Trust: Horses Make Us Earn It • Janet Jones, Neuroscientist, Horsewoman, and Author • S4 E33

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Horses make us work for it. You have to earn their trust. They're not just gonna hand it over. You're gonna have to earn it. And you can spend years building trust with a horse and then lose it in a few moments.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Hi, I'm Barbara O'Brien. I'm an animal trainer and photographer, and I'd like to welcome you to the empathetic trainer. My guest today is Dr. Janet Jones. Janet is a horsewoman, neuroscientist, and the author of Horsebrain Human Brain and her new book, A Horse's World. Horsebrain-Human Brain was one of the first books I read when I was trying to understand horses better. It meant a lot to me then, and I'm very happy to have Janet here today. Janet, welcome to the empathetic trainer. Thank you so much, Barbara. It's wonderful to be here. Great. As I mentioned, your book, Horsebrain, Human Brain, which talks about understanding how a horse's brain actually works, especially from a neuroscientist's point of view, was eye-opening, just eye-opening for me. And I'm really grateful I read it. It was one of the very first books when I was started a journey on trying to understand horses better. Been riding since I was like 13 and I've had horses since I was like 19 and still have six horses, and it's a continuing journey all the time. But uh I think there's a real shift and trend in the horse world right now to understand horses better. And um guests like yourself are really helping people, especially with your new book, and I highly recommend your your book, Horsebrain, Human Brain, as well, to people to begin to see the big picture of how horses think. All right. For listeners who may not know your work, can you tell can you tell us a little bit about your background and how a neuroscientist became so deeply involved with horses?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Yeah, um I've been working with horses since I was about seven and um competing and and doing all sorts of different things. And and I've also kind of on a separate track for much of my life been a neuroscientist. And it uh took me a while to realize that I needed to combine the two. And um once I did that, I really had some very interesting experiences right at the beginning of that kind of combination. Um people bring horses to trainers, usually because there is some problem that needs to be fixed or addressed in some manner. And usually these problems are conceived of as misbehaviors. Uh, and almost always they're conceived of as misbehaviors on the horse's part. Um, so the more that I've worked with horses through the lens of a neuroscientist, the more I realized that these so-called misbehaviors are really only misunderstandings between two brains that are very, very different from each other. And with that in mind, I began to explore and discover all sorts of these misunderstandings between horse brains and human brains. As soon as I started to um apply the principles of brain science uh and more in general, animal cognition to my work with horses, um, both the horses and the humans did much better. So, in other words, it was a very effective lens. And I realized right then this works and this is what we need. And that was what really helped me, you know, bring my two passions together, horses and brains, uh, which was very rewarding for me personally. But I also really felt that I was helping the horses um a lot to be better understood and helping people to understand um and have some insight into why horses are behaving the way they are.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Oh, absolutely. That's that's very, very true. And I'm really glad um that there's a trend to understanding better.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

I think there is. I I I really um I was a little worried when I first put out Horsebrain, Human Brain, that maybe the um professional equine industry did not want to take the time to have to learn about neuroscience of all things, you know, in addition to all the work that we do with our horses. But I have been very pleasantly surprised. Um, my work has gotten a fantastic reception, very warm um welcome from everyone, uh actually in both fields in neuroscience and in uh horse training. And uh that that has been very rewarding, and I hope it helps a lot of horses.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Well, absolutely. I I have a true confession to make. Um, when I was following you on Facebook and learning the things that you were doing, I was like, wow, that's fascinating. That's so well, I've got to I've got to talk to her, I've got to get her as my guest. And then I dig deeper and I get you as my guest, and then I went, wait a minute, I have her book. It was one of the first books I read. Like I didn't remember, and I was so excited about that. And and uh the reason I think that your books um are so popular and so helpful is because you write in a way that someone like me, who's not a neuroscientist, right? Not even a scientific brain, I'm you know, I'm a creative in science and math, and like, oh uh, you write it so that I could understand, and therefore I could help my horses. Uh, you write it in such a way that we learn a lot, but it's interesting, exciting. You want to keep going. Um, your new book is like that. I want to turn the page, I want to see the next one, because I want to help my horses more. And and so uh you are you're very gifted at being able to explain complex, deep things in a way that the average person can understand.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Thank you. I um I try very hard not to throw a bunch of neuroscientific vocabulary at people and um instead just really um you know boil it down not to simplify the content too much. I don't want to do that, uh, and I don't think that's necessary, but I do think that there is some translation required uh in this so that um people who are interested in how brains work don't have to go out and get a PhD in neuroscience just to read the literature about it, because that there are ways to talk about this in perfectly plain, simple English language.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Oh, exactly. Was there a particular horse or experience that first made you curious about how horses think?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I have always been curious about how horses think, and I'm not sure exactly why that is, but even as a little girl, um I was always very interested in the way other people experience the world and how that might be different from the way I experienced it. And so I think it was natural for me to apply that same thought to the animals that I had. And you know, I grew up with dogs and horses primarily, and um and really, you know, you can't do that, as you well know, without recognizing that, okay, what is this animal thinking about what I'm trying to teach? And why is it that she learns this particular lesson very easily? But this other particular lesson is difficult for her and difficult for me to teach. And so I can't really say exactly where that focus came from. But my attention was definitely on that issue from the time I was a small child.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

That's so interesting that you were curious how other people think. I mean, besides the animal side, but to be curious as a child to have that kind of perception that there's a brain in a world outside of your own. I mean, as a child, because obviously as a child we're kind of self-focused because that's all you know, that's how we learn. Um that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

It is unusual. Now, of course, I was also a very egotistical, self-focused child. I mean, I'm I don't make myself sound like I was, you know, prodigious beyond my uh age and my years. It's just that this was something that that I was really curious about.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So that's wonderful. What inspired you to write A Horse's World?

SPEAKER_01 9:26

A number of things. I think the the first spark to this was that I have always been interested in the fact that people are fascinated by horses. Even people who have never touched a horse, never been near a horse, and probably never will be near a horse, even they are fascinated by horses. And so at the same time, it's really interesting to me that this fascination has resulted in a number of myths about horses, some of which are quite damaging myths to the horses themselves, and in some ways to the people who work with them also. So I really had this desire to introduce the general public to horses for who they really are, not for all the myths of who we think they are, and not for their fantastic ability to help us build civilization over the last 5,000 years. Um, we already know about that. There's been a many, many books written about that, and it's a fascinating study. But I wanted to look at the horses themselves. Um another reason is that narrative nonfiction is an established genre in literature, very well established by now. Um, but narrative science is not. That's an unusual way of presenting science by using a story with a beginning and a middle and an end. And so I'm always interested in capturing people's interest in science and showing them that it can be really fun and um and and very, you know, just a just a very um forthright enterprise that doesn't have to be all lab coats and fancy names and a bunch of degree abbreviations behind our names and all that. But it's it's it's a much simpler thing, really, than that. And so I really wanted to try to use a narrative to capture people's interest in science. So I think I was inspired both from the point of view of wanting to introduce people to horses for who they really are, and as a writer, wanting to develop a method of presenting science that could be used in on a lot of different subjects and topics that might get people to realize that science is fun and science is really, you know, intriguing.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Which seems to me that you've made the whole subject very approachable.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Thank you. I I have tried to do that. Um, you know, along the way, too, in developing that initial spark, I of course went out to do some research on, you know, have there been other books that talk about this? Have have there is there something I've missed down to here? And I discovered an enormous gap in the popular animal cognition literature. Uh all kinds of animals, literally from whales to mosquitoes, have been the focus of these books, except one, the horse. And that is really remarkable. Um, the very animal that helped us build human civilization to a greater extent than any other animal has done was the very one that was left out of that literature. So when I discovered that and realized the importance of that, I knew that I had to write a book right then. And so that then really drove the development of the book proposal. Um, when I sent the book proposal out within a week, we were in a bidding war among eight different publishers in We York. And so I knew then, okay, that this thing has legs, we can go someplace with it. Oh goodness, that's great. It was very exciting. It was also terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

I can imagine. Yeah. What surprised you most while writing this book?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Um that's an interesting question. I have to think about that for a minute. One of the things that surprised me most is more of a writer's dilemma than a horseman's dilemma. Um, and that was that, you know, I was writing narrative nonfiction science for the first time. There weren't many examples out there in the literature to follow. And um the hardest thing that I had to deal with was the fact that I was organizing all of this scientific content on the framework of a horse's narrative. This is not really my narrative, this is true's narrative. He's the main character in a horse's world. And it's about his development from age, roughly about age two until about age eight. And um so I wanted to organize the book according to his beginning, his middle, his end during that time period. And the things that he presented to me first had to be the beginning of the narrative. But the things he presented to me first were the more complicated ones. So from a from a writer's point of view, you usually want, and a scientist's point of view, you usually want to start with the basic content, the foundation, and then build from there into the more complex. But True's narrative did not allow me to do that. So it was a really fun challenge once I got over the initial shock of the problem of doing that.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

So True didn't get the memo that at a certain order you were doing.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

You didn't get the memo, no, no. Well, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Um let's talk about horse perception a little bit. When humans and horses misunderstand each other, where do these misunderstandings usually begin?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Uh, I think they do begin with sensory systems, the very first uh ways that horses begin to pull in information about their environments. And so one of the strongest differences in sensory systems is the difference between um the horse's primary sense and the human's primary sense. Our set vision is our primary sense. In fact, one-third of the human brain is devoted to vision, which is remarkable when you think about the fact that we have six or seven other senses that also have to be processed by the brain. So humans are strongly biased toward vision, and we tend to assume, and our brains encourage us to assume, that all living creatures are primarily taking in the world around them and understanding it through vision. But for the horse, that's not at all true. The horse's primary sense is smell. And as within the equine industry, horse trainers, veterinarians, farriers, breeders, competitors, riders, trainers, all the whole group, um we have come almost completely ignored the sense of smell in horses. We rarely think about it. Why? Because our sense of smell is not very good. We don't pay attention to that. We are overridden by our desire to focus on vision. So I think these differences really start at a very, very basic level. In addition, it's really important to remember that most animal cognition studies in science and in the literature have been uh uh focused on predator animals, animals that have predator brains, dogs, cats, apes, whales, dolphins, uh, octopuses, um, you know, hawks, you name it, uh all of that. The vast majority of the research has been done on um animals to have predator brains. And we also have predator brains, so it's much easier for us to communicate with another predator brain. It doesn't have to be a human, it could be a dog or a cat or, you know, a dolphin or whatever. Um, but one about another of the really basic differences with horses is that they have prey brains. That's a completely different class of brain that operates in a very, very different way from how predator brains operate. So I think those are two places where there's just a very basic disconnect that we have to overcome in order uh to be empathetic trainers, to use your word.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Sure. Well, this goes this ties right into it then. Uh, what are horses paying attention to that humans often overlook?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Horses are focused on the external environment in the here and now, and their attention is designed to be vigilant for all of the distractions in the world. Human attention is designed to ignore and push away all of the distractions, and it is designed to concentrate on one particular focused thing. In addition, humans uh human attention generally focuses on internal goals, you know. Uh the the and we and our minds tend to focus more on the past and the future. We don't focus very often on the now. We have to work hard to think about the now and train ourselves to think about it. But that's the natural point of attention for a horse.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Oh, that makes perfect sense. But you it's surprising that humans and horses get along at all then.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I know I've thought of that too. I think horses are very generous animals. Awfully forgiving.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

I mean, awfully forgiving in a sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

They're very forgiving, very forgiving. And I think that's because they have this incredible capacity to learn. So they're always trying to soak up learn information, not in a conscious way, but it's just something that their brains unconsciously do. And um in order to learn well, you have to be focused on the here and now. And in order to survive as a prey animal, you have to focus on um, you know, safety, your own safety. So that's something that is very important for horses.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Well, I've ex I've experienced just that um with my own horses because my um I have six Morgan horses, old style foundation type Morgans, and four of them came from the same ranch in Montana, um, which was uh in a mountain plain. I don't really don't know, you know, the a valley, a very, very vast valley. So there wasn't a lot of trees where they exactly were, but it was very open and lots of um vista that they could see. And uh so and they were in a herd of 90 horses, you know, like um so different groups, but 90 horses and uh they were cared for, so they weren't feral, but they didn't have a lot of um, you know, bring him into the stalls every day and dah dah, nothing like that. Right. So um being Morgans they were friendly and sweet, but you know, just living the living a great horse life as far as that goes. Sure. But uh when they came here to Wisconsin and they went from, you know, lots of acreage to forty, and their pastures probably only thirteen or fourteen, and the paddocks are smaller, and then there's trees, I mean just you know, tree lines um in my rolling hills here. Those those you know, one mare in particular who was kind of a watcher, her job was one of the watching of the group. It took her a long time, probably oh, a very long time for her to trust that there wasn't going to be something coming out of those trees, you know, that was gonna get her. Um, you know, that uh being able to see vehicles at a distance, what they were, you know, except for like the the truck that fed the hay to them when they, you know, their own. And learn that one first. Yeah, they know that one, but but like, you know, um, and I'm pretty isolated. I mean, I'm pretty far from any major roads, but it was such an adaption she had to go, and it caused her anxiety. Um and I had to understand that that this was just her uh adapting and give her space and give her time and keep reassuring her. The other horses adapted much quicker, but even bringing her into the barn was stressful for her because, like in your book, your first book, you talk about how their vision isn't the same as ours. It takes 20, 30 minutes, a while for their eyes to adapt to the darkness. So here I'm asking her to go into a structure which is foreign, and then into a dark structure, even though I can my eyes can adapt pretty quick, hers can't. And so she had to learn to trust me that I wasn't gonna let you know get into put her in danger. But I had to learn that that it was like, well, she's just she needs she's scared, and I can't get upset. I didn't get upset, but I wanted to understand why, and then how to mitigate that. Exactly. Um you you you are so so correct and true on this.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I have um an analogy that uh that I like to use because I think it's uh um I think it's meaningful, and I know that it helps a lot of people with horses when they bring them to a new environment, which we humans do all the time. Yeah. Um, and of course, uh the human world itself is a new environment for a horse. Uh, and then they move around from place to place at times. And my analogy is that a horse who has come into a new environment is like an alien in a foreign country. And if you for anyone who has traveled, I think we all know that feeling of suddenly being in a foreign country. In the horse's case, it's one that he did not ask to go to. Okay. And so he is suddenly plumped down in this foreign world and doesn't know the language, the currency, the people, doesn't know the other animals, uh, doesn't know the structures like your barn, um, doesn't know the climate, uh, you know, has maybe come from a very high elevation to more of a sea level elevation. Uh, the weather is different, everything. The food is different, the water is different, everything is different. And I think too often we do not give horses the opportunity or the time that they need to really establish and understand where they are and begin to make some equine friends and get to know what the weather is like and what and what the food is going to be and how the water tastes. Um, I think that it's really important to take time for horses because that kind of anxiety that you're talking about when they are suddenly in a new environment and they have to learn it. And like you, you were perfectly accurate in your feeling that this horse was scared. She was scared. I think we have to recognize that for a horse's brain, that type of anxiety is a life and death survival anxiety. That's not like the anxiety we feel, we predator animals feel about um being, you know, uncomfortable in a foreign country. This would be for us like being thrown into a foreign country with no will of our own, no desire to be there, zero knowledge about any of it, and all of the people around us appear to be the type who would want to eat us for dinner. So it's a pretty strong form of anxiety.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting how of the different horses, it was hardest for her versus the other three or four that after, you know, uh, because I give them time, I don't ask anything. I have undemanding time with them when they first come for several weeks, if not months. Um, they they adapted, especially the young ones. Um, they adapted fairly quickly and like, okay, this is my new my new thing, and I'm cool because I like humans. And and she liked people enough, the one that was more anxious, but she's um had more experience as she was older and and wired, you know, probably differently, and just took you know more patience, more understanding. She's a great horse, but it just it just took but I'm glad I knew that because different me, younger me would have been, why can't I just get on and ride her right now? And dah dah dah, you know. So I'm glad I'm learning that that we need to give them that undemanding time where they can just decompress in a new place.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, and learn about the new place. Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Uh let's let's talk about learning and training a little bit. What do horse owners most commonly misunderstand about how horses learn?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

I can't I think our our our most common misconception is the idea that um a horse's brain is just a smaller, less powerful version of a human brain. And that's not at all true. It's a different class of brain, and it operates in a very different uh sort of way. Um, but that is a misconception that is deeply established among both horse people and the general public. And when we get beyond that myth, you know, once we convince people that no, their brains really aren't less powerful versions or smaller versions, they're not really any kind of a version of a human brain. They're brains of their own, right? And um when we get beyond that myth, then we kind of run into the misconception that horses behave a lot like dogs and cats do. Um that no, uh that all animal brains are alike, with very little understanding that working with a prey brain that is entirely different from ours is like, you know, is uh very different from working with an animal that has a predator brain that is like ours. So um I think those are two misconceptions that are very common about horse behavior. Another that I would say ranks among the top uh two or three, because there are an awful lot of them, uh, is the misconception that large size is equated with a lack of intelligence and a lack of sensitivity. Kind of the idea of the big dumb animal. Um cows often fall into this category of misconception. Big dumb animal, but they're not. They can do a lot of they can do a lot of different things. And horses, in fact, are extremely intelligent animals, and they have greater sensitivity, physical sensitivity in their skin than humans do.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Well, absolutely, they can feel a fly where we can't, you know, is easier. Absolutely. I'm sure you say that about the other species too. Um cows, I love cows, just hands down. And um, I love I love working with them. Um, I'm not training them except for for using them in a commercial or something because that's what I do. But but I I love how attached they can get to people if you let them, and how smart they are if you let them. And then the same thing goes for sheep, because sheep are uh prey animals as well, and there's so many parallels between sheep and horses and how they perceive danger and how they perceive people and how they work as a herd, because I have sheep, but they're super tame. Uh, but when I have young children, when I have children visit, I say, Oh, look, we're gonna go, we're gonna go say hi to the sheep, but let me teach you something. Let's talk about this. If we sit quietly and we bring our energy level down and we breathe quietly, I bet the sheep might come up and talk to you. And and they are so excited that when they regulate their emotions, because they're excited, you know, they're gonna be squealing and playing, but when they sit quietly and regulate their emotions, my my sweet tame sheep go like, oh, you guys might have treats, you might be all right. And they come up and the children are so excited that how they are regulating their emotions affects the animals in front of them, and it's such a great lesson to learn. Oh, it's great. People think sheep are stupid and they are not at all. How have they survived so long?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Right, right. Well, you know, it's from a neuroscientific point of view, Barbara, it's really interesting. The other type of animal whose brain is most similar to a horse brain is a sheep brain.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Okay. So I'm not I'm not imagining that then.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

No, you're not imagining that. Um, in veterinary work, we often use the sheep brain as a model for what might be going on in the horse brain. And that allows us then to form hypotheses and test those hypotheses on horses to see whether they are accurate. Um but yeah, sheep, sheep and horses have very similar anatomy and physiology in their brains.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah, and they uh have stress singles that are very similar, you know, the licking of the lips, um, the pawing of the foot, uh, they take their head and reach onto their leg and rub their face under, you know. I mean, I just um am observing and learning that, and now I I feel good that that uh I was on track.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

You have a whole menagerie there.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Chickens and dogs, chickens, dogs, cats, geese, the sheep. I love goats, but if your fence can hold water, it can hold a goat. Otherwise, you can't keep a goat in. So um the goats are are gone now. Well uh but anyway, I I love them too. I don't I don't do wild animals. I don't think people should have them, so I don't encourage you know anything that's not domestic. Yeah, um, there's a place for them, but not in my farm. And uh so I can admire them from a distance. Uh but uh yeah, horses, dogs, cats, sheep, sheep. I love my sheep. So to explain, but I I absolutely love them. Okay, um, I thought this question was kind of interesting. Uh are there training traditions that neuroscience supports? And there, and are some of it sorry, are there some of it that it challenges? So, in the sense of like there's a new, a new uh trend in a in good and bad for changing how we're training horses, it seems. You know, like people are kind of there's some kind of faddish things that I kind of go like, some of that's a good idea, but some of that looks downright dangerous for both the horse and the human, you know. So you're kind of like trying to judge how safe is that, how safe is the horse feeling, because it becomes unsafe for the human when the horse feels unsafe. So it's like you know, safety, the horse has to feel regulated and safe. And so I'm wondering, are there methods that are traditional that have worked for a long, long time that are good ways of communicating, are good? Or are we just throwing out all of that, starting all over again, and it has to be all this new way of thinking? Um then there's a lot of controversy and talk back and forth between all our positive, all our negative, all you know, different, there's a quadrant um of behavior. And I'm thinking there's got to be some kind of balance. Um, because nobody wants to hurt horses or make them afraid. But how do we communicate with an animal that's a thousand pounds and um you know has a mind of his own? And uh so you kind of get the gist of what I'm trying to say there.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yes, yes, absolutely. So um I would say, yes, I think there are training techniques that are very uh well based um in neuroscience. Um I do brain-based training, and um I also believe that we should not throw everything out. I believe that we should combine different methods. I don't think that there's any one form of horse training that is the one and only correct method, including my own. I would I would include that um myself. But I do think that there are certain techniques that work better uh than others from the point of view of how the animal's brain operates. And so um, for example, I try my best to rely as often as possible on non-edible reward. So um there are several reasons for this. One of the reasons is that neuroscience has shown very clearly that for a reward to produce the greatest amount of dopamine or to be most effective in learning and training, it has to come as a surprise. And R or positive standard positive reinforcement training that use as food, um, yes, food is a primary reinforcer, but very quickly, especially if you are holding food in a pouch or feeding treats every, you know, 30 seconds or so, or sometimes even more frequently than that, there is no longer any surprise there to the horse. So you're basically reducing the amount of dopamine that gets produced inside the brain when you're trying to teach something as you continue. If you use non-edible rewards most of the time, you don't have to use them all the time, but if you use them most of the time, a couple of things happen. One is that when you do use food on a very rare occasion for a very difficult task that has been performed well, that will now be a surprise because this is a horse who doesn't get fed treats and he doesn't get fed rewards very often. Um I also have found that um non-edible rewards are extremely effective, far more than you would expect. So horses will actively think their non-edible rewards by attempting to produce correct behaviors or desired behaviors, even if they aren't sure what that behavior might be. They will try different things. On the other hand, a horse that is trained um through punishment or through too much pressure um is very unlikely to be motivated to try much of anything because he might get punished, right? Something bad might come of this. And I think too often when we use pressure in release, there's too much pressure being used, especially given the neurological knowledge that we now have about just how sensitive horses are to touch, to position, to um approach, uh to the existence of a predator human uh near them. So there's very little pressure that we really need to use. When I work with um very young horses who haven't really had any training yet at all, um and I begin working with them on the ground, um pressure to get a horse like that to move forward is to let's let's say that you're in a you know uh 60-foot diameter round pen, which is a good size for a round pen. And so you're you're in the center and you're 30 feet away from this horse. Um, all you have to do for so-called pressure is take a half a step to the left or the right. That's it. That's the pressure. You don't have to lift your arm, you don't have to say anything, you don't have to use a whip. Uh, you just take one step, half step to the left or the right, maybe six inches, eight inches to the left or the right. And if you know what you're doing, that is enough. And so my hope is that we can reduce the amount of pressure that is used in horse training. I try, and this is sort of a um, I don't always succeed at this, but it's something that I aim for, um, not using any pressure at all. And there are certain ways in which that works very well. There are others in which I find I just can't figure out, I haven't learned yet or figured out yet how to manage this without applying that little half step to the left or the right. You know? Um, so I go ahead and do that. But I really think it is important for us, for horse trainers, to recognize that very, very little pressure is needed. And we really need to redefine our um our definition of pressure.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Oh, I have to agree. Uh, that particular mare I was telling you about the extremely sensitive one. I had my trainer um that I uh wish I could get more often. Her name's Tiffany Stoffer. She's also been a guest on my podcast. She does liberty training and all kinds of work, but she's one of the most intuitive, thoughtful, um, very much in line with what you talk about type trainers. And and uh so she's trying to teach me how to work with this mayor. And um I've I've got her um, she has a halter on in the lead and it's soft and relaxed, and I'm trying to get her to just move move her hindquarters away from me in a nice, quiet, relaxed way. And um, so I'm I start out, you know, like you know, and I'm just moving the rope around and stuff, and she I'm not saying anything, but I'm I'm moving the rope vigorously, not close to her, not you know, if something's not gonna hit her, none of those things. Pressure, pressure, pressure. And she goes, Why are you shouting? I said, That's exactly I'm not saying a word. She said, Look how sensitive she is. She takes the lead, she takes the lead, she looks at the she directs her gaze, takes the you know, and just like you know, and and I don't even she didn't say much, but it was something like move over, please. Like just so, you know, and then the slightest, the slightest movement of her shoulder, maybe and her hip, you know, and and the horse said, Oh, oh, you'd like me to move over. Okay, you know, oh good girl, Rita, scratch, scratch, scratch, withers, you know, on the stuff. And and Rita was so the horse, Rita, was so relieved. Like, oh yeah. Oh, if you just ask me so I understand, instead of me being worried about you swinging this rope and who knows what's gonna happen. And I I learned such a valuable lesson that less is less is more, less is more.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

And that that's partly because you know the equine brain is driven primarily by fear, and so it's really important for us to recognize that you don't have to put much pressure on an animal or a person who is already fearful. You want to be as gentle as you possibly can. If the gentle aid does not work, then maybe you have to take a tiny, you know, that much step further. But we rarely do that. Too often, I think horse trainers go immediately for the big pressure. And you see, I believe that that's partly because of that misconception I mentioned a few minutes ago, that large animals are not sensitive. And um, we humans, there's evidence that humans hold the same misconception with respect to people of our own species, that larger people are less intelligent and less sensitive. And it's not true, but there's a lot of good psychological evidence that this is what people tend to assume.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

That's fascinating. I I think we should have a whole podcast on that someday because that's very interesting. How we misperceive other human beings just based on appearance.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

And so it's even easier for us to misperceive horses.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Um, that's that's really wow, that's so interesting. The expression dumb ox, you know, oh, it's such a dumb ox, you know. We're right, um, highly intelligent animals. How important is emotional state when a horse is trying to learn something new? How important is the horse's state?

SPEAKER_01 43:25

It's critical. Um a horse cannot learn well when she is scared and in a panic. And um the neural wiring in a horse's brain um goes quite directly from sensory processing to the motor cortex where actions are carried out. There is no stopping point in that neural wiring that allows the horse to evaluate a number of different choices and think whether consciously or unconsciously. About uh, should I run away from this? Should I sit and think about it? Should I watch what other horses do? Should I freeze in position and try to hide? Um should, you know, all of these different options that people have when they're afraid. Horses' brains do not give them those options. When a horse sees something that is new or unexpected, um their brain says one thing, it gives them one command, run. That's it right now. And so that's why they usually we have horses confined to some degree. I mean, they're maybe they're in a small paddock, or maybe we have a halter on them, Taled rope or something. And um, when they're unable to follow their brain's orders and run, then that's going to build the anxiety more and more and more. So it is very important to keep horses calm and keep their attention on you, the trainer, um, to try to avoid those external distractions in the world. So, one of the best things that you can do, for example, would be um when you're working with a young or a green horse to reduce the distractions in the environment. And a lot of people think we should be doing the opposite: flood the horse with lots of scary distractions so that they will become accustomed to all of that. Well, all you're doing in that case is scaring the horse. And no, there is no animal on earth that learns better when they're scared than they do when they're calm and relaxed.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

For sure. No, I I never understood that. You know, let's tie this scary thing to the saddle, let's have them walk over these things they'd never encounter in real life, anyway. Right, you know, if you think about it. Or um, yeah, so I've I've always just wanted, I mean, building trust, which is actually the next question I'm gonna talk about. Building trust is crucial here. Because then if I feel if there's trust, they can trust you to keep them safe and they'll go with you. Um, people often talk about trust. What does trust look like from the horse's perspective?

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Um the trust is something that I was not able to talk about very much in my previous book, Horsebrain, Human Brain. One of the things I love about my new book, A Horse's World, is that it goes through this narrative of training this one particular horse and all of the experiences that the two of us have with an eye toward developing trust from the very first chapter. And that runs all the way through the book and talks frequently about very specific practical applications that we um offer the horse that help to build trust. It also talks more generally about a horse's need to trust, which you just mentioned, the fact that there's all this fear, and the only real way to get around it is to trust in a human guide who knows this foreign country and can introduce the horse. So um horses teach humans all kinds of things about trust because, as prey animals, they do not trust by nature. Um, one of the points I make in a horse's world is that dogs trust us pretty easily. Horses make us work for it. You have to earn their trust. They're not just gonna hand it over. You're gonna have to earn it. And you can spend years building trust with a horse and then lose it in a few moments.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

So it's something that is very, very important when you're a prey animal. You can't afford to trust predators without a lot of calm, positive experiences over a period of years. It doesn't come quickly. Um but it is uh a wonderful um experience both emotionally uh and in terms of training and performance when you do get a horse's trust because then you really can move on.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Yeah, I think if you're lucky enough to have a horse like that kind of relationship that you've built with a particular horse, it feels like that horse will climb a tree if you ask it. Yes. Uh you know, because um, and you know, we always call them our heart horse, our special horse, you know. Uh and I think that really has to do with that that trust relationship has really grown, or it couldn't be that way or feel that way. I think so too. I need to pause for a second. I'm gonna close these windows because um it's we're getting some much needed rain, and I'm so grateful, but I'm afraid it um it's a nice background, but I'm just gonna close them to help with the sound. So hold on a second here. I'll have a drink of water. When it comes to human beings, can horses distinguish between confidence and bravado?

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Well, I'm a scientist. We would have to test that to find out whether they do or not. My guess is that yes, they can. Horses are very, very good at identifying um, or I should say, discriminating between human emotions. Um, we now have research that shows, for example, that horses can discriminate the difference between the smell of human fear and the smell of human joy. Oh boy. Yes. So, and there's lots of research ongoing right now to follow that result up and see what else they will find. But um the research points to the idea that horses are so sensitive that they can pick up emotion in a lot of different ways, um, even from things like barely trembling fingers or trembling voices or shaky hands, any of that kind of stuff. But remember, a horse's primary sense is smell. So the biggest way that they can identify or discriminate between these emotions is through smell. And horses can smell our adrenaline levels, they can smell our cortisol levels, both of which are related to stress and anxiety or fear. Um, they can uh pick up all kinds of different scents and odors in our perspiration, and so these are things that we never think about because we as humans do not um identify other people's emotions by smelling the air. That's just not something that we think about doing, but that's exactly what horses do. So they can pick up a lot of information, and I believe that there are physical differences between a confident rider and a rider who is only pretending to be confident in that kind of bravado. I think horses can pick up on that immediately.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

No trouble. All animals, but especially horses, and then of course when we work with dogs, cats too, but um being coherent. We call it being coherent in the sense of your insides are matching your outsides. So if I'm my husband, you know, doesn't ride, but he loves horses. Um and so when he's around them and he's asking them to like we're in the paddock and we're like moving them around doing hay or something, he'll say, he'll say, Excuse me, excuse me, very quietly. He realizes they're like the Titanic, it takes them time to turn and move. He doesn't ask for anything quickly. And he says, he'll say, like, now I know you're bigger than me, and I know you don't want to hurt me. So if I could please just squeeze over here, I'm walking over here. I mean, he has a constant conversation with them, and they adore him. They adore him because A, he doesn't make them do any work. But also, he his inside matches his outside with them. He's a hundred percent himself. Where I in the past, I'm I'm trying to get better at this, but I'll be like, okay, I'm a little bit anxious about this horse, and I'm a little bit, you know, and she makes me because I had this, you know, I got hurt before. Yeah, yeah, you know, what not even that horse, but like, da-da-da, you know, uh um, and then of course the horse is like, well, if you're worried, maybe I should be worried. Like, what are we gonna be worried about? You know, and now you're not matching. And I feel like with horses, it bothers them more when you don't match. Like, I think if you were honest and said, Oh, I've had a bad day and I'm a little crabby, but I'm so glad I'm to see you, I'm here with you now, you know, like like if we were just more uh because it used to be that expression, you know, leave it at the gate, you know, leave your fear at the gate, leave your whatever at the gate, you know. And I think maybe it's better to just go like, I'm having a bad day, but I'm really glad I'm here now. You know, like being honest about your emotions with your horse and not taking them out on them. I mean, you're not gonna hurt things because you're upset, but like regulating your own feelings and being aware of your own feelings, because that is gonna affect the horse.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

That does affect the horse. And we know that people in order to um help a horse trust a human and become that horse's guide, we have to be congruent in the emotions that we show outwardly with the emotions that we feel inwardly. So I work with a lot of people and horses on fear. I mean, that's a big part of every horse trainer's work. We have to work on fear management, not only in the horses and in our human students or owners, but also in ourselves. And we have to be honest about that fear. So um just yesterday I was interviewed by uh at a different place, and they were talking, we were talking about that, and the person asked me, well, if you use all of these techniques to reduce um the fear that you show the horse, doesn't he just pick up the fear that's inside you that you are suppressing? And I have to explain. Of course he does, and that's not what I'm suggesting. You can't be suppressing your fear or your anger or your frustration or your need to hurry. You can't suppress it around a horse. You have to literally go inside yourself and manage and control those emotions for yourself until you can become congruent enough within your own body and mind to offer the right emotions to the horse. Because they're going to they're going to pick that up. So I believe that congruence is extremely important in this kind of work. And I think that this is one of the things that is so valuable about working with horses. So, you know, people who who aren't around horses often ask, well, you know, okay, it looks like a sport and it's fun and there's some exercise involved, but you know, it's awful expensive and they poop an awful lot and they have to be fed constantly. It's a lot of work. So, you know, why? Why do you do all this? And I think one of the reasons is that there is no better way to learn how to regulate your emotions, both positive and negative emotions, than working with prey animals, because they will demand it of you. And you've probably had the same experience I have many times, which is that there are times when I am nervous, for example, but not aware of it, not consciously aware of it. The horses tell me. The horses tell me whenever I am nervous, they behave in a way I see it in them, and I instantly realize, oh, I'm kind of nervous today about such and such. And it's something I didn't even realize I was thinking about or that it was in my mind. So I think horses have tremendous capacity to um teach us humans an awful lot if we allow it.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Well, certainly that's why I think you see in good programs, um, well done, thought-out programs, horses are great for helping humans regulate their emotions, helping humans learn how to regulate their emotions, you know, you know, in therapy. When the programs are done with the horse's um interest in mind, I think it I think it really is a good thing.

unknown 56:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Have you seen examples? Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

I was just gonna say it doesn't have to be in therapy, it's good for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

So oh I joke with my husband that yeah, these horses are expensive, but they're cheaper than therapy.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

So, you know, we I call the horses my I've always called them my sanity program.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Exactly, exactly. He's he's put up, he loves them, but you know, after 45 years, he knows that uh horses are are gonna always be part of the picture. Um I I loped so we eloped so I could have a horse, so he knew that he's getting into.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

So he knew.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

So uh have you seen examples where a horse responded more to a human's internal state than to the training technique itself?

SPEAKER_01 57:31

Oh yes. I think that this happens very frequently with fear. That um I think that when I teach students, I find very frequently that um they're trying to do everything I'm telling them to do. But there's some physically, but there's some underlying emotion that they're trying not to show that is that the horse is picking up that is preventing the the desired performance or behavior that we want. And I have an example actually just from a couple of days ago. I was given I still have a very small number of riding students and a tiny number of horses in partial training. I've had to give up a lot of that because my time is spent on these other things now, but um I I will never give all of it up. I always like to have my thumb in the pie a little bit, you know. And um, so I was giving a lesson uh a couple of days ago, and um I had a student who was riding a green horse, and the student um was having trouble turning the horse at a canter to come across the center of the arena. And she kept telling me when I asked her, you know, has this happened before? Why did the horse pick this up? What do you think is going on? Which I ask my students all the time because I want them to think about the question, why, without me just offering, here's what I think is the reason for this. And her idea was that this was happening because she had been cantering the horse all the way around on the rail, using the entire arena, and that the horse was used to that, and now she was asking the horse to turn and go across the center of the arena and only use half of it. Which could have been, I mean, that you know, it's a legitimate possibility. Um, so I watched her, and I and I was telling her, you know, use your outside leg, use, you know, use your eyes, use your head, do turn, look at the track, do this, do that, do the next thing. And I happened to notice at one point, I looked at her face, right at the point where the horse refused to make the turn and started galloping sideways down the down the length of the arena. And um I noticed that the rider, this student, had begun the turn, just barely begun the turn across the center, and I saw her eye go like that. That's all I saw.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Okay, so for our listening audience, explain what you meant by how her eye went, because this the listening people wouldn't be able to see what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Right, right. Yes. Okay, so um, I saw her turn her head for less than a second, maybe half a second, and turn her eyes toward the rail and look down the entire arena rail to the end.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Okay. And so I stopped her and I told her what I had seen. And I said, I think what's happening is that you are anticipating that the horse wants to go to the end of the arena where you looked. But you, meanwhile, the rest of your body is telling the horse to turn. So this time I want you to commit to the turn totally. Don't look down the arena, don't even think about down the arena, and don't think about the misbehavior or misunderstanding that the horse might create. And so she tried it and she got the perfect turn across the arena. There was no problem whatsoever. And so I think that's a really good example, and this happens very frequently in teaching people to ride, that they do something that they don't realize they're doing. She told me right away, she said, uh, I didn't look down the end of the arena. And she said, Well, but uh, you did. I, you know, I saw your eyes, and she said, Oh, okay. Well, she said, Well, I did think about the idea that I didn't want the horse to go there. So I think this happens very frequently that we have these examples where the horse is picking up an emotional reaction from the rider that conflicts with the message that we are trying to tell the horse.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Oh, very much so. You know, I train animal actress, so I work with other people's dogs because I only have three dogs of my own. So I work with other people's dogs. And most of the time, I do my best to keep the owners offset, um, you know, unless the dog is so attached that it can't be out of sight. But otherwise, I keep them offset because they're standing there as good of a trainer as they may be, as lovely people. Their whole body inside is saying, if I have the dog on a stay, for instance, their whole body inside is saying, Don't move, don't move, don't move. Because they're they're they want to they want to you know do a good job. And the poor dog's going, well, Barbara's asking me to stay, but my owner's going, like, some anxiety, and I need to get over there and figure out what's going on, you know. Because the dog, of course, is extremely sensitive to that. Um, and so it happens all the time. Uh, so my owners understand. I say I explain that this is what's going on. You know, you may think that you're relaxed, but even though this is just nothing, they still get nervous because oh, he's an ad, and da-da-da. You know, uh, but um, I even teach seminars on Happy Them Up, um, where people come here and we work on that, uh, on communication and coherence and being congruent, exactly what you're talking about. So, anyway, uh it's such a same thing with horses, same same exact thing. I think that's why children, when you're giving lessons to children, they're not so conscious of how they look. You know, and and uh a lot of um women, especially, I think, and they get older and they finally get back into horses, maybe they're very concerned about doing it exactly right, you know, right exactly right. And they uh they have all this tension about um, and I'm guilty of it too when I'm taking a lesson, you know, am I am I doing this right? Where kids are like, I'm riding a horse. Oh, this is how I learned to steer him. Okay, you know, and it's like there's a much more freedom as a child to like, I don't care how I look as long as I can stay on and I'm getting instruction how to stay on, how to communicate, how to turn. Uh, so I think we handicap ourselves by our anxiety, and then the horse feels, you know, and it's just kind of a rolling thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

So yeah, you know, in order to succeed, you have to fail an awful lot. Yes, you really do. You have to fail frequently and make a lot of mistakes and try a lot of different things and discover that they are wrong, you know, that they don't work in order to um achieve the success in the long run. And I think many people don't achieve success because they're too busy worrying about making mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

True, true. Okay, after all your years studying horses, what do you think they understand that humans still underestimate I think that we deeply underestimate the amount of sensitivity a horse has?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

I think that we don't give them credit for their ability to notice the tiniest little actions and reactions that we provide. Um so I think that's one thing that is really important there. Um I think another thing that we underestimate in horses is their level of intelligence. And I often talk, and my book, A Horse's World, talks quite a lot about the fact that horses rely on excellent learning abilities and superior memory so that they don't have to use logic and inference and rational thought. And they can still achieve the same results, they can still achieve the intelligence that we achieve through logic, inference, and rational thought. They just do it in a very different way, but it's been really Interesting to me to watch people misunderstand and underestimate that and think, well, wait a minute, if a horse doesn't have a prefrontal cortex, for example, if a horse doesn't have executive function, then how could he possibly do anything intelligent? And I I have to, there's there's a bias that we have here about this, that because we rely so much on executive function and prefrontal cortex, we assume that all other animals must do that also if they are intelligent. And we forget that there are a lot of different roads that lead to intelligence. You can come up with an intelligent solution to a problem in a number of different ways, and horses do, that's for sure. But you but you have to recognize that it doesn't have to come through the same medium that our human brains use. It's once again, it kind of all goes back to that notion it's a completely different class of brain and it operates in a different way, and we can't hold horses to the idea that they should think like we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

I agree. What if horses taught you about being human?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

So much. Um yeah. Um you know, there are all of the things like building confidence, learning self-discipline, um, emotional regulation. They've taught me all those kinds of things that help me tremendously in my human interactions. Um they've helped me learn how to build trust with other human beings because you have to work so hard to build a horse's trust with you. Um so that has been very helpful. Fear management is another thing. But I think that maybe more important than all that, um empathy for the animal and ethical treatment and ethical training of animals. Um, the book, A Horse's World, never mentions ethics on purpose, instead, it tries from page one to the last page in the book to show ethics. And I hope it will succeed at that because I really wanted to present. Here is an example of how we go about training a horse, and this is an example that shows how it can be done ethically, what some of the um pitfalls are, what some of the rewards are of that for both the horse and for the human. And I think that um in trying to treat horses as ethically and compassionately as I possibly can, that has encouraged my own uh sense of compassion uh with the people that I work with, the people in my life, um, and with myself, for that matter. That uh so I believe that horses are um wonderful at that kind of thing. If you um put your own human ego aside long enough to really listen and learn what the horse is teaching.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

What questions about horses do you still not know the answer to?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

Oh gosh, there's so much that we still have to know, that we still have to learn about horses. Um, the science is in its infancy on horses because they have been very difficult to study. Um, you know, traditionally, most animal cognition studies happen in scientific university laboratories. And um it is very difficult to find the money to build a university scientific laboratory to house horses, yeah. Um, in addition because of their size and because of their skittishness. So, in addition to the physical um infrastructure that has to be built for this kind of work, you also have to hire very knowledgeable, highly trained people who really know a lot about horses. You can't just have an undergraduate assistant come in and feed the horses, for example, which most people would think, well, feeding that would should be a really simple thing. But you and I both know that feeding horses is not simple at all, and that it requires a lot of good knowledge to prevent colic and founder and laminitis and these other kinds of problems. So horses really um have not been studied for those reasons, uh, and for the reason that they are so skittish that you know you can't just lead a horse into an MRI machine for a brain scan. A horse is not gonna put up with anything that has to do with any of that, and it would be inhumane to try to force the horse to go into that kind of a situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:36

Yeah, and you wouldn't get an accurate reading because the horse is terrified.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

So scared to death. Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't be able to do it. And so um, so all of these things have kind of held horse knowledge back in terms of the scientific world. And we are making there are some great equine science programs that are doing good primary research. Um, some in the United States, there are excellent programs in both France and Germany, um, and in some other countries as well. England has some very good programs, uh, but nonetheless, we don't have anything like the dog, cat, ape, whale, dolphin kind of uh group has. So there will be all kinds of new science coming down the pike here, and I think it's a really fascinating time to uh be watching for what comes next.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

Oh, yes, I agree. Okay, I've got one more question, and then we'll talk about where people can find your book and track you down and all that good stuff. Um if you could leave horse owners with one practical piece of advice, what would it be? Slow down. So I have to laugh because I'm a frantic person, just my energy level. Like to always think I'm gonna eat them and I have to really slow down around them. Um yes. Oh, it just it makes me laugh because I struggle. I get it, you know. So please, please elaborate.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

Yeah, everybody struggles. Um, this is a really common problem between humans and horses that uh humans being focused on the future and on the internal goals are constantly thinking about what has to be done next. I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna ride this horse. Okay, great. But right after that, I have to pick the kids up from school, I have to make dinner, I forgot to buy the particular ingredient at the grocery store that is necessary. Um, this morning I'm feeding my horses. I kind of glance and notice that that um this horse doesn't seem to be eating very well, but my I have to be at the office by 8 a.m. So I have to leave right now and worry about this other thing later. That is not how it works with horses. And um the I think that is the number one problem that I see when when people work with horses and when they come to me with questions and concerns about what's going on in their relationship, their team between the horse and the human, that they um they are in a big hurry, and they don't often even realize it. And so I have to remind them this horse has a different brain than you have, he can't do all this at warp speed, and the only thing that all the speed encourages in him is fear and nervousness. Why is there all this pressure? Because again, the horse's definition of pressure is much different than the human definition of pressure. You don't have to press much at all to get a horse to respond to it. Um, so I think that's the biggest thing. If I had to boil it all down to one thing, I would say slow down.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Oh my gosh, that's so, so true. All right, well, now how how do we find your new book, um, A Horse's World, and uh your old your other book, which is like was eye-opening, and uh uh how do if somebody wants to um you know uh connect with you, like on Facebook, where do we find your social media? Just go ahead and give us the whole thing. We will add all these to the show notes as well, but uh, I'd love to have you explain.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

Okay, that's great. Um, probably the easiest way to learn more about me and my work is to go to my website, which is uh janetones.com. And um from the website, you can go to my Facebook page, you can go to my Instagram and um see the things that I'm doing that are pretty up to date. I update those more frequently than I update the website, but the website also contains uh interviews, um, book reviews, quotes, uh all kinds of different things. Films, um uh film clips, um a lot of different things that people will find useful. And then if you're interested in um buying either book, you can get um them and in any of the foreign translations um from my website also. You can go there. Uh, Horsebrain Human Brain is now available in nine different languages, and I think all of them are available through the website. Um, but you can also go to any online bookseller or any physical bookstore and uh buy these books. The new book, A Horse's World, uh, is subtitled A Neuroscientist's Journey into the Equine Mind. And it is available for pre-order now at any of those locations. Okay. And then on June 23rd, it will be released to the public. And um I hope everybody likes it and I hope you'll learn more about horses.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:00

Oh, I'm I'm sure they will. And um, when when the public has access to a book like yours, I think it's just better for the horse world in general. It's better for the horses. The work you're doing just helps people be better for their horses, and so we're grateful. Sorry, Mike. We're grateful for that very much. So thank you so much. Uh the whining is a disclaimer. I have to have a disclaimer. That whining, that is my Australian terrier saying, All right, all right, this has gone on. Um, Janet, thank you so, so much. We are so grateful that you took the time to speak with us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

Thank you, Barbara. I enjoyed every minute and uh good luck to you with your work. I'm excited to learn more about the animal actors that you work with. I think that must be a lot of fun. It's pretty great. Good.