild is what we want for every horse that comes to us. Providing food, water and shelter is one thing, but to have them heal mentally to the point that these deep social bonds are made? That they are able to live as they would in the wild? That’s when you know you’ve done it.

Eden is another familiar face for most of our followers. She was the mustang we found at an Oregon auction with broken, severely deformed withers. You all rallied behind her and her story. Within weeks we raised thousands to get her seen by a vet, radiographs, and transported to our sanctuary. To know that she would never be forced to carry a rider through pain was a gift you all helped us give her.

Reign had been on our waitlist for over a year, and her owners were incredibly patient in waiting for the right home. She had severe arthritis in her neck, and per her vet, riding wouldn’t be a humane option for her. Reign also experienced significant anxiety when herd mates were taken out to ride, and she’s never been one who enjoys human interaction. Her and Eden bonded immediately in quarantine and became quite inseparable from Kai after joining the big herd.

We buried all three together, with bouquets of wildflowers from around the farm. We cried until we thought we had run out of tears, and then somehow more came.

For everyone that knew and loved Kai, Eden and Reign please comment a nice memory or a favorite photo.

Photos by Sarah Parker Photo

What can be accomplished when you don’t have to rush, and you don’t have to use force?For Shadowfax and Brego, it was th...
09/26/2026

What can be accomplished when you don’t have to rush, and you don’t have to use force?

For Shadowfax and Brego, it was their very first farrier visit.

When we rescued them in 2023, they were completely unhandled. A human entering their space was enough to send them running in the opposite direction.

Yesterday, all four feet were trimmed.

Calmly, without force, and with their participation and consent. Soft bodies, relaxed jaws, lowered heads.

A positive experience that we have been working toward for years.

This is what consent-based care, force-free handling, and fear-free handling can look like in practice.

Instead of asking, “How do we make them stand still, or force them to cooperate?” the question becomes, “How can we help them feel safe enough to participate?”

And when you have the time to let that process happen, things that once seemed impossible can become possible without fear, force, or a fight.

This milestone was a true group effort.

Our farm manager, Jema, our volunteers, a dedicated Donkey Team (especially Kirsten and Jessica), our Veterans/Veteran Enrichment Team, and guidance from Equine International Research Institute, have all played a monumental part in giving Shadowfax and Brego the space, consistency, practice, and positive experiences they needed to feel safe with us.

We are so grateful to everyone who has helped them get here.

And so, we challenge you to think about what it might look like to set your horse or donkey’s environment up so that you don’t have to rush to build trust or accomplish a goal.

For us, that has meant things like a track-style pasture arrangement and natural hoof-trim stations.

We intentionally set up their environment to encourage natural movement and hoof wear, much like they would experience in the wild, so that overgrown hooves and a rushed timeline didn’t dictate our approach.

It meant creating an environment where we could work with them over time, rather than waiting until something became urgent and then expecting them to cooperate on our timeline.

What would it mean to truly allow your horse or donkey to work at their own pace?

For Shadowfax and Brego, this trust was built over the course of three years.

Three years. That sounds like a long time, right?

Not for Shadowfax and Brego. As with many of the animals we rescue, they have been through their share of trials.

If three years is what they needed to become willing participants in their hoof care, three years is what we gave them.

What happens when we take away the pressure of an outside timeline?

What would it mean to truly move at your animal’s pace? How would it feel to take away the outside pressure of a rushed timeline?

Sometimes the most meaningful progress comes when we stop asking, “How quickly can we accomplish this?” and start asking, “What would this look like if we gave them all the time they needed?”

DISCLAIMER: We are not promoting neglecting your animal’s hoof care or any other necessary care. We intentionally designed our animals’ environment to support natural movement and hoof wear, which gave us the time and flexibility to work toward cooperative, consent-based hoof care rather than allowing an urgent need to dictate the process.

Thank you to this wonderful group of volunteers who came out yesterday from Regis College to help us fix our fence! 🔨 🍂 ...
09/25/2026

Thank you to this wonderful group of volunteers who came out yesterday from Regis College to help us fix our fence! 🔨 🍂 🪚

4 months of progress for Honey & Mocha 🍯 ☕️ On May 21st we took in two horses that had been loose in our neighboring tow...
09/24/2026

4 months of progress for Honey & Mocha 🍯 ☕️

On May 21st we took in two horses that had been loose in our neighboring town of Darlington, SC for 3 days.

We agreed to provide temporary housing for them while the owners were located, but upon intake it was clear they had been severely neglected.

Now they are permanent residents of Project ComeBack, where they will always know kindness, fully bellies, and proper farrier & vet care.

Neither Honey nor Mocha have any sponsors. If you’re a local SC follower that feels a connection to their story we’d love for you to consider “adopting” them. Even just $5 a month helps immensely.

Thank you for helping us heal these girls up ❤️‍🩹

Sponsor here: https://donorbox.org/missionreadysouth

Brother’s Final Update: Brother is brave, he has always been brave. He truly embodied his name as a brother to all that ...
09/21/2026

Brother’s Final Update: Brother is brave, he has always been brave. He truly embodied his name as a brother to all that he met.

If you’ve followed us for a while, you’ve probably read about Brother.

Brother was, by far, one of our most medically complex horses.

In our most recent post, we shared that he had started to rapidly lose weight. We dewormed him, then drew bloodwork and found out that he had Cushing’s/PPID.

Weight loss and muscle atrophy are common symptoms of PPID, so we thought surely we had this figured out. But when we started him on the medication, he had a severe neurological reaction and started falling over.

The weight kept dropping off, seemingly by the day. At this point, we had already moved him to a small medical paddock with his best friend, Sid, where extra grain, alfalfa, and more nutritious hay was ample. Nothing seemed to help, or even slow the weight loss down.

Before he left our MA location last year (for easier winters in the South), our vet mentioned the possibility of cancer as the potential cause of his urination issues. We put him on anticancer herbs and supplements as a precaution after she mentioned this.

But with these new symptoms, we started to wonder if maybe he did have cancer.

This led us to have an ultrasound done, and our greatest fear was confirmed. Brother did have cancer.

Our vet immediately found a found a fairly large tumor that was significantly distorting the outlet of his bladder.

Our vet also aged Brother in his early 20s, instead of around 12, which was the age we had assigned him based on the information we were given when we rescued him in 2022.

We did not ultrasound any other parts of his body, but putting the pieces together with the extreme weight loss and the rare reaction to the PPID medication (making us wonder if his kidneys/liver were no longer processing medications normally), it became clear that we were most likely dealing with cancer in multiple places.

And so, this morning, tears were shed across the East Coast as we said goodbye to Brother.

From everyone who loved and cared for him in Massachusetts, to the team who came to know him during his last year at our South Carolina farm, this loss has deeply touched our entire organization.

Brother’s history:

When we first met Brother, he was extremely sick with strangles and had horrible DSLD. When he finally made it to our Massachusetts location, we discovered that he was also having significant trouble urinating properly.

Our vet diagnosed him with sabulous cystitis, which meant he had a significant accumulation of urinary sediment, including calcium carbonate crystals, in his bladder. This sediment can accumulate in the bladder and interfere with normal urination.

With the help of many vets over the years, some incredible sponsors, and a board-certified nutritionist/herbalist we work very closely with, we were able to give Brother over 4 years of healthy, pain-free pasture living. We even had periods of normal urination.

Those 4 years didn’t come easy.

They required an extreme level of care. Daily leg washing, all four seasons. Boiling water in the winter and scrubbing his legs with a warm rag. Constant adjustments to his feed regimen. The level of care Brother required to be comfortable was a huge ask of our team.

And everyone did it without hesitation.

With kindness. With gentle hands. Without complaint.

I think that’s why the loss of Brother has hit our organization so hard. To provide that level of compassionate care for years to a very special horse creates a bond that is hard to put into words.

Flowers were donated for him today in SC. Our MA team is holding a toast for Brother tonight. We are trying to process such an extreme loss.

And while today is incredibly hard, we are so grateful that we got to give Brother what we promised him when he came to us: a life where he was safe, cared for, and allowed to simply be a horse.

Thank you to everyone who was in Brother’s corner. Especially to his sponsors, who helped lighten the extreme financial load of caring for such a medically complex, but very deserving, horse.

Music for the MA herd 🎶 Thank you Peter & Renee Gervais
09/10/2026

Music for the MA herd 🎶
Thank you Peter & Renee Gervais

An update on Brother, one of our most medically complex horses:We first noticed him getting ribby while developing a lar...
09/03/2026

An update on Brother, one of our most medically complex horses:

We first noticed him getting ribby while developing a large hay belly a few months ago, which usually indicates a parasite problem.

But, despite deworming, he continued losing his topline and muscle. Our vet ran bloodwork, and Brother tested positive for PPID (commonly known as Cushing’s). The rest of his bloodwork, including organ function, vitamin E, and selenium, all looked normal. Thank you Footloose Veterinary Services!

We started him on pergolide (Prascend), but unfortunately he had a very rare and severe reaction after only a few days, losing his balance and falling over. We stopped the medication immediately, and thankfully he has had no further episodes.

We’re now taking an herbal approach with chasteberry, while also giving him some extra nutritional support.

Brother and his best friend Sid have been moved into our smaller medical paddock to limit movement and make sure feed is easily accessible. We’ve increased his protein rich feed (like alfalfa and sainfoin) to help support rebuilding his muscle and topline.

We also have a few things on the books for Brother, including a dental exam to make sure his teeth are in good shape and an ultrasound to assess the suspected tumors in his bladder.

Brother has been complicated since the day we rescued him. He has DSLD, sabulous cystitis, suspected bladder tumors, and now PPID. Unfortunately, none of these conditions are medically curable and treatment options are pretty limited.

He has done wonderfully on a specialized protocol, based on ongoing HTMA tests and bloodwork, formulated by a board-certified equine herbalist and nutritionist (thank you Yucc' It Up), so this setback has really bummed us all out.

We’re really hoping that getting his PPID under control and addressing any dental issues will help turn things around for him (we did notice him quidding up some hay).

As you can imagine, a medically complex horse like Brother is incredibly expensive to care for. When Project ComeBack says yes to a horse, we say yes to everything. If there are options to help him live a comfortable life and manage his conditions, we’re going to do it, regardless of the cost.

Brother has an incredible group of sponsor parents who contribute to his care every month, but that still only covers a fraction of his expenses.

Please consider joining Team Brother.

Every sponsor, donation, and share helps us continue saying yes to this very special guy.

Sponsor Brother here:
projectcomeback.org/brother

Or make a onetime donation:
PayPal: [email protected]
CashApp: $HelpProjectComeBack
Venmo: (business account)

📸: Sarah Parker Photo

We are so grateful to the veterans who spend their time helping us help our equines. So many of our horses and donkeys c...
09/01/2026

We are so grateful to the veterans who spend their time helping us help our equines.

So many of our horses and donkeys come from traumatic backgrounds, which means that seemingly small, insignificant activities can actually be a huge deal for them.

Twice a week, these veterans choose to dedicate their time to connecting with our animals, helping them build trust, discover new experiences, and learn that human companionship can be something safe and enjoyable, the complete opposite of what many of them knew before coming to our rescue.

This is only made possible thanks to our amazing volunteers and our partners at Equine International Research Institute who host these programs every single week.

As much as this work helps the horses, it helps the people too. We are able to offer our programs at no cost to the veterans thanks to our incredible support network.

To help us continue this work please consider sharing & interacting with this post. Donations can be made via:

PayPal: [email protected]
CashApp: $HelpProjectComeBack
Venmo: (business account)

Last week we had 2 groups come out to our MA location from VanGarden to volunteer! They did a lot of gardening tasks, fe...
08/26/2026

Last week we had 2 groups come out to our MA location from VanGarden to volunteer! They did a lot of gardening tasks, fence replacement and maintenance. Plus many small jobs that have added up recently, and preparing the space for our veteran weekend.

Thank you all so much!

Kele update after another visit with Essential Touch Equine Therapy: “Good afternoon! I am so amazed at the progress Kel...
08/21/2026

Kele update after another visit with Essential Touch Equine Therapy:
“Good afternoon! I am so amazed at the progress Kele makes every month!!! Today he let me touch him everywhere and he felt safe enough to eat his breakfast while I worked on him. (If you remember when she started he would only allow her to touch his head) I was able to get castor oil on both sides, including right stifle and both hamstrings. He also rested his right hind a few times, which means he was full weight bearing on his left! He has a long life ahead!”

We spoke bit more and she went on to say:

“I can honestly say that I don’t feel pain when I touch him. Slight discomfort in the muscles that work extra but only when I put a little too much pressure. I feel gratitude from him, especially this session, when I allow him to lead the session. When I saw him weight bearing and resting the opposite foot, I knew progress was being made. That’s not from pain, that’s from finally being able to feel a shift in his pelvis enough to trust that his left side is stable.”

While he still has a ways to go before he’s considered fully healed, we are grateful that forward progress is clear and continues to be made ❤️‍🩹

Address

583 Adams Street
Holliston, MA
01746

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+17744648979

Website

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