Lockie Phillips - When it comes to Horses, Obedience is Out and Empathy is In - S2 E3
Lockie Phillips, Founder of Emotional Horsemanship, joins us on our podcast to share his insights on empathy and horses. He tells us how we can reimagine horse training and move beyond obedience to establish a deeper connection based on compassion.
Lockie believes that training programs should be horse centered and focused on the well- being of the horse rather than performance. And that real change requires patience, understanding and the willingness to adapt to the individual needs of each horse.
This episode paints a hopeful picture of a future where the bond between horses and humans grows stronger through empathy and understanding. Join us as we explore this transformative philosophy in equine care and training.
https://www.empathetic-trainer.com/
And Remember, Animals Just Want to be Heard.
00:14 - Empathetic Trainer Interview With Lockie Phillips
16:36 - Levels of the Human Brain
30:42 - Emotional Horsemanship and Building Trust
35:47 - Deep Connection With Horses
39:44 - The Connection Between Humans and Horses
47:13 - Understanding Trauma in Horse Training
01:01:10 - Training Aids and Horse Communication
01:13:53 - Command Presence in Equine Training
01:18:37 - Building a Community
01:22:59 - Future of Advocacy for Horses
Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien. I'm an animal trainer and photographer, and I'd like to welcome you to the empathetic trainer. Hi, this is Barbara O'Brien. Welcome to the empathetic trainer podcast. Today's guest is someone I've been so excited to talk to because I think he's just shaking up the horse world with a message that we all really need to hear. Locky Phillips is a horse trainer, international clinician, equestrian coach and horse dad. He's a retired professional dancer, nerd, Australian by birth and resident of Spain by choice. He uses emotional horsemanship to have a better connection with his horses. When it comes to horse training, Locky believes that obedience is out and empathy is in. Well, okay, the title of our podcast is the empathetic trainer. Okay, well, that's a pretty darn good thing that this guy needs to be on our show, so we're grateful for you taking the time Welcome.
Speaker 2:
Thank you for having me. I'm really thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1:
It's really kind of fun. What the opposite of what we are right now, because you told me that you're in your jambas, which I think is awesome Because it's like 830 in the morning, and help me pronounce correctly, but is it Galatia, spain?
Speaker 2:
Galatia.
Speaker 1:
That's Northwestern Spain.
Speaker 2:
Correct, yes, just above Portugal.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and it's a mountainous area.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean most of Spain is pretty mountainous, but our area is more sort of rolling hills green country, so it looks like Ireland. It's just much, much longer summers and much better summers, Very, very wet, very, very wet winters.
Speaker 1:
That sounds like Western Wisconsin. I mean, that's rolling hills and it's like 830 in the morning where you are, and it's 130 or so in the morning where I am, and so I hope you're an evening person. Actually I'm not, but I'm happy You're not. I'm so excited I'd like to stay up.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, I'm well, I'm really honored that you would meet at this time. That's actually like that's a big deal, Because, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Well, you've got something that you're sharing. That I've, because I've been reading this stuff on Facebook. That's why I found you, and Kerry Lake and some other people have mentioned you that I've had on our podcast and you're all kind of this. She's wonderful, everyone should go. Follow Kerry Lake too, and Mary Corning and other people have.
Speaker 1:
You know I've talked about you, say I found you and I started reading it and I'm I, you know, been around a while. I'm quite a bit older than you and I keep going, wow, another deep thing. You see my comments on your post, if you, if you, you know all those people, but I'm like well again, because been around animals a long time and have to naturally be in tune with them to do my job. But you are continuing to challenge even what I thought I was doing in in a really good way, like you're challenging my precepts of like I'm good and I'm being nice to animals and I'm right because you're challenging that. So I want to talk about that, because the way we said about obedience is out and empathy is in, and that's a really great way of because I was. You know you all talk about this another podcast, but we'll talk about how. Years ago when I started training dogs, it was all choke chains.
Speaker 1:
And and you know hard collars and some people even used electric shock things. You know, and I I as a child I knew that wasn't right. I could see that, feel that. But you're like you're, you're being taught. You know, this is just how you train a dog, this is how you do. So there's been a shift in the dog world and it's happened quicker than it has, and I mean it's it started before that it feels like it's just now barely starting in the horse world.
Speaker 1:
And so, because show them who's boss and don't let that horse walk all over you. And data, data, data and so and I always want to treat my horses as well as I treat everyone I love and everything I love right, but I felt like everybody else. Like you know, I have to learn as more, want to learn more. Tell me please about. Obedience is out, empathy is in.
Speaker 2:
Well, the the caveat there. Obviously, if I was to continue that line of thought obedience is out, empathy is in it would say dot, dot, dot, parentheses for who right? So this isn't for everybody. I'm very, very clear about that. And then I'm not here to represent everybody and I don't want to change anybody what I'm here to do and I'm very, very crystalline on this point I'm here to represent who I think is the most underrepresented and underestimated community within the equestrian sphere, and that is the private owner.
Speaker 2:
I tend to work almost exclusively with private owners. Some of them compete, not many, because the message I have is obviously very difficult for people who are very much bought into the competitive industry. Not impossible, but it's more difficult for them. And I work with a lot of fellow trainers and colleagues as well. That's who I tend to work with, but they're all private owners. You've ever seen trainers talk about amateurs instead of an element of the disdain to it? I think that's disrespectful to call them amateurs, because some private owners are some of the most skilled horse people I know talented, take exquisite care of their animals, and yet they don't have a training methodology for them. What they have available to them is agricultural methodologies and I can explain in more detail the etymology around that or they have competitive methodologies and so for a long time private owners have been square pegs trying to fit into a round hole with these other systems of training which weren't designed for them, and some of those systems have made a few exceptions to try and adapt what they're doing for these people, but at the end of the day, it isn't for them. It hasn't felt good to try and make their horsemanship something that isn't designed for them.
Speaker 2:
I am just like the people that I serve. I have horses because I absolutely am obsessed and in love with them, period. Let's start there, continue there and end there in everything that we do. And I think horse people go off track when they start selling that love down the river in favor of insert reason here. That's when we start getting in trouble, and so I'm very, very clear that this is who I serve and because of that, my critics I put that in parentheses my critics would say, oh, you only succeed because you're able to heavily control the context around the horses. I say, yes, correct, correct, you're right. Thank you for that compliment. We are able to heavily control the context. You're only able to succeed. Because you're able, you have the luxury of exacting low mileage upon the horses. I say yes, thank you for that compliment. Yeah, it's about bloody time.
Speaker 2:
So I think for thousands of years human civilization has been built with the horse by our side and the dog at our feet or the horse under our thighs, and they've gone to battle for us, they've died in battle for us, and we say that horses. We built civilization with horses. I think horses helped us to become civilized, more civilized, and I think they're continuing to demand civility from people Because if we listen to them, it is inevitable that they lead us away from this brutal, chimpanzee, monkey brain fighting and conflama chaos and drama. They lead us away from that and they lead us into this exceptionally gentle, exceptionally elegant, exceptionally intelligent place of civility and understanding and incredible craftsmanship with them, and I think we just need to surrender to that and allow them to continue to bring us to civility. So obedience is out and empathy is in, because obedience at its core, if we really drilled down to it and remove the typical rationalizations, remove its typical disguises even at its core obedience is about selfish human need to get what we want from the horse. Its extractivism I'm going to extract from the horse what I want. There are even very, very good, ethically, morally, welfare driven protocols of training which are still formulated around the primary concept of creating correct behavior versus incorrect behavior.
Speaker 2:
Well, this is just obedience with a different hat on, regardless how nice we are to the horses in the process, if we've manipulated the horse to only be an echo chamber where the horse is only giving us what we want to hear and receive from them at all times, it's not listening, it's not a partnership. We're just training them to give us the answers we want all the time. That doesn't mean that the horse has had a positive internal experience, and an internal experience is an emotional experience period. So it was during COVID. I hope I'm allowed to say that without the algorithm putting you in the doldrums. But during the big C I really decided to metaphorically come out of the closet with my training methodologies because I was calling it emotional horsemanship for several years in private to my best clients only because the word emotion and emotional continues to be a dirty word.
Speaker 1:
But there was a time you're young, but there was a time when scientists or people that thought was animals don't have emotions.
Speaker 2:
Oh, there are people who are still very much in that place and that's been thoroughly disproven, has been disproven for at least 20 years.
Speaker 1:
That's just mind boggling to me, like, oh, he doesn't care, he doesn't mind Because we'll hear this with dogs. He doesn't know that, he doesn't feel that ridiculous.
Speaker 2:
That's all rubbish. I'm so far past all of that that it's a given. That's not even just the riding on the wall, that's a journey that I have, me and my people and my community. We are so far past that question. We can discuss that question, but I'm trying to keep things.
Speaker 2:
Let's see what's really really in front of us, because I agree, I just was showing you that, quantifying that Even 20 years ago, behavioral scientists discouraged animal trainers from using the word fear to describe responses in animals. Instead, they called it a negative energetic arousal or something like this. They had some other euphemism for it because they didn't want to attribute what they thought was anthropomorphic emotions on animals. But what we've discovered is that all mammals share the same neurology for emotion. The same primary emotional systems are absolutely congruent across all mammalian species.
Speaker 1:
It's really true, because in the past we've worked with some young people girls that have had lots of trauma, adverse childhood experiences, things like that we with our animals at the farm, and things when I worked with a frightened animal, there's a certain type, that is what they look like and what their feelings give off Right. When I work with a troubled frightened girl, it is the exact same thing that comes off of them.
Speaker 1:
So you can't tell me there's any difference between this mammal, the human, and this horse, this dog, this sheep that is frightened or upset, or you know. This is why animals are so healing, because it's the same opposite. So, completely agree.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, 100%, and behaviorism also, in my view and experience, is not enough, because behavior is what separates us species to species. Fear behavior looks different in a horse than fear behavior in a dog. There are similarities, but this is the leaves of the tree, not the root. The root is the underlying neurology or subcortical processes that are similar across all species, and I believe that's what empathy is. It's the ability to feel the underlying internal state of others, regardless what it looks like on the surface. So, though behavior is really important and behavioral modification protocols are important, they're a tool in our toolbox as horse people.
Speaker 2:
I'm trying as much as I can to encourage the people I work with to develop past, an obsession with the mechanical, develop past and obsession and fixation on behavioral outcomes, because behavioral outcomes, they have a last thing to occur in an event for an animal First there's an internal motivation and then it processes and then eventually it becomes external. But sometimes horses can have changes which can only be felt, not seen, and that's entirely the point. I think that's what natural horsemanship tried to make a point of 20, 30 years ago, but then it became something else. So I'm really trying to hold on to that integrity in everything I do.
Speaker 1:
Exactly. I'm going to quote some of the things that you've written because they're so profound, but one of your quotes that you've said is One day I dream of hitting my horse because they were not light. To my reign, said no horse-loving child ever. I believe we may have been the perfect horse people as children.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I think most horse people not all have memories as children with horses which are kind of idealistic. Yes, we're maybe looking at it with rose-tinted glasses, but there's something to be said for the immediate, profound connection that children are able to obtain with horses. I think all of us, if we're instructors, have stories of horses that were a bit crappy with adults, like they had a pretty combative relationship with adults but with children they just melt.
Speaker 1:
True yeah.
Speaker 2:
So we're all trying to go back to that place. Why? Why as children was the connection easier and why as adults is the connection more difficult? These are the questions we need to be asking, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:
Yes, do you have an answer for us?
Speaker 2:
Yes, as so far, based on my research and experience, what I understand and I'm not a scientist, I'm just a nerd.
Speaker 1:
I like that.
Speaker 2:
That's a great time Really clear I'm not a scientist, I'm just a nerd. I don't think you have to be a qualified scientist in order to observe the science and integrate it in what you do. But anyway, that's another conversation. In my experience and what I think so far, the human brain has three basic levels. We have the instinct, which is the brainstem. That's the nervous system. Responses so fight, freeze, fawn, maybe forage as well. It's the nervous system. Then you have the emotional brain on top of that, which is the limbic system. It's memory formation, it's conscious movement, it's emotional system. And then you have the abstract brain on top of that. The abstract brain is decision-making, abstract thought, invention.
Speaker 1:
Right In trauma circles. It's the executive, the executive.
Speaker 2:
Exactly. And so the executive system. It's about four million years old. But the emotional brain, the next layer down, is 150 million years old, and the lizard brain, the brainstem it's 240 to 150 million years old. So from an evolution standpoint our executive brain is kind of like a baby that's still shaking a rattle. It's not very mature. It needs a few more million years to cycle on itself and to edit out some of its dysfunction, and it's not well integrated with the rest of our brain.
Speaker 2:
We also have modern education which is designed to take the executive system, circle on it and only on it and continue to disconnect it from the rest of the brain, Because we don't need a workforce of fully integrated, empathic people.
Speaker 2:
That is unhelpful, because someone working a crappy job somewhere, if they actually united with their body's truth and realized, oh my God, I'm being taken advantage of, that's not helpful to the powers that be.
Speaker 2:
They need someone whose body is just a vessel to take their brain to a mindless task.
Speaker 2:
So that's part of the Industrial Revolution and this late stage capitalism hellscape we find ourselves in.
Speaker 2:
It's all part of this kind of weird tapestry that human culture has sort of woven for itself with this very strange part of our brain which builds abstraction on top of abstraction on top of abstraction and takes us often on these random side quests way upriver, far away from empathic truth, where you will see a situation of someone doing the most egregious practices to a horse that you can imagine and then they can sit in front of you clear-eyed and calm and cold, and rationalize it to you in explicit detail Enough so that someone else would start to nod their head and say that starts to make sense. But actually, if you are connected to the emotional truth of it, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This is why we're struggling here, because adult education encourages that and the way the human brain develops from the age of about 12 through 25 is increasing this part of our brain and so it's very heavy, it's very difficult to overcome, and training people to reunite the rest of their brain and what they're doing is kind of what I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 1:
It's clearly, but I think it's good, it's needed. It's needed. You are stirring up the horse world as we speak in a good way, because on the internet I'm not going to have to go into, I don't want to have slander or libel, so I'm not going to say anything, but there's some awful stuff that has been coming out that someone bravely shot a video of some pretty awful abuses. It's as an animal lover and someone who you know, it's like somebody filmed someone beating a child. It would just put you right over the edge and you stood up and you're like, hey, horse people, if this continues if this?
Speaker 1:
first of all, it's horrible for the horses, but if we accept this, our privilege of having horses is going to get taken away from us. It potentially is.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean in the long run. And I just went like, wow, and if we did continue with all of us treated horses like that, they should take them away. But the point is, the average person who loves horses isn't going to do that that, truly. You know, we're not wired to do this. You know, when I was a kid and they said, no, you jerk the dog, you jerk him and make him sit, you jerk him and you pull him. You know the child of me goes. No, we don't hurt things, you know, and so like, even as a child, they knew that that's not how we're going to get a happy thing going and try to tell a cat what to do. It's no, there's no obedience in cats. But even how could that be? And I work with cats, you know, that's my what I do for a living right, and I love them, I adore them. But they are weird, choosing, weird. They only go because they want to. So anyway, I love that with my horse. Right, Didn't one of the best, didn't Ray?
Speaker 1:
Was it? Ray Hunter, Tom Dorrance? But it was so like, first the horse goes and then you go and then you go together, Something like that, like it was a choice. It was like you're not forcing the horse, you're going together.
Speaker 2:
And I like that.
Speaker 1:
So do you want to? Without us getting into any slander or a libel, because we don't want to get in trouble, you know.
Speaker 2:
but we can. Oh, I've got no problem speak. I'm I've got no problem speaking specifically on it. So there was a man named Cesar Parra who allegedly and allegedly if I say allegedly, I'm safe allegedly enacted egregious abuse upon horses and has been doing it allegedly for over 20 years, and everyone knew. And now that it's filmed and with the recent changes in the community around horse sports social license to operate, there's a ground swell and the voice is starting to build. But when I saw that, I was horrified, of course, but also not surprised, and I've been screaming into the wind about this for a while.
Speaker 2:
I don't think I'm new to this conversation, though I think there's always. There have always been people quote unquote like me. They have always been voices who have expressed concern on behalf of the horse, and there have always been people operating in training modalities with the horse with enormous integrity and welfare. Ray hunt and the Doronces they are prime examples of that. There's always been voices. I think what I'm doing is trying to get people to simplify rather than complicate, but simplify with deep understanding. Don't simplify by making things more stupid and by making things more asinine, because modern marketing tries to get us to do that. Speak it as if they're idiots. No, I want an intelligence here. We shouldn't be more asinine and simple, we should be more deeply understood. But edit it down, take away the complications, so someone like Cesar Parra, allegedly with that abuse, is able to enact that abuse alleged abuse on horses and then, clearheaded, sit there and make a video talking about connection with horses and treating them well. It's just, it's almost a black comedy.
Speaker 1:
It's it's yeah, exactly what you were saying prior to that. Someone could stare you right in the face and say something that isn't right, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And a few days prior to that there was a video surfacing of a filly at a Clinton Anderson clinic who was chased in circles until she completely collapsed in front of an audience and no one did nothing. Prior to that, there was a very, very highly scored dressage test by Charlotte Fry at some world championship, where classical enthusiasts look at that and said how did that horse score 84% or something? This is not classical collection, and yet she's scoring highly. And then, prior to that, there was you know, it's just this revolving door ad nauseam, ad nauseam. So it's, it's my duty, I think, to take a public position on these things that are coming forward. I'm being dragged by mentors who are smarter than me, kicking and screaming into a leadership position. I really don't want it, but they're telling me that I've got to do it. So I am.
Speaker 2:
I've decided that I used to dream of being invisible, right, I used to dream of being completely anonymous and just having my little business and my horses and minding my own business. That's really what I, what I want to do in my heart of hearts, but that's, that's kind of a selfish dream. And if, if my life is to be of something of value to others, not just to myself, and if I am to be someone who leads others, then I need to take that role on. So I now see it as my duty to take a public position on this and speak on it. And it's the oldest parable in the books it's the emperor's new clothes.
Speaker 2:
Right, I'm the kid at the end of the village pointing and saying but the emperor is just naked. That's who I am, that I am that voice. Everyone else is saying, oh, can't you see the clothes? Oh, can't you? No, no, the emperor has no clothes. I've come into the horse industry from outside of itself. I've walked in from self motivation, not from family, not from culture, not from any other reason other than a love for the horse, and I'm basically an alien voice, but trying to be a rational voice, but also empathic voice and having a horse training modality that's here to serve people who don't have someone to serve them. So, yeah, it's pretty egregious what's happening to horses. It continues to be egregious. They get a pretty raw deal at almost every level.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I'd have to agree. Well, I'm glad that you know, I'm glad I, because I didn't know about it and I was glad to hear about it. I don't compete, I don't do any of that, I was never part of any of that, so, but I know that because of how I feel about horses when I go places like you do this too. You can walk into a barn, and you can, or a place where horses are, and you can read right away the feeling of how the horse is.
Speaker 2:
I'm not trying to change them, I don't. I don't think I'm that powerful. Truly, if there I have a few, I have one colleague in particular that I can think of, who is the right coach to speak to someone who's deeply invested in a problematic circle around horses. She has the right kind of tact, communication style and information and personal history to reach into those environments, speak to those people in a way that doesn't offend them or trigger their ego and is able to plant seeds which can help flee, enable them to extricate themselves and to do things better for horses.
Speaker 2:
I am not that person. I'm very clear. I deal with people who have already had a moment where they've gone hang on, wait, what no? Then they say, okay, now what's next? That's the person that I serve better. Or the people who are already, you know, have already decried it. Or someone who's got one foot in one world, one foot in the other. That's who I can speak with. But people who have got two feet firmly planted in a circle around horses, which which I struggle to find words to describe the way the horses experience that Well, I I'm not. It's, it's not my thing. I don't have the the, the tact to deal with someone who is incapable of putting their ego aside for the horse, I just can't do it. It's not me, but I do have friends and colleagues that I can refer them to, that I think, that I think are really, really good at that. So I'm not trying to be that fair.
Speaker 1:
I understand the line you're talking about because, as a animal actor trainer, we audition dogs. We people bring their pets, since we do auditions, so we and, if somebody comes in, and their methods of training is what we call force training in the dog world. You know, a really harsh collar. That's completely unnecessary, you know, oh yeah, he'll hold it, pinches the ear to make him hold it, obd, you know, and and and so we, instead of like publicly jumping on this person and you know, we go like, wow, that that's uh, you got a really nice dog. You know she, she's so sensitive and sweet, she probably doesn't need that kind of collar. Have you ever thought about, you know, because she's so quick and wants to learn and please, that you know, well, this is what they told us to do. This is what they told us to do.
Speaker 1:
These are sweet people, you know mostly, and it's because, well, this is what they told us at the, the school to do. We use this kind of collar. Or they told us, you know, you know, whatever, um, or to make him lay down, pull his legs out. That's how he's going to learn to lay down, pull his legs, that, if I want you to lay down, I run up to you and pull your legs out. How are you going to learn to like you know, unless I shape a behavior? And, you know, suggest and we motivate. But but it's because, well, this is what they told me. They listen to an expert and they think that is what they're supposed to do, at least most of the time. You know we have to. So it's education in a nice way.
Speaker 2:
Education in a nice way, but also giving people back their autonomy and their responsibility, and often people will resent being given back a sense of responsibility. It's like, okay, they whoever they were told you to do that, but what about your accountability here? What do you think about this? Oh well, I haven't thought about this. Well, there's the problem. Start thinking about this.
Speaker 2:
Like my my quote unquote career with with horses started this way because I wanted to just do this as a hobby for myself. But I was getting along with horses easily compared to some of the people I was with, and I was in some good places. And I was in some not so good places, and one of these not so good places I was in it because I had no money to be anywhere else. So I was in this place and I was watching some pretty crappy stuff happen to a horse. Pretty, pretty thoughtless, pretty thoughtless stuff happened to a horse and they were getting nowhere and they were headed towards a wreck. And someone said lucky, do something. And I had this fork in the road moment where I could either go back to sweeping the the barn, which is what I was told to really do, or I could put the broom down and I could walk into that corral and I could do something. So I walked into the corral and I said, okay, everybody, stop, stop, just stop, think, think about what you are doing. Look at the horse. I could hear your boots make contact with that horse's rib cage from inside the barn. What are you doing? And there's sort of this egg in the face kind of moment, like a kid getting caught in the middle of a crime. They kind of look up and go what? It's just like this. It's like everybody, stop what you're doing. And to this day, my voice is still that I'm here to interrupt the pattern. Everybody, put your tools down, stop and think what you're doing. Because I really believe most of us, if we actually thought about it and took the beginning of that thought and allowed ourselves to take three more steps forward with that same line of thought, we'd all come to a similar conclusion, which is oh, this is a problem, yeah, it is a problem. So, so now we can do something about it.
Speaker 2:
But I'm very clear I never give unsolicited advice Ever. It's inappropriate. I never do it. I will never give unsolicited advice. People need to be ready to hear something else. It's wild, it's been too long. What's happening to horses. It's just been too long and it's boring. It's really really boring to see more and more horses just what's happening to them. I mean, it's job security for me because they're giving me lots of work. I've got lots of work cleaning up all these messes that are being left behind horses in mess. In an ideal world, my current role with emotional horsemanship wouldn't exist. In an ideal world, I'd be out of work and I'd be able to return to my primary skill set, which is as a riding instructor and horsemanship trainer that I could just talk with people about, do this like this at this time, and that's it. And people go okay, press the buttons and it's done and it's nice and it's fine. But half the work is sort of dealing with the mess other people left behind in an animal's nervous system. True, yeah.
Speaker 1:
True. No, I have Morgans, morgan horses.
Speaker 2:
Beautiful, lovely.
Speaker 1:
And these are old style Morgans, thank you. They're old style Morgans, so ranch working type horses got to come to.
Speaker 1:
Montana, lovely, and I have. So two are coming three and one is coming five. And I get people that don't know me because people know me, do not pressure me because they wouldn't allow it, but people that don't, you're not riding that five year old. You're not riding her. You know she's coming five, you haven't saddled her. You know, hey, she, her bones have to finish one. Yeah, start there, right.
Speaker 1:
B that horse is certain because you know, I got her as a three year old coming four year old and it took months and months and months to build the connection and the trust. And, like, I'm going to be safe with you because she came off of the Montana range and her whole world. She's the watcher. There's a predator, there's a bear, there's a cow, there's danger, right, come to Wisconsin and it's all just rolling, nice and pleasant and no bears. But she doesn't know that, right. And she came from a herd of 60 horses to a herd of seven, right. So she's like, she's like, wait a minute, there's not enough of us here to keep everybody safe, you know so. But knowing it's like a kid with trauma, knowing they've been through stuff and being aware of it and instead of expecting them to behave like well, shouldn't he behave? He's going to behave based on what he has only known and learned you know, and so to be cognizant.
Speaker 1:
So it's taken months and months, and that's fine.
Speaker 2:
It's fine, you know yes.
Speaker 1:
And I love that. When I go out there she's like oh hey, you know, and like I mentioned earlier, we were gone all week. Two younger horses too that came. It was really funny because you talk to your horses, I know you do the two three-year-olds. The one ran up right away because she hadn't seen me for the normal amount of time I spent with him. So she runs up, smells me up and down because I smell like about 20 or 30 dogs from the day, so she sniffs me up and down. Now the old me would have went get your nose away from me, don't get close to me like that. You're going to bite me. New me goes I see your body language, I'm watching you. Yes, of course, smell, figure this out. But she ran up to me and her whole thing was mom, you've been gone and my sister has been picking on me and, like I said, I'm not an animal communicator.
Speaker 2:
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:
I can't even communicate I'm not an animal communicator but her feeling of like, oh, you're finally here and I have so much to tell you. I wish everybody had that with their horses. It's the greatest feeling to go out there and have them. Okay, she's not talking to me, but she's talking to me. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, it does make sense. The horses are one of the universe's most gentle, gentle social creatures. They, they have the capability of forming deep and complex attachments to each other and to us, and to experience that with a horse is one of the true pleasures and nectars of existence, in my opinion. It's more intense than a connection with a human. It's more intense than a connection with a dog or a cat. It's just like something on steroids, it's just.
Speaker 2:
And the folks who say, oh, don't let the horse get close to you because I'll bite you, I say yeah, probably. I believe you that that horse is probably waiting for an option. You know it's, it's. They're actually, from their perspective, telling their truth, but it's not the truth that can be. I so agree with you that the connection that we have with our horses is the most important aspect of our life with them, and if you can build that connection, it can form the most wonderful springboard for excellent riding and training and the craftsmanship of horsemanship.
Speaker 2:
I'm very, very clear, because my critics let's say I'm putting that in parentheses again the people who criticize the pony pedders like myself, say oh well, you don't ride, you get stuck in groundwork cycles. It's like, yes, well, maybe less of our horses are ridden because we are more discerning about which horses are appropriate for that activity, based on their health, their confirmation, their emotional profile. Not all horses should be ridden, period, because some horses just don't have the anatomical health for it, some horses don't have the nervous system health for it and we are more discerning and we put more filters in place so that the horses who are ridden truly are ready, able and willing to do that. But I want to make sure that, if there is to be a change in horsemanship, that we are able to return to these tropes, to these common activities, totally reimagined, with the horse by our side as a willing participant, truly truly willing participant, exactly, yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:
Are you familiar with the sport of agility for dogs? Mm-hmm Right, does the dogs look like they're having a blast?
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
See. So I mean there's probably abuses in some parts somewhere. I don't know, but from what I watch, I mean you know, at least in the level they look like they're having a blast right, because it's a willing thing. They're doing it together, we're going together when dogs are working sheep, I have border colleagues, you know, and he's doing his job, you know. I don't know if the sheep are having a blast, but the dog is really having a good time. So when I think that's really possible to have a partnership versus, you know, slave Abedience, forcing you to do this yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay, I want to make a quick note about sheep, because sheep, I'm learning, because I have my. I have a little tiny flock. I love them beyond words, okay, I can't even explain it. I love them and they love me. But they are just like horses in the sense of how their, their calming signals, the way they move as a group is so so because they're a prey animal as well, right, and so it's really really fun because they know my voice, they know me, they love me. Stranger comes in and I can determine in a second if that stranger person is going to be someone that they can connect with or not. Based on how can they, the way the body language is or the way what they hope they trust. It's the same as horses. Horses know right away, the sheep know right away. Can we trust this person if we not trust this person?
Speaker 1:
So I can go to a big sheep farm where they're not all pets like mine A big, big sheep farm. No, naturally they're going to run away from humans. It's like we don't want to be around humans, but if I get into the spot where I'm quiet, you know now in the whole dynamic, and well, I've never seen them come up to someone like that. I've never seen them. So it's all possible with horses too, of course.
Speaker 2:
Yes, of course it is, and I think we've all known that it's possible, because even horses in problematic systems of training, despite the system they've been living within a lot of horses, because they're they're full of grace, they're full of forgiveness, they're full of understanding, a lot of horses have been able to discern that though their person is hard on them, their person is a good person and connected with them anyway. And that's to realize, that is humbling, that a lot of horses have watched us, as human beings in a late capitalism hellscape, struggle, struggle and they close the gap. It's, it's really really amazing. Once you start scratching the surface on this stuff, it reaches up, swallows your hole and pulls you down deep into their world and it's, it's a really nice place to be.
Speaker 1:
I really wish everyone could literally have a horse or have access to horse, because horses are our connection to the natural world. They're like a conduit. Because you're exactly right, you know, because when we go work in a city, it's like 85 miles from here to the city and we cross into Wisconsin, which is heaven, I just want you all to know and we cross western Wisconsin, cross in everything right in the minute we get home and get out to the horses and everything from the whole day just goes. You know, I was out there today telling the horse. You know we photographed all these dogs, you know, and I was telling her I was like who are you talking to? I'm talking to Rita. You know she's talking to the horse because she under you know, I get it. I wish everyone had that, you know.
Speaker 1:
I feel bad when people don't have that opportunity and I think that's that's where we're going with horse ownership and horses in a human world.
Speaker 2:
Like you know, 1910, I think it was Henry Ford invented the internal combustion engine and within 20 years, 20 years later, the equine infrastructure in cities had essentially collapsed. So the farriers, the smitties, the feed producers, the carriage houses, the whole trainers, the grooms, this entire infrastructure which supported horses in their service to people inside metropolitan areas, it collapsed and it continued to collapse. Then in around after the Second World War in the 50s, people were like so what are horses to us now? Oh, um, they're sporting goods. Okay, all right. So then everyone sort of ran ahead first into that and then since the 90s, but particularly in the last 15 years, people have gone close.
Speaker 2:
But no cigar, they're not just another tennis racket, you know. They're not just the tool of the upper echelons of society to have some sort of pageantry at a polo match or something. It's no longer, you know, a piece of meat that we race upon and gamble with. They are something else. And as horses have been pushed out of metropolitan areas and they're further and further away from the central nucleus of human society, the people who have come to horses have had to demonstrate an increased motivation to be around them for their sake. For their sake, because they're less accessible. So someone's living in a metropolitan area, to get access to horses because they're interested and they love them, they have to get in their car and drive God knows how long. It's an ordeal to get there.
Speaker 2:
And so what you're discovering in the last 20 years is that you have people who are less likely to have grown up with them, less likely to have that natural kind of horse sense, because they're just not exposed to them regularly, but they love them and are highly motivated for them.
Speaker 2:
Who is taking these people by the hand and saying I got you, I see you, let's do this together. Who's doing that for them? Because the voices that are typically serving them are saying you got to tell them who's boss. It's like I didn't get in my car and drive an hour after my nine to five to beat a horse up. That's not why I'm here, buddy. So step up to the plate or lose those clients, because, whether we like it or not, those clients the people that a lot of professional trainers are quite rude about calling them, you know, amateurs or inexperienced or whatever these are the bread and butter clients that are now paying the bills of most horse trainers. So we need to pivot and discover that we need to treat them with respect and we need to understand their needs and change our training programs to be horse centered first, not performance focused and performance.
Speaker 1:
Wow, you are so correct, because I had the very hardest, hardest time finding I'm in a rural area and finding a trainer that would treat horses the way I want them to be treated Right. It was really, really hard and I finally came across well. She grew up. It was a girl I'd known as a child or when she was a child and, you know, watched her grow up. And then she went out West and was gone for a while. She came back to Wisconsin and I'm like, oh, I'm so glad you're back. She was on my podcast. Her name's Tiffany Stoffers and she came out with my horses and she's showing me some very soft you know we're trying to work with this anxious mirror and she said you're shouting.
Speaker 1:
I said I haven't said a word and she goes no, look, you're shouting with your. You know your hand. You're shouting and she said you don't need. This horse is so sensitive. You think it she's going whisper to this horse.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
And then she said because you're like a border collie, because you're, you know all the time and you don't need, she said slow slow and I was like oh, you know, I was ready to hear it, ready to let it go, you know, and normally people would have to go to her, but she's willing to come to me because I won't take my horse in a trailer yet it's not time because she's not ready to go in the trailer yet.
Speaker 1:
We're not going anywhere yet. So I'm really blessed to find her right. But other trainers, you know, oh, there was an incident when your horse was here. Get upset about this.
Speaker 1:
Still, I set the horse to the trainer he's not a horse I have now and there was an incident in the cross ties and he fell back over and hit his head and we're sorry, you know, whatever I mean, I'm starting to go like well, what's going on? What's going on? I mean, what's going on? You think they, you know they, these people that know things, are working out like okay, we're the expert. And then you, your eyes open up and you just go. You know, I'm not sending my horse anywhere, just not. I don't trust anymore, Right, that's why, tiffany I mean I trust Tiffany, I suppose, but it'd be traumatic for the horse. So, that opportunity that you're talking about, we need more people like you. We need more people trained by people like you to help people like me who want to do the right thing. We really, really do, but it's hard to find someone who's someone who serves us, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Someone who's not a they who goes. You need to. You know, don't let them, don't let them.
Speaker 2:
Let me tell you, little lady, their horses are gonna waiting for their opportunity to kill you at any moment. You got to show them who's bought. I'm like, okay, okay, sit down. Thank you. Thank you for sharing, thank you for your contribution. Love you Mean it. Sit down.
Speaker 2:
Go and serve an agriculturalist who takes a two year old with a liquid pelvis and needs to get them within six months from unbroken to working on a feedlot. Go work with those people. Yes, with those sorts of horses you're going to have to install all sorts of emergency breaks because that horse is going to have a catastrophic failure because you're sitting on a liquid skeleton at two years old. Yeah, and so we need to understand the etymology from from which the the systems are springing forth from.
Speaker 2:
But I meet a lot of horses, on that whispering point of view, I meet a lot of horses that are coming out of systems, who they have been yelled at their whole lives and this is the funny part. It's funny to me because they've been yelled at their whole lives. Then they're, they're rescued or bought by someone who's deeply caring and wants to have a softly, softly approach, and so this new owner starts speaking softly, softly to this horse and this horse basically goes. Oh God, another language, you know, I just figured out being yelled at. I just barely understood, I just barely managed to understand being yelled at and just managed to cope. And what you want to what? I can't hear you, I can't hear you. So they're using small amounts of pressure and the horse is saying can't hear you, I'd rather you you yelled. Can't hear you, I'll just wait for the command. Can't hear you, I'll wait for you to tell me what to do. And so owners are coming to them saying, well, how do you feel about this? And it becomes emotional monitoring.
Speaker 1:
But these horses aren't ready for that as much as the people aren't. This happens in the girls, and the kids that have been have had terrible trauma and things like that. Okay, they're used to being handled and talked to and treated a certain way and you treat them in a different way.
Speaker 1:
It goes up their world because, yes, first of all, because it's human beings. So then they go. I don't deserve that, which, of course, right, right, but they have no understanding. When one of the girls was living with us and my husband's affectionate, so you know he put his armor on me, he'd care about me, you know whatever, and she got very, very upset because she was protective of me.
Speaker 2:
Wow.
Speaker 1:
He's not either. You don't let him that close to you because our love is different. Right? She couldn't understand she was protecting it, upset her because he might hurt me. See, that's who the brain was going. So now that's a human being, different thing, but a horse it's quite similar with horses.
Speaker 2:
It happens with horses too. It brings that to the table, right? Yes, it brings that to the table. I say that because if we, if there's someone out there listening who has a horse out of a system like that and you're starting to embark on a gentle training modality, it's highly possible that this horse at the beginning will not prefer it. It's called the Mia exposure effect. There's some science on this, the Mia exposure effect that we animals prefer the thing they've been exposed to the most. So if they've been exposed to abuse they will prefer the abuse. It's something around Stockholm syndrome as well.
Speaker 1:
Humans exactly the same way.
Speaker 2:
Right. So horses are the same way. Horses are the same way and I call it de-escalation. So you have to start with what the horse understands first, within reason, within reason, and then you slowly de-escalate them from there. But don't start with our preferred language with the horse. You've got to start with what the horse understands and I see that a lot with my clients is people will start with kindness first. Whether or not the horse understands kindness, it's like nope, you've got to create the language before you use it. You've got to build a language of kindness before the horse can understand it.
Speaker 2:
And there's very, very specific, specific things we can do about this. But for example, I've got a horse at home who was always handled very, very expertly. He's always had immaculate care. He's not abused right, he loves people. He's not abused, not traumatized. But he has come from a sport horse stressage environment where there was a lot of pressure placed on him. So he understands high pressure horse training and handling, particularly under saddle. And initially my softly, softly approach me, just placing my hand on his neck and saying, how are you? Made him very uncomfortable. He was like just tell me what to do.
Speaker 2:
It even happened this week. I just had a new shelter constructed on my farm, great, big, diaphanous, open roof that the horses can walk under at any time they like. I've got these other horses, these rough and ready kind of mountain horses. They saw the roof and went cool and just walk straight under. My ex-dressage horse walked to the edge of the roof and went, oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
And even though he's full of freedoms, he stood at the exit to the roof and just stood there and he stood there for 10 minutes and there was hay three steps in front of him. There was hay, open hay, and everyone else had walked in and he just stood there and said I'm going to wait for commands. And I walked out there. I stood next to him. I said what's going on? He said I'm stuck, this is new and I don't do new things unless I'm told what to do. And I went, oh, and at Liberty. I just pointed forward and said walk on. And he went, thanks. And then he took three steps forward and now he can walk underneath the roof, waited for command. See, you would have thought that he would have loved the freedom to choose, but the prison is still in his mind.
Speaker 1:
That's the set. That's a exact parallel to human trauma.
Speaker 2:
There we go.
Speaker 1:
There's a window of tolerance, it's called the window of tolerance Right. We can only tolerate so much health, so much health and change good things right. Like you know, like that doesn't feel good, feeling chaos and feeling all the pain and the bad stuff happening. That's what we're used to and when we have to start so it real changes hard, real changes Humans you know animals and humans.
Speaker 2:
Well, we are animals. Humans are animals, of course, right, so there are, there are. There are only a couple of things, very, very specific neurological aspects of humans which separate us from most other animals, but probably, if orcas, killer whales, if they had opposable thumbs, they might demonstrate a far superior abstract intelligence even compared to us. They are incredibly intelligent.
Speaker 1:
They have languages, all the sectations, the dolphins.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah yeah, they're doing high math. I mean, you know we're way behind. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So, you know, we need to remember that, though we're wanting to represent something positive and a change at a practical level, when we're in front of horses horses who come from systems, to a certain extent will prefer the system that they've come from, and when we start introducing something that is a better deal for them, they don't know that it's a better deal until they know that. And so having patience and introducing things to them slowly and gradually is really, really important. And to speak about my horse again, the same horse, about the, who had got stuck at the roof. I've had a few trainings with him which blew his mind. I'll explain one.
Speaker 2:
I got him already, you know, groomed him, brushed him out, went through all the hullabaloo and put the saddle on, took him into the arena and put my helmet on and I got on the mounting block and we had conversations around the mounting block and I mounted him. So that's that. And he was all ready to charge about like a dressage horse. He was head up, was like right off to work, clocked in, and I was just sat there and pet him on the neck and he kind of.
Speaker 2:
He almost looked at me and said, well, go on, then, tell me what to do. And I said hello and just pet him on the neck. And then within two minutes he took a breath and stretched his head down and just sort of went, hmm, and I went exactly, and I got off, took the saddle off and put him away.
Speaker 1:
That was the thing.
Speaker 2:
And he looked at me and went who are you? I said exactly the next day. The next day, I walked out of my house and he saw me, left his hay and, in silence, in silence, walked with me at Liberty to the arena and he said you have my attention. This is different. It's not what I expected. This is different. That's the key. Show me what's next.
Speaker 1:
I have three old mares that were from Forever Morgan's Rescue and they had been road horses, driving horses and from a culture that pretty much a commodity, and so everything was work right. So when the mare first came, very shut down like a dead eye. I'm obedient, but I'm dead, I'm dead here.
Speaker 1:
So her name is Glory, and now we've had her seven, eight years and she's 20-something. Anyway, glory is like as happy, right, because she doesn't do it, she's a pet, there's no riding her, anything like that, she just has fun. Anyway, the young horse likes her butt scratched and that's how I'm working on getting the back feet up is scratch, scratch, scratch. Thank you for the feet scratch, scratch. So Glory was watching all this and then never in her life would she dare ask someone to scratch her there, because we don't do that with humans. That's against the rules, right, but she's watching. And then Soreda walked away and then Glory looked at me and she goes back. She backed up a step and I didn't go like oh my god.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to my face. No, she didn't scream Get out of my space. I went oh, would you like me? So then she backed up and I went I'm watching her body language. And I went how about this?
Speaker 2:
And she went, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:
And then she was like a little kid, like is this really OK, because I'm going to get hit. Next Someone's going to yell at me because I'm not supposed to be here, standing here like this towards you. And then now, of course, every day now, because she's figured out that it is allowed.
Speaker 2:
Scratch my butt. Yes, Right.
Speaker 1:
It is allowed. And I swear, if a horse could smile, this old horse with a droopy old lip, you know what Disney? They'd always draw that kind of broken down cart horse, that's what she looks like Because of the sway back, she has a goiter. I mean, she's so ugly, she's beautiful and she has a happy, happy life now. But it was like that was a breakthrough for her. Like a human being, can I, can, I can ask for something. That's what it was. I can ask for something.
Speaker 1:
It was really kind of neat Because all the long time you know can't ask for anything.
Speaker 2:
It's, and I respect the people who are within that system, because not everyone has the luxury to listen to horses Because they might not be safe socially in the environment. They're in to be that way with horses. They might not be safe logistically or financially to allow their horses to say actually no, they might not have that luxury. And I want to be really, really clear that I have a lot of humility for those environments and those people they have and continue, and those horses, but also those people, the abusers aside if I put the abuse, the outright abuse, on the shelf for a minute, there are a lot of good people who do, who engage in compromised activities with horses because they have no other luxury at their disposal. Either they don't have the teacher, the means, the social safety, whatever it is to actually be different. I have humility for them, not for the abusers. The abusers I can go push them into a volcano and never see them again. But the others, the good, but they can't do better people Because they are paying a bill so that we can do a different thing. They have paid that price and prepared the ground for us so that we can do something different and I thank them for that They've kind of fallen on their sword in a way and if any of them find a change, I'm delighted for them.
Speaker 2:
I once did a clinic in Northeast Wyoming, in deep cowboy country, at a roping where I was, and to this day I'm still like I'm amazed that they invited me.
Speaker 2:
It was a very small clinic because obviously there's not many people there who are interested in what I'm doing, but in this one barn they had cultivated a small group of people who were doing things differently and in their own way. They were doing very quiet stock work, very slow cattle work, really nice breakaway roping and really good people. And my host, he's a farrier and a rodeo judge and he was watching my clinic, particularly at the end of it, and right at the end of the clinic I was talking about patience and slowness and not getting after the horses and just asking and using technique instead of force. And he was watching, going huh, and he came up and he shook my hand Once the clinic had finished. He shook my hand and he said I've got to go because I've got to go judge a rodeo in Texas, so I need to go drive to Texas, he said but I want to thank you for coming, because you've got my mind wandering in places. It needed to wander.
Speaker 1:
Ah, that's good.
Speaker 2:
And I went. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here, and that's exactly the kind of thoughtfulness that comes out of cowboy culture and cowboy etiquette. Cowboy respect is real. It's a real thing. Oh, I love the West. Oh, 100%. So I have a lot of respect for horses that come out of that system, and not everyone has the luxury that you and I have to allow our horses to be parts of our family.
Speaker 1:
Right Time. You know time and the resources. No, we feel pretty blessed that way, for sure.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, it is a privilege.
Speaker 1:
This has been amazing. I mean, I didn't even get to the questions, but I feel like we've kept you a long time.
Speaker 2:
Well, if you've got questions, I'm happy to answer them. If you've got any that are really important to ask, there's two more things.
Speaker 1:
I want to talk to you about this question here, and then I want to ask you what your future looks like, because I'm really interested in that and you're coming to Wisconsin in the spring, right, yeah? So I just want to audit and I want to come and photograph and I want to. Just, you know, I don't have a horse, I'm not bringing a horse, I can't, I'm not doing trailer training yet. That's down the road, that's not even happening yet. But but I want to come and meet Michelle and, and you know, and that's like six hours or five, six hours, so not bad, ok, but the quote here that I wanted to talk about well, you wrote a post not to long go on Facebook training aids that make your body bigger and that, like that, was one of them that I read that.
Speaker 1:
I just went and have you explain it, but I read it in my again. I think I'm I'm like I'm an OK person, I'm doing my best, right, but I'm a girl, so that's part of it. And you know, I can get scared of horses if they get really big near me Now I got a little 14 hand Morgan horses, right, but if I was dealing with a great big warm blood that's 17 hands and pull them. You know there's a reason for me to feel like I need to be bigger you know, because I'm not making my body language big enough or whatever.
Speaker 1:
When I first got rid of the one that was nervous, I worked through the fence for the longest time because she would turn and be ready to kick, and so, instead of putting myself in a spot where I had to get some aid to keep her away, I just worked from a safe place, right? But so I'm going to have to explain that how I train training aids make your body.
Speaker 2:
That make your body bigger.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:
So some of these aids include sticks, whips, crops, spurs, flags, throwing ropes etc. Targets to a certain extent Also anything that's a body extender or a pressure enhancer, so that underneath that would also come bits, particularly leverage bits, or even hackamores. Leverage hackamores even both styles used in the Texas tradition will do the same thing Anything that's here to leverage the human. I'm really interested in what the human body and the horse body can do together in an edited, pared down way. If we just took all of those trappings away, what's really there? It's kind of the essence of Liberty work, for example, but often I don't use the word Liberty, because Liberty training these days is often just a conditioning process where they condition, condition and then remove the tack. And now the horse is doing these things without tack, but they were trained to do it with tack.
Speaker 2:
It's like watching a circus Like watching a circus and there's amazing things we can do with horses. But we know that through behavioral conditioning and using the right science and the right techniques, you can kind of train a horse to do anything. I mean you could probably, with enough time and enough clicker training, you could probably train a horse to read the Bible to you. I mean there's so many things you can do. But I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in something else. But it really started for me because my first horse that came into my life, my ownership into my life, forbade me to use anything except the most simple equipment. When I say he forbade me, I mean he's built like a brick shed house and would explosively escape if my hands had anything in them that extended and made my body bigger. His message to me was Lockie, I heard you. I heard you when your little finger lifted.
Speaker 2:
You don't need to make it bigger. Right, you don't need to make it bigger. And I was like, interesting, and so I had to train him without all of these things, and so I learned how to lunge horses at all paces, how to increase impulsion at all paces, how to train lateral work and collection at all paces, without spurs, without a stick and without excessive leverage, just keeping it as simple as possible, because I had a horse. That forced me to pay attention to detail and forced me to have a technique. Now there are a lot of people who use a stick and they say but it's an extension of my hand.
Speaker 1:
And for the regular audience, explain stick, so that some people might not know horses and visualize a limb of a tree. So just explain what you mean by stick.
Speaker 2:
Well, for some people it literally is a limb of a tree. I mean, in academic art of writing they actually use willow branches or cherry tree branches, for example. It's basically a whip. Right so that form and function Right In various forms. Some of them have a lash on the end, some of them don't. There's various different iterations of them. But they'll use it as an arm extender and they'll use it to, for example, they'll stand in front of the horse at the nose and they'll be doing some work in hand, which is ground work, academic ground work, and they'll be able to reach and actually touch the longest part of the horse's body away from them, because they've got that arm extender there.
Speaker 2:
I'm able to train horses to use their hindquarters without me touching them, even if I'm standing at the nose, just by signal, by position and by movement and body language. So there are ways you can do it without a stick. But there are a lot of people use sticks that say it's an extension of my hand and I've never hurt my horse with them and I think that's again another human rationalization which is very, very good. And if that is true, if that is true, wonderful, wonderful. But in my experience it's very rare to find horses whom have never been hurt or made uncomfortable by these tools. Because if the stick, if the whip is truly not here to hurt or force compliance by an implied threat of if you don't, I will tap you enough so that it stings so that you do it, if that is true, why not put a soft covering on the end? Why does it have a bite? Why does it have a sting?
Speaker 2:
Even horsemanship flags, which you can't actually physically hurt them, which I actually prefer, a flag, and I've used flags quite a bit. I prefer a flag because even if you came in accidentally really, really hard with the tip of it, it's not going to sting the skin, but the flap of it for some horses is really frightening. And if we use flags, you, in my opinion, you must first condition them to not be afraid of the flapping fabric. So if you're using flags but you haven't spent a long time making sure that the horse is not afraid of the flapping fabric, then you're using fear to comply or to create more forward motion. I don't know about you, barbara, but the idea of sitting on a 600 kilogram flight animal with rocks for feet who is afraid or is feeling motivated by pain and then potentially going at speed sounds like a suicide mission to me and that just doesn't feel like a productive way to use my life.
Speaker 2:
So I'm really interested in editing back these things, not because I'm trying to shame people for using these things, because I've used them too, and in that Facebook post I described an example of during my education with horses and my education's ongoing. It will continue. For the rest, of my life.
Speaker 2:
But I remember being tasked with the rehab of a six year old horse who was jumping at a Grand Prix level by the time he was five and he was sent to my trainers because he had become completely unmanageable and aggressive and I was tasked with helping with his rehab.
Speaker 2:
Firstly, we had to just turn him out with the horses for a year because you couldn't touch him. So he was turned out into a herd for a year and then we brought him in and when I was grooming him for the ride, if he couldn't bite he would be swinging his hindquarters back around to try and double barrel you just as you're brushing him. And it was terrifying, terrifying, terrifying, when all the other horses are gentle and this horse is actually trying to kill you. And I'm very clear he was trying to kill us because he had good reasons to from his previous life, right, and he also ended up being diagnosed with some problems in his hind end and so if he was jumping at a high level with that kind of pain, of course he's going to try and defend himself from going to work.
Speaker 1:
What did?
Speaker 2:
you say Five years old, I was six. So inappropriate, so inappropriate. So anyway, if this horse was in my life now I wouldn't have been riding him, but they asked me to do it, and so the only way I could prepare him for the ride was if I had a stick in my hand to defend myself. And I found that with the stick I could defend myself. And then it was like, oh my God, I can protect myself around this large animal. And that was like, oh, and that was inappropriate, because I was using violence to protect myself and threats of violence to protect myself against a violent animal. But at the same time, the solution to be kicked to death is not a solution. My solution today would be to work in protected contact and not train that horse until it was appropriate to do so.
Speaker 2:
But my solution back then, was a stick and I remember the day when I dropped the stick because I looked at him and he looked at me and he was like I don't want to kick you, because by that time I'd spent six months proving myself to him in the training and I transitioned him from a bridal to a neck rope and he taught me how to jump small jumps on a neck rope and he taught me how to ride for rehabilitation purposes.
Speaker 2:
So part of his physical therapy was very, very good biomechanics in riding. So he taught me all of that and he's like I don't want to kick you and I was like, well, why have I got this stick? He's like, exactly, and I dropped the stick. I never needed it again. But the confidence stayed in my body and then I asked myself the question am I bringing an internalized stick to the horses I manage? Am I bringing a feeling in my body that says don't try it with me, because I have the ability to? Am I, am I bringing that to horses? That's in? Is that internalized, even though I don't have a stick in my hand? Is that internalized? And Every time I'm at a clinic, for example, and someone hands me their horse to demonstrate, the first thing I do is take a breath and make sure that that's not in my body, because some horses, if they perceive that you've got that internalized somatic stick, they will obey you because they know that human energy.
Speaker 2:
Yeah they'll obey you and it looks like well then, how come he can do it with you but not with me? Because he can sense potentially your propensity for potential violence.
Speaker 1:
So he's just gonna in law enforcement. It's called command presence. There we go Right because they want you to comply right so if you bring command presence To a sensitive horse or any horse.
Speaker 2:
Now there's a time and a place for command, for command presence. So, for example, when I was transporting my horses across Spain this summer to come to our final home, I said horses, I love you. We've been preparing for six months for trailer loading. The decision is made we're getting in the trailer. Get in the trailer right.
Speaker 2:
Get in the trailer, especially where we were loading. We were loading on the side of a highway, so there was there was no time for right. We prepared them. What you got to do, you know what you got to do. There's a time and a place for that. But yeah, this post about about training aids is is not to to say that they're inherently evil. It's just to encourage people to take a closer look at them and to understand why they're using them. Is it there as a crutch? And if it is there as a crutch, are there ways we can help someone feel safer with horses? Are there ways that we can improve someone's technique so that they don't have that as their only option? Maybe patience is the answer, and maybe the spurs which create high-level collection can be achieved by just Conditioning the horse for longer exactly.
Speaker 1:
No, you know you know, these mustangs not my mortgage, but I like the act like mustangs because they were in the range They've taught me so much about, because the one that I was, because she would threaten to double bear you that was her protection and that's why I said took a long time, but now I really can read your body language. I don't feel that at all. But today Some of the fence came down it's just a web Electric fence to say fence. Anyway, I've been gone and I came, I've picking up, cleaning up. I'm carrying this kind of white fence stuff. I'm gonna take it away. And they all got excited so I let them explore it and smell it because they thought it was fascinating.
Speaker 1:
But I remember telling myself because they're kind of milk, the three young ones are like dancing and kind of getting like are they gonna know where I am right? And old me would have been, like you know, really threatened by their happiness because really they were just playful. But I went literally out loud to myself energy, I'm walking with energy, see me, I'm here with energy. And they went like, oh, you're okay, we're all having fun. But we know you're there, we are paying attention.
Speaker 1:
But I didn't go the hey, you know, like hold that, that, that it was just like literally to my head. I said see, I and I felt happy about it like you're happy, I'm happy, we're all happy, I got this cool thing you're all interested in, but I don't want you to get tangled in it, so we're gonna go put it away, you know. But I thought to myself I got to bring more interesting optics out there because that was a, this was a great game, you know. Yeah, but old me would have been hey, get up, back, back up, you know right, because I feel threatened, right, but I didn't.
Speaker 1:
I felt happy.
Speaker 2:
Yeah whole, change a whole yeah, so command presence from joy and play rather than command presence through anger and rage.
Speaker 1:
Right or fear, which there's, so fear.
Speaker 2:
Yeah exactly. Okay.
Speaker 1:
Well, man, I'm I'm gonna process, keep thinking about this. What I love about editing these is I get to learn it all over again.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:
That's the best part for me. So the last things I want to ask you about is where can people Learn more about you? We're gonna put all the links you gave us, of course, on the show notes and things, but you can certainly talk about what's the best way to communicate with you. You're coming to the United States, so you'll be doing it for my US listeners. You'll be doing clinics, but you do clinics other parts places too, right, yeah, yeah. So that's pretty cool. And then, the best part, because we have the internet, people can, you know, consult with you, just like we're doing right now and Through your, yeah, sign up. But on your website you have like a free booklet, like a whole thing, like I was reading that today. There's there's a lot of free information just to get started, so when they say something, you can look at your own heart and decide what's best for you and your horse.
Speaker 1:
I said I'll listen to them and what they've always done, so what's the best way for To start the journey with you?
Speaker 2:
Best way would be to follow my social media and then go and have some fun on my website. The website is emotional horsemanshipcom because it's not my name, it's not lucky Phillipscom. It's emotional horsemanshipcom because emotional horsemanship is a horse training methodology which has wings that can fly outside of my personality. This is not a cult of personality. Thank God that I'm building, that I'm building something that can exist without me. So Go to my website, emotional horsemanshipcom. You can find more information there, not only about me and my horses and Podcasts and everything, but you can also book in to have sessions with me. So private sessions is still something that I love to do. I'm kind of fairly booked Sometimes the 130 in the morning right, right.
Speaker 2:
So I'm kind of 80 90% full from. We're filming in February. I'm 80 90% booked out until July this year, but there are still availabilities. You can do coaching sessions with me where we watch videos of your training together and talk it through. We also do live lessons. So I sit here from my office and I teach all around the world Using pretty simple technology real lessons in real time with horses. I'm watching in real time and giving them real instructions. So I do that. I teach 50 60 people a week like this. I also have online courses which you can sign up for at any time.
Speaker 1:
Right, yep, check that out.
Speaker 2:
I also have a video library, where I put new content there every week. That's super accessible and real time, and I put out tons of stuff on social media as well. You can learn.
Speaker 1:
I learned to read and learn from the comments of the people that are kind of on the same page. They bring a lot to the best part about emotional Horsemanship is the community that's building behind it.
Speaker 2:
That is really the best part. If you anyone listening who's ever felt really alone like you're the only person thinking about this way, I want them to know that you're really not alone. You're so not alone that I can't keep up with the demand right for this, this kind of work. I'm in the process of potentially building some instructors so that I can meet the demand, and I've even got a group of people who meet every week for free under the banner of emotional horsemanship, without me there. You know they meet every week. So there's a community building. It's one of the, it's one of the best aspects of this. So come and join us, come join the circus. It's nice over here. That's where you can find me.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's fantastic, Okay. So then my last question is well, okay, I'm curious. You're going to write a book because you're one of the best models, articulate person to explain what you're talking about. I mean, just when I read your post and the way you write, you know it's like someday. You just keep that in mind. You know, maybe writing is old school, but, man, I like a good book and I just think that you'd certainly everyone would benefit from that. And then the other question what's your, what's the future? Where do you want to be? What's next?
Speaker 2:
Thank you. So I have a 19th century soul, so writing is something I really enjoy. I've always enjoyed it. So I just don't have time to sit down into a book right now.
Speaker 1:
It sounds like it. No, it sounds like it.
Speaker 2:
I don't know. I don't have time, so I'm too busy lifting myself and my family out of 20 years of a poverty cycle. So I'm too busy doing that. But there will be a book in the future. Probably the first book will be gathering the social media posts that I put together. Yeah, there you go and then can editing them, conjoining them, connecting them and and forming a seamless you have been writing a book Right.
Speaker 2:
Right, but just very, very slowly, and all the chapters are on social media. But that'll probably be the first book when I'm ready to do that. But the future, well, no one knows. But I'm very, I'm very optimistic and excited about the future because I have the energy and the motivation, I have the horses and the support in the community to take this and really start to fly with it. What's happened so far is essentially just chapter one. I have some mentors who business mentors, because I don't know anything about running a business, but they do who are helping me put together a few things which are going to really change the game.
Speaker 1:
That's great.
Speaker 2:
So the future is very bright. We can expect a lot more community, a lot more growth, and they're they're really encouraging me. These mentors of mine are really encouraging me to step into a leadership role here, which I'm very reticent to do, but I think that reticence qualifies me to handle that potential leadership role responsibly. That goes hand in.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I'd have to agree. I heard your voice. I know that other people heard you on social media and we're finding you speaking for the horses. You are unique voice and I've talked to some really amazing people. We've you know, I've been able to have some, and they're all on the same page with us. But you are unique voice and part of it also that's unique is you're a younger person. You know in this, and so you understand how to communicate to a whole generation differently you know which is great, because that's who's.
Speaker 1:
who is that brave person who took that video? We know it was a young person. We know it was some brave young person who, if that got out or wherever they would, in that world they wouldn't have a job. They get in trouble, right, but they cared about the horse. So good on them, good on you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you Well, thank you for having me here today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:
Thanks, like, appreciate it, I think.
Listen On
