March 1, 2025
Jessica Gonzales - Every Horse and Every Person Deserves a Second Chance S3 E25
Send us a text In this episode of The Empathetic Trainer podcast, host Barbara O’Brien chats with Jessica Gonzalez, a dedicated horse rescuer and author of Equine Empowerment. They discuss how horses help people heal, the power of positive reinforcement training, and the deep bond between horses and young people. Jessica shares her journey, the challenges of running a nonprofit, and the importance of trust, patience, and second chances—both for horses and humans. Key Takeaways: Horses provide...
In this episode of The Empathetic Trainer podcast, host Barbara O’Brien chats with Jessica Gonzalez, a dedicated horse rescuer and author of Equine Empowerment. They discuss how horses help people heal, the power of positive reinforcement training, and the deep bond between horses and young people. Jessica shares her journey, the challenges of running a nonprofit, and the importance of trust, patience, and second chances—both for horses and humans.
Key Takeaways:
- Horses provide healing and companionship, especially for those struggling socially.
- Positive reinforcement builds trust between horses and people.
- Understanding horse behavior and emotions improves training.
- Working with rescue horses teaches patience, resilience, and empathy.
- Jessica’s nonprofit empowers youth through equine therapy.
- Every horse—and every person—deserves a second chance.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on love, trust, and the transformative power of horses!
https://www.empathetic-trainer.com/
And Remember, Animals Just Want to be Heard.
00:00 - Welcome and Introduction
05:20 - Jessica’s Journey into Animal Rescue
20:10 - The Emotional Healing of Horses and Kids
35:45 - Training Techniques: Positive Reinforcement in Action
50:30 - Lessons Learned from Animals
01:05:00 - Building Community and Outreach
WEBVTT
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Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien.
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I'm an animal trainer and photographer and I'd like to welcome you to the Empathetic Trainer.
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Hi, this is Barbara O'Brien and you're listening to the Empathetic Trainer Podcast.
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Today's guest is Jessica Gonzalez.
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She's a lifetime horse rescuer and author of Equine Empowerment a Guide to Positive Reinforcement Training.
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She runs Empowered Equines Rescue and Empowered Equestrians Educational Program.
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Welcome to the podcast, jessica.
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Hi, thanks for having me.
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So those of you who are watching us on YouTube there's a cat that is like really stealing the show.
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So before we even get started, we better introduce the cat.
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This is Night Fury.
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He's named after the dragon from how to Train your Dragon, and he's very, very friendly.
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A little too friendly.
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That's no harm in that we like that, so now we all know his name.
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So, everyone, you don't have to worry about this sweet cat coming in and out.
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Well, I found you on Facebook, which is where I find a lot of my horse people and you're doing a lot of interesting stuff.
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And now that I see you face to face I'm like, wow, you're young, which is great.
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So why don't you just give us a little introduction about, like, how you even got started with animals?
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I mean, were you, did you always have horses?
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Were you an animal?
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You know kind of like your little backstory.
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First, let's let's learn about you a little bit.
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Yeah.
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So I grew up loving animals but I never had any.
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I lived in like the deep city and I found I was pretty young when I found my obsession with animals, and horses in particular.
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So I found a rescue to volunteer at that was within driving distance and I volunteered there every weekend and as I grew up, every time I started looking for jobs or doing anything in my life, I just kept circling back to animals.
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So when I got my own house and my own horse, the owner of the rescue that I grew up at got sick and she passed away and a few of her horses had to come live with me and at that point we just said, okay, this is what we're doing and started our own rescue.
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And I was kind of one of those lost kids who had trouble making friends and didn't really get along with humans and the rescue was kind of like a light in my life.
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So I wanted to make sure that my rescue provided that for kids too.
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I wanted to make sure we had an active kids program for really anybody who wanted to spend time with animals and focus on the relationship aspect, not just the training or riding part of horses.
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Oh for sure that's wonderful, and for you to be able to do it now, when you're young, is also wonderful.
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So how old were you when you started going to the rescues on the weekends?
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We have similar stories, and so I really feel for you.
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Did your folks have to drive you, or you know like, how old were you and what did they think of your?
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You know obsession at that point.
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Yeah, they had to drive me about 45 minutes and they would drop me off in the morning and pick me up at night because I wanted to be there as many hours as I could.
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And, yeah, it was tricky.
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I was about nine when I started exploring horses and finding places to play with horses, but I was 13 when I found the rescue and finding places to play with horses, but I was 13 when I found the rescue and that's really where, like that was where I felt I wanted to be because I could spend the whole day loving on the horses and being with the horses.
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And, you know, I got to ride sometimes, but not very often.
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It was really more about spending time with them and building a relationship, and that's really what I was looking for out of that situation.
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Sure.
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So you found early on that horses were healing for you and they were a help for you as you were growing up, maybe not connecting as well with your peers, things like that.
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So many animal people have similar stories.
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Animals don't judge and they like us just the way we are, and so it's pretty cool that you kind of had this intuition already.
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So tell us how.
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Let's start with the rescue.
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What kind of?
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From what I understand, you're not only rescuing horses, which is great, and I've done that too through Forever Morgans, with Morgan horses, you know, and things like that you are rescuing humans in a way.
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I mean, actually the animals are rescuing the humans, but you're making it possible, and what a gift.
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So maybe if you could tell us a little bit how, how did the young people or the people you're working with, the children, young people I don't know your age group how did that come about?
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And how did you find suitable horses?
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Did the horses?
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I find horses just no, but did you know kind of?
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Tell us a little bit about that.
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So as soon as you move horses into a farm, kids start appearing.
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We, we, literally we have this volunteer who she's been here for four years now and I found her hiding in the bushes beside my barn and watching our Clydesdales in the yard and she was just.
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You could see her just dreaming of like how amazing it would be to spend time with those horses and I just like, come on over, you can come groom them.
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And she, she's been a volunteer for four years since.
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Oh my god so.
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So I mean, it wasn't hard to find kids who needed animals.
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Um, it was kind of true.
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It is kind of tricky finding animals that are suitable for our kids because we don't.
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We don't take in animals suitable for our kids.
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We take in rescues who have major life issues.
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You have two blind horses.
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We have a neurological horse, we have one who came to us.
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Well, we have several who came to us for aggression issues.
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So it's like how do I just throw a bunch of kids in with them?
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Yeah, yeah, we have kids from six years old to 60 years old.
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So we have all ages, but mostly it's the six to 15 range, that is, you know, they're here every day and really obsessed, and then they get jobs and have to be adults.
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Sure, sure.
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But what a wonderful gift you've given them that relationship with the horse.
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I know for myself being awkward and just my personality being different horses.
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When I was able to finally start working for my riding lessons when I was 12, so I understand I had a mentor, an older lady.
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It kept me out of trouble, out of depression.
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They still keep me out of depression.
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You know, I still have horses.
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And it was like all the way through high school, you know, all the way, even though I had a job.
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It's like I just kept with it and I'm still not.
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I loped so I could have a horse when I was 19.
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And we're still, 43 years later, we still married, we still have horses.
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So it worked out.
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But that gift that you give those young people to feel good about themselves and the lessons they learn, so so say, you've got, um, a horse.
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That can you give me like a story?
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Can you tell me about a particular horse and a particular child maybe, like how did that work out?
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oh man, I don't even know who to choose because they're all so special.
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Um, there we have.
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Let's see, we've got a neurological pony.
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He's a warm blood pony cross.
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Okay, so neurological.
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Just so we understand means.
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Somewhere in his spine the connections aren't being made down to the rest of his body.
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So he's quite clumsy, he falls easily, he doesn't have great sensation in his hind limbs and he's very frantic all the time.
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Well, yeah, because his horse's line of defense is to escape.
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And if he feels he can't escape.
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Naturally that would cause concern for him.
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Yeah, and he's super sweet, he loves people, so we rescued him when he was.
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He can't escape.
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Naturally that would cause concern for him.
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Yeah, and he's super sweet, he loves people.
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So we rescued him when he was only two months old, but he and his mom were bones.
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So we think that being starved at such a developmental stage is probably why he's so neurological and why it hasn't changed throughout his life, because it's not changing with the development of his spine.
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He's 10 now, so he's really stable in that he can live a good quality of life, but he'll never be able to be ridden because he can't like carry himself, let alone a rider Right right.
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So he's kind of stuck with us because I wouldn't trust sending him out into the world where somebody might think they could get away with riding him.
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Yeah.
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And then Someone gets hurt.
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A horse gets hurt, yeah.
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Exactly.
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What's his name, this pony?
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His name is Zephyr and he is not a gentle breeze, he is a hurricane and he's like I always joke, he's like an ADHD four-year-old boy.
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He's just super busy, he's very intelligent, he understands spatial awareness better than any horse I've ever known.
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Like we play a game with him where we'll put a ball, throw it into his stall and he has to get it out his stall door and sometimes it'll get stuck behind something or like go in a weird path and he has to figure out how to get it out of stall door.
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And he's really good at that, sure, and you're really good at that Sure, and you're talking a good sized ball, yeah.
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Yeah, like a jolly ball.
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Yeah, not like a tennis ball.
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I think it's like a little baseball, I'm just because some of them aren't going to be horse people.
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Okay, yeah, a good a ball but they don't really have that concept of how to maneuver the ball where they want it to go.
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Yeah, it's pretty smart.
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Yeah, he really is.
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He's a very intelligent horse, but he's super hyper and really frantic and like he can't concentrate for more than a second.
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And we've got this um, 13 year old girl who is exactly the same personality and in some ways, you know, at first I was like these two should never work together because they are, you know, crazy and crazy, you know, and they, they amp each other up totally.
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So there there are a lot of days where we're like, okay, we're going to stop and we're going to breathe, and we actually taught Zephyr to take a deep breath on cue so that he would stop and breathe sometimes, yeah, yeah.
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So it was actually a cool exercise for his.
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They took the situation.
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She's a sweet, sweet girl, but she's very hyper, very active, she does jujitsu, she does horses, she's just on the go 100 miles an hour, um, and she struggles with, uh, mental health issues.
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Um, it's just hard to be a teenager in this world, right now.
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It's hard for every single one of them, yeah yeah and um, and where she is so hyper and so active, I think that can be a lot for some kids.
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So she has a hard time making friends and Zephyr is the perfect friend for her and we kind of took it as a learning opportunity for both of them.
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You have to help Zephyr learn how to cope with his anxiety, his stress, like learn his coping skills, and in doing so she's learning her own coping skills.
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You've empowered her to help something else, someone else you know, and by helping someone else it helps her, which builds confidence and and the ability to regulate.
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So they're helping each other regulate.
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That's, that's the goal and they do it really well.
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Sometimes they do work each other up instead of bring each other back down, but sometimes we've also taken recently they've been doing really well in their training.
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We always focus on, like, the core behaviors.
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You know, can you move your body parts away from me when I ask, can you?
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Can you stop and stand still when I ask those safety things?
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Yes, and they've just done so well with that that recently I've been saying let's embrace what you two have.
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You guys are the most exuberant, fun, active, playful people and horse just just have fun, like so long as we can bring ourselves back down to calm.
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Why don't you go do the things that you can't do with the other horses because they're too quiet, too laid back, too too resigned.
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So it's become a really beautiful partnership because of that Sounds wonderful and it sounds wonderful, so that's a good lead-in to talking about.
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Oh, there's my puppy.
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That's better To talk about positive reinforcement and force-free animal care and the way you work with them, because, as you know, I train animal actors and of course it has to be very fun, I mean because that's the animal's idea.
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You know, we can't make a cat do anything unless he wants to you know, so I understand that and a lot of my audience is extremely interested in positive reinforcement and of course that's a very broad term.
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So it's like let's not get into the science of it.
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There's four quadrants.
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People can learn that, because otherwise they're going to argue with me and go like you're not even talking about the right thing.
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So let's just be very general about it.
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So I'm curious when you're building this relationship with these horses that have come with their own traumas and their own backgrounds and I imagine you give them some time to decompress and you move at their pace, you're not going to push anybody into anything.
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Same thing with a child or a young person that needs help.
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You're not going to go what's wrong with you, you know.
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You might see what's happening to you, but not what's wrong with you, you know.
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And so the same thing with a horse or anything else.
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So how does that work, the force-free animal care and training?
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And are you using treats?
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Because there's a big controversy about how to use treats properly.
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You know things like that.
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So, yeah, let's just kind of start like what does that look like?
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So, yes, we use treats, we use primarily, we use hay pellets, just because we can kind of be loose and wild with them because Right.
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So for our audience it'd be like a compressed alfalfa or compressed Timothy hay.
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It's a small little pellet so you're not feeding giant handfuls, getting too much for the horse or too sugary, too sweet for horses that have problems with that.
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It's just something they desire and like, but it's not.
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It's the difference between a regular dog treat piece of steak versus a piece of steak.
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It's just something that you can continually do without causing any dietary problem for the horse but still motivating Exactly problem for the horse, but still motivating, right?
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Yep, Because, like, if a 1,000 pound horse eats 15 to 20 pounds of hay a day, well, one or two pounds of hay pellets is not going to make a big impact on their diet every day.
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So especially, I think that it's really cool when people come to our program and they see we've got kids throwing food at horses every which way and our horses are better behaved than most you'd ever see in the world because they understand the game, they understand how to work for the food, how to work with the kids and they they understand the process of it all.
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so we don't have issues with horses being pushy or mugging the person or whatever, because they know that if I wait and do you know, do A or B or whatever, I will be rewarded.
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So what's the cue Like?
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Do they turn their head away a little bit?
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Or how do you tell them that you know you can't mug me so generally, if we have a horse who's ready to go, the first thing we teach them is stand still face forward, and that I kind of equate to like a dog's sit stay.
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Yes, can you just stand here and not do anything for a minute?
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While I move around you, while I brush you, while I get the stuff ready, you just stand here and chill and not be in my space.
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And once they have that well established where I can really move comfortably around them, then we generally teach them to touch target.
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And because with dogs we tend to use a lot of food luring, but with horses we need that extra space between us and them.
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And I find that horses, if you lure them directly with food, they tend to get focused on the food and they're not really thinking about what behavior got the food.
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The behavior is chase the food.
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So using a target really helps them.
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Can you explain for our audience what you mean by a target?
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then oh, yeah, a target is any object that they touch with their nose to get a click and a treat, and generally I use we have these dollar store fluffy dusters that are extendable, so you can make it really small, like a Swiffer sort of.
00:17:30.587 --> 00:17:32.404
Yeah, it's like a Swiffer.
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Yeah, and you can make it small and it just looks like a fluffy ball and you can make it long, so it's on like a fluffy ball and you can make it long, so it's on a stick to give you some space, Yep exactly, so you can lead the horse.
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With that you could.
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We do a lot of agility with the kids and the horses.
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So at first they're literally just following a target over an obstacle or around a barrel or something like that, and then over time we fade out the target and we get all the behaviors on cue.
00:18:03.894 --> 00:18:11.532
But it's a nice, easy way for kids to work safely with the horses, even doing fun active things like going over a jump.
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But the horse is just following a target.
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That's got to be thrilling for a young person if they've been working with the horse and the horse wants to play and the horse wants to be with them.
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It's got to be thrilling Because you know we can subject horses to.
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You know, I'm going to ride you, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
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It's all the human's agenda, right.
00:18:28.428 --> 00:18:38.792
But when you're doing sort of like liberty, we would train a dog for a movie or something, you know what I mean, like positive animal training, uh, it's gotta be just a blast.
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I mean, the horse feels good, kid feels good.
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You know, everybody's winning here.
00:18:43.304 --> 00:18:44.887
Yeah, it really is.
00:18:44.887 --> 00:19:00.534
Um, I think some kids, they they have a hard time with the social aspect of it because all their friends are going to regular riding barns and they are doing something so different, um, and it's hard to you know.
00:19:00.534 --> 00:19:32.892
Oh, we ride, but our focus is sending them from one target to another and their friend is like, well, I just want a ribbon at a show, and that can be really hard, um, but we try to make it fun for them and I think that most of our kids are here for the connection and the relationship and so, even if they don't get the big competitions or showing off in front of their friends, they really see the benefit that they're building a relationship with their horse and it's the horse has a lot more choice and control over their situation.
00:19:34.020 --> 00:19:36.509
So let's talk about your book.
00:19:36.509 --> 00:19:40.124
Does your book explain sort of the techniques that you were just talking about?
00:19:40.124 --> 00:19:46.887
Your book is called equine empowerment a guide to positive reinforcement training yep, our book, um it.
00:19:46.988 --> 00:19:49.315
We really go heavy into the sciences.
00:19:49.315 --> 00:19:51.099
We talk about the three sciences.
00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:54.346
I think a lot of people focus just on behavioral science.
00:19:54.346 --> 00:19:58.594
Um, which is important, that's how we're modifying their behavior.
00:19:58.594 --> 00:20:01.749
But we also talk a lot about ethology of the horse.
00:20:01.749 --> 00:20:07.290
So ethology is really sorry, that's my donkey braying really loud.
00:20:07.330 --> 00:20:10.285
I love it Let him in, let him in.
00:20:10.866 --> 00:20:32.202
I know I don't know what he's going on about, but ethology is kind of the study of who horses are in nature and how they behave, how they interact and what their needs are, and understanding ethology is really important to meeting their needs in domestication.
00:20:32.202 --> 00:20:41.355
If we don't understand how horses would live if they had free choice, we don't know how to make their life appropriate in domestication.
00:20:41.355 --> 00:20:46.932
And then the third science that I go into pretty heavily is neuroscience of emotions.
00:20:46.932 --> 00:21:02.526
I'm kind of a neuroscience geek, so I really love to understand how emotions work, how they influence ourselves and our body and our behaviors, and how we can help build healthier mental health for everyone.
00:21:03.868 --> 00:21:11.914
Young people must see pretty easily, pretty quickly, that if they come upset, the horse can feel that, but they can.
00:21:11.914 --> 00:21:23.344
What I've learned is if I'm upset or whatever, I can say to the horse I'm upset and I've had a bad day, instead of trying to cover it up and pretend I'm something I'm not, because the horse is going to know that I'm covering up.
00:21:23.344 --> 00:21:33.567
Or if I'm afraid, I can say you know, I'm a little afraid, I need to take a breath, you know I need to whatever, as opposed to bullying through, because we're always taught as horse people, you know, just get back on.
00:21:33.567 --> 00:21:34.548
You know what I mean.
00:21:34.548 --> 00:21:37.311
And the horse goes wait, your emotions aren't matching your body.
00:21:37.333 --> 00:21:44.641
I'm getting two different signals and that's more upsetting for a horse than if I had just flat out said I'm a little afraid, I'm going to take a pause, I'm going to, we're just going to breathe through.
00:21:44.641 --> 00:21:47.548
You know, I'm going to figure this out together.
00:21:47.548 --> 00:21:48.230
We'll figure this out.
00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:51.964
Do you find your young people pick up on that?
00:21:51.964 --> 00:21:53.366
Like, learn that pretty easily.
00:21:53.366 --> 00:21:55.611
Like, be authentic with themselves.
00:21:55.611 --> 00:21:58.055
It's better for the horse and then work on regulating.
00:21:59.122 --> 00:21:59.763
I think so.
00:21:59.763 --> 00:22:09.770
It's interesting because we have kids that have come from traditional programs and moved here and they come with that very masked defense.
00:22:10.070 --> 00:22:17.467
Yeah, they're very focused on I have to look tough, I have to look brave, and you know you'll tell them to do something and you'll see them.
00:22:17.467 --> 00:22:33.085
You know, super nervous, like tiptoeing around the horses, and then you're like just stop, you don't have to do, you don't have to go that far, you can slow down you, we can break this into steps for you and um.
00:22:33.085 --> 00:22:39.335
But then the kids that have grown up with only this, they've seen how we model it with the horses.
00:22:39.335 --> 00:22:52.528
You know, if a horse starts to amp up, we immediately break down the criteria, we make it into small steps, we focus on relaxation and just the other day we have a young Mustang that we're training how to ride.
00:22:52.748 --> 00:22:53.971
Yeah, challenge.
00:22:56.201 --> 00:23:06.490
He came to us because he flunked out of a Mustang training program and he was too aggressive for them even to begin handling, so he was never handled.
00:23:06.490 --> 00:23:08.299
When we got him and he was quite aggressive.
00:23:08.299 --> 00:23:19.790
He turned his fear into anger very quickly and he was young and he had to fight for all of his resources, all the.
00:23:19.790 --> 00:23:25.528
He was put into a holding pen with all these adult stallions and he was only a yearling.
00:23:25.528 --> 00:23:32.769
Oh, so he he had to fight for anything he wanted, um, so he was extreme resource guarder.
00:23:32.769 --> 00:23:33.972
He was very aggressive.
00:23:33.972 --> 00:23:36.682
The first year we had him, um it was.
00:23:36.682 --> 00:23:47.818
It was a long year of a lot of just generous, just conditioning, classically conditioning humans as not a bad thing we're not here to take your food.
00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:59.584
It's really good you say that, because most people will not take the time it takes to get a horse to trust his environment and trust you know what's happening around him, especially one that's off the range.
00:23:59.584 --> 00:24:04.064
You know, with no good human experiences and been around, you know horses that were too hard on him.
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