Miniature Service Horse Helps Area Woman Overcome Anxiety and Educate the Public

Something as simple as getting a few items from the grocery store a decade ago was a task that evoked so much anxiety for Abrea Hensley, she said it was a toss up if she’d make it to the check out.

But as Hensley described her mental health battle, Flirty, Hensley’s miniature service horse laid a gentle head on her chest to help her calm down inside Hooked coffee shop in Lansing.

It’s been eight years since Hensley first got Flirty and the impact has been monumental, Hensley said, as the pair now go to grocery stores, movie theaters and comic conventions together.

It’s only been a few weeks since Hensley moved to mid-Michigan from Nebraska, but already, Flirty has been all over town.

“I do get stopped a lot… anytime I go grocery shopping or whatever, it’s never a short trip,” Hensley said. “It’s always a big production because people want to stop and compliment her.”

Service horses are not common, but the Americans with Disability Act provides guidelines and protections for miniature horses as well as dogs, an inclusion in federal law Hensley said she has had to explain to businesses more than a few times, even since moving to Michigan where state law also includes specific mention of miniature horses as eligible service animals.

“We [went] to Costco…the manager actually did come up to us and told us that we weren’t allowed to be there because of food safety reasons,” Hensley said, adding she explained to the manager that Flirty is a service animal. “She came back about 10 minutes later and found us and said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to apologize. You’re right. You are welcome to be here.’”

It’s an understandable confusion, Hensley said, there is very little awareness that miniature horses can be trained to perform a variety of service tasks, including being a service animal for blind individuals.

In order to educate the public on the positive service horses provide to individuals living with disabilities, Hensley shares Flirty’s life online with her more than 40,000 followers across Facebook and Instagram.

A constant question the posts get are about what happens when Flirty has to poop in public, Hensley said.

“She does not poop in grocery stores. She is house-trained…if she has to poop, then she will warn me by stomping her back legs in a very specific way and then we just go outside… I just use dog sized poop bags,” Hensley said, adding that some large breeds of dogs produce larger poops.

Just like dogs, miniature horses have to go through rigorous training to be service animals, Hensley said. And horses, in addition to being an alternative for individuals who are allergic dogs, have longer life spans than dogs, often reaching 30 years old.

Flirty eyed the potato chips on Hensley’s plate while she spoke to East Lansing Info for about 45 minutes, but remained committed to her task of alerting Hensley to increases in her stress levels.

Though Flirty spent the first four years of her life as a trained show horse, Hensley said she did tons of training with Flirty herself to prepare her to be a service animal. Hensley volunteers as a horse trainer at Cheval Assistants and Leaders International in Williamston where miniature horses receive training to be paired with individuals with disabilities.

It hasn’t been easy figuring out what helps her have the best chance of navigating the world around her, Hensley said, as she described the difficulty of living with depression and anxiety in college.

But just when Hensley said she was feeling like she was holding things together, an incident at school turned her life upside down.

Hensley said she had been taking private piano lessons at the University of Texas at Austin in 2010, in an effort to determine if she would pursue her doctorate there when a student brought an assault rifle to campus and fired off several rounds, engulfing the campus in panic.

“I was not a student there, I wasn’t getting the text message alerts of what was going on… I was just hiding in a practice room… then I’m texting my mom,’Hey, I don’t know what’s going on, other than there’s a shooter. If I don’t see you again, I love you,’” Hensley said.

Ultimately though the gunman did not injure anyone before fatally shooting himself in a library on campus, Hensley said the event did tremendous damage, leaving her with post-traumatic stress disorder.

She didn’t end up pursuing her doctorate degree, but Flirty was a game changer in helping her get back to the things in her life that she loved after years of intense struggle, Hensley said.

Still, being the woman with the horse in the coffee shop or at the doctor’s office can be a challenge, Hensley said, especially when people stare or take pictures of her and Flirty without permission.

“Would you take a picture of someone’s wheelchair? Well taking a picture of a service animal is doing the same thing. Obviously, they are a living, breathing creature, but they’re just as medically important as that wheelchair,” Hensley said. “I can have a day where I feel like absolute crap. I barely yanked a brush through my hair, and my picture is still gonna end up somewhere as a disabled person.”

The biggest deterrent to having a service horse in Hensley’s eyes is all the attention it brings. Though she’s had many positive interactions where people have been curious, but respectful, Hensley said there are people online who comment cruel and ignorant things on her social media pages.

After sharing an incident with ELi where a woman started being aggressive and insulting her when Hensley asked her not to take a picture of Flirty and distract Flirty from the job she was doing, a child approached Hensley to ask if she could take a picture of her pony.

“Thank you for asking so nicely, you may,” Hensley said with a smile to the curious child, handing her a baseball card explaining the job Flirty has as a service animal.

Life is far from perfect, Hensley said. There are good days and hard days and hope. Negative thoughts that threatened her health and happiness that used to be constant now come and go. It’s nice to go to bed looking forward to the new things she and Flirty might do tomorrow.