Lifelong animal lover Marcy Tocker, founder of nonprofit Grey Muzzle Manor, started college at Penn State with the goal of becoming a veterinarian. She’s been riding horses since she was 5 and credits her horse, Fancy, with helping her through challenging times. “That’s when I started to wonder how they could help other people,” she reflects. “I remember thinking how amazing it was that Fancy knew how I was feeling and how she helped me through it.”

That realization prompted Tocker to switch majors and study psychology. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Penn State University and a master’s degree in counseling from Immaculata University. In grad school, she started a foster and rescue program for animals with special needs and a hospice for sick animals.

Her vision was to open a facility where people could receive mental health treatment through equine psychotherapy, animal psychotherapy and other holistic approaches. She wasn’t quite sure how to achieve that goal, but the process of opening Grey Muzzle Manor ended up happening organically.

Tocker bought a four-acre farm and soon friends and relatives began stopping by in search of a reprieve from stress. “People came after a hard day and asked if they could just hang out and visit with the animals,” she says. “I saw their experiences and realized that my animal therapy facility was already happening.”

Today, Grey Muzzle Manor exists on 45 acres housing 16 horses—six of which belong to Tocker, and the rest are boarding, permanent residents, many of which are used for therapy—17 cows, four potbellied pigs, two goats, seven dogs, one cat, a multitude of chickens and ducks, and a turkey. The multifaceted facility offers services such as the Support for Animals and Families Enabling Recovery (SAFER) program which provides temporary foster care for people’s pets if they are facing homeless, domestic violence or enrollment in an addiction treatment program.

“The goal is reunification,” Tocker explains. “We can take the animals into foster care and return them when the person is ready to accept them. They’re our best friends. How can we tell somebody to go get help, but expect them to abandon the one being in their lives that is always there for them?”

Grey Muzzle Manor’s community outreach program also helps people that need pet food, supplies or assistance with veterinary care. In November 2020, they became a certified Stable Moments location. The equine-assisted learning program pairs children in foster care with a horse and mentor that they meet with weekly for 10 months. By spending time with horses, the children develop skills to become healthy and functioning members of society and overcome trauma.

Tocker recently launched a therapeutic riding program. Because animals live in the moment and live their lives with acceptance and non-judgement, humans can learn from them. “When trauma occurs, we go into 'fight, flight or freeze' mode. When we perceive danger, it can be difficult to trust people’s motives after we’ve experienced trauma. Animals also operate in flight, flight or freeze, but they don’t become anxious, judgmental or worry about what others are thinking. They don’t worry about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow.”

Horses, in particular, are sensitive, Tocker says. They can feel everything humans feel, and thus reflect emotions back toward us. Animal therapy can be used in conjunction with traditional therapy. Tocker says. “I wanted to create a place where people and animals know they belong, and that they matter and mean something.”