COEUR d'ALENE - Persuading a horse is not as easy as it looks.

U.S. Army Sgt. James Allen of Post Falls carefully walked Sam, a reddish brown quarter horse-Arabian mix, through the orange cones of a relay course Friday morning in the Stables at Mica Meadows while balancing an egg on a spoon.

The equine stopped, requiring Allen to speak gently and coax him, pat his coat and tug on his rope to get him to move again.

"Sam was definitely being stubborn," Allen said. "It took a lot of bonding and a lot of patience. It's kind of hard for me because I don't have much patience. It's definitely a learning experience.

"I talked to him like he was one of my kids, you know, 'You can do this.' It's only a small obstacle."

Taking the horse through the course was one of the first activities of the inaugural Veteran Family Retreat, hosted by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 889 in alliance with Blue Moon Mending, the Mica Foundation and other community sponsors.

Seven families with kids of all ages participated in the free retreat, which began with equine-related activities at Mica Stables and continues through the weekend with summer fun at Lutherhaven.

Chance Corey of Spokane attended the retreat with his daughter, Jean, 3, his Army veteran dad, his stepmom and little brothers.

"I'm just glad that people see it's good to help veterans," Corey said. He walked the relay course with Jean in his arms and also experienced Sam's unique personality.

"The horse was walking me," he said, grinning.

Licensed marriage and family therapist Helena Rouhe owns and operates Blue Moon Mending used the Equine Assisted Growth And Learning Association model in the activities with the veterans and their families.

"I'm just super excited about this opportunity," she said. "The big take-home for everyone for this weekend is to have fun, and it's OK if you don't have fun. That's why we have support staff here, if they have some struggling moments, because sometimes, that can be a lot of pressure to go spend a weekend with the family when you're maybe dealing with stuff."

She said horses are good mirrors for humans because they are always reading the emotions of the people around them.

"They'll tend to reflect that back," she said. "Just being able to use the horses as a blank canvas is like something that they can project whatever's going on with them, then that gives whoever's going through the experience the opportunity to just not make it so overwhelming ... if we say, 'What's going on out there? What's going on with the horses?' then they can deal with whatever's coming up for them."

Donna Findlay of Coeur d'Alene is one of the owners and operators of the Mica Foundation and the stables. She said she thinks the concept of the retreat and being a part of it is "fantastic."

"We love working with veterans," she said. "Anybody that needs to come to us, they can come and we'll try to find a way to assist them through equine therapy."

Post 889 Sr. Vice Randall Beat said the purpose of the retreat, which has been in the works for a year, is to strengthen the family unit while working on deeper issues.

"Our goal today is just for them to have one of those family moments," Beat said. "Have some time to spend with their family, not worrying about who's going to get the food, that sort of thing, have events available to them if they want to attend those events, be as active or as not active as they want to be."

He said the reason behind the retreat is "to fix problems before they're a problem."

"What I mean by that is if a veteran family member is absent from the family in some way because of his deployment, he comes back and he's having a hard time reintegrating into civilian life, family life, those children have a much higher risk of being at-risk youth," he said. "If we have at-risk youth in our community, that's going to cost the community more then than trying to deal with it now, so we're trying to prevent something ahead of time, both helping the veteran and his family and his children."