Owner of hoof to heart healing lLC, Carla Danesi RD/LD and PATH Intl certified eSMHL, began this business back in 2020 with a dream of one day providing equine learning and nutrition therapy to veterans and first responders. She has been a registered dietitian since 2013, growing her medical nutrition therapy skills to help patients better manage diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease and weight management. Coming from a family where her father and grandfather served in the military she has a great desire to serve this great country by serving those who Sacrificed for our freedoms.

As a child Carla would go to the local barn after school and in the summers. She cleaned stalls, fed, watered and helped care for the horses in exchange for riding lessons but never had a horse to call her own. After a life altering event in 2018 Carla decided it was time to stop focusing all her energy working her life away and start focusing on her dream to own a horse, so she bought her first horse, Tank! Her journey with tank taught her more about her own struggles with anxiety and that whole “suck it up,””fake it till you make it” mentality was just not working and making her Physically sick. Tank is a short, stocky, tough ranch horse that worked on a ranch in south florida until he got injured. He came to Carla under muscled and in need of physical rehab. Even with these physical issues Tank is a tough little fighter, along with being alpha and stubborn, so he and carla clashed, as she is the same way! then their bond grew as she rehabbed him with good nutrition and physical therapy/exercise and tank began to react to all of Carla’s emotions and the energy behind them. He continues to be her emotional compass and likes giving her plenty of horse kisses in between his Jokester, escape artist antics or bugging his buddy toasty to play.

Being a type a personality, go getter, that never liked to show her emotional weakness Carla began to see how much her energy affected tank and herself in ways traditional therapy never did. her love, compassion and desire to improve her bond with tank pushed her to make changes she never even knew she needed to make before! Seeing how much tank helped her she wanted to share this amazing experience with others. she took courses to become certified to do equine assisted learning and when friends or family that served came to visit tank she practiced with them. Hearing their thoughts about the experiences just encouraged her to continue on the path to creating this business!

Carla knew she needed a special place to create these memorable experiences on a professional level. And of course another horse to share the love so this past year she bought the property and toasty! Toasty is a retired police horse, who she Lovingly calls “old man.” Toasty was in the police posse for 10 years, serving the citizens of florida. When he retired he went to live with a loving family but had a hard time adjusting to the civilian life, got lazy, gained weight and lost muscle. When Carla met him she just had a feeling about him and his owners gave her time to make sure he was the right fit. after he came home with her January 2026 they told Carla ” We wanted you to have him because you get how he is and we knew he’d have a good home with you.” carla again put the work into toasty’s diet and exercise routine, even if he grumps about exercising, and he has lost weight and gained muscle back! He is slowly learning how to be a civilian horse, which is showing carla how hard it can be for a being that served, human or animal, to adjust to Civilian life once they retire or separate from service. as their bond grows carla is seeing how sensitive toasty is to humans energy and how different his response is to each person he interacts with vs tanks reaction. he is particular on which humans he interacts with where tank is very friendly and loves attention. toasty is stoic around most adults, trying to “size them up” and he lets carla know right away his feelings about a persons energy. he tends to be right about them too! Carla continues to learn more about toasty every day and she finds his expressions about peoples energies Insightful. As he has adjusted to this new life he likes to tag along in tanks antics when he gets a gate open! toasty’s response to carla’s energy differs from Tanks response so she is currently Reevaluating herself to continue improving. Life is a never ending journey of growth so come see if talking to tank or toasty can help you on your journey to self improvement!