Paula Curtis (00:35)
So welcome everybody. My name is Paula Curtis and this is my husband Jack and we're here today with Wes Taylor to talk a little bit about his science-based training that he's been doing. He's out in Utah and for the last 10 years he's been working with Wild Mustangs, himself and his wife Cami on their ranch and we're gonna hear a little bit more about his methods and the things that he's learned. So welcome today Wes. Thank you. All right, thank you guys for having me. It's a pleasure to be a part of your group and with your network. So thanks for having us.
Yeah, well, you're welcome. It's been great, great to have you on board. So tell us a little bit about your story and how you got into a science based horsemanship and what that's done for you in your training of the Mustangs and that sort of thing. Absolutely. I'll try to kind of box it down into the reader's digest version. But basically, 10 years ago, in kind of 08 and 09, I had a pretty
kind of hard reality check in my life and my business and what I was doing quickly got gobbled up in that financial crisis that we had in 2009. so, recovering from that, I was really just thinking, I don't want to get back into business. I want to do something, something that's more fulfilling, know, something that just, I didn't want to get back into my old business of what I was doing. So somehow I found my way to adopting a couple of wild horses and Mustangs.
And at the time, I wasn't, I was by no means a trainer or anything. did nothing about horses other than, you know, I can sit on a horse and kind of look good and head down the trail and I could do right and left. You know, I could get around, but I wasn't a trainer or didn't want to be. But I found myself with a lot of time on my hands because I'd lost my business. We'd had to, you know, move out of our house. We couldn't afford to live in the house that we were in anymore. And so we were really, my wife and I and my family were going through a
a pretty significant kind of reset in life. so we ended up at my grandfather's ranch property. He had recently passed away. So we were able to work out a deal with the family to move into his house and kind of live there. so I went and as any good horse person should start out, right? A really green horse person should go adopt a really wild horse. That's a super, super way. Don't do that. No, I'm kidding. You're not the only one that's done that.
I know, but that's what happened. I was just really kind of lost in my life and didn't know what I wanted to do. And I just decided I wanted to do something with horses. And that just, I always felt good when I was around horses. I thought, I don't know what I want to do, but I'm just going to stay with horses. Let me find that. And so I adopted these two wild horses from the BLM and brought them back to my grandfather's place. honestly, in all honesty and all fairness to horsemen everywhere and to the horse,
I spent an entire year just hanging out with those wild horses, just trying to figure out how do we do this? How do we create this relationship? How do we come together and not kill each other and not get hurt and not be scared? And how does this work? And honestly, I struggled and struggled for a long time. I did what everybody else does, right? We go watch some YouTube videos and like, hey, there's a little something and...
and then I'd go try that out with the horse and then I'd go watch another YouTube video and go try that out. And so that was kind of my evolution of learning and that went on for five years. I just spent those five years just really trying to figure things out. And then I come across a guy by the name of Dr. Steven Peters and he's a neuroscientist. And so this is where I kind of got the science starting to come into play. And he's a â
He's a human brain doctor, so he specializes in human brains and functionality, and he's spent his entire career working on that. But he also has a passion and a love for horses, and specifically even Mustangs. And so I kind of bumped into him, and we got together and had some conversations. And he started to share with me a little bit about how the equine brain works from a scientific standpoint. And that...
just started to change everything. The more info I got from him, the more I was really experimenting and playing with that. And so that was about five years ago from today. And so for the last five years, I've really been exploring and perfecting and understanding this science. Dr. Peters says this, and then I would go home and apply that to the horse and try to get inside my horse's brain, so to speak, and figure out what that meant.
Anyway, so it's been five years of exploring that. And then in the last three years, Dr. Peters and I have been kind of co-presenting at some different horse expos and fairs and summits that way with his research and my application of it. And so that's kind of a quick story of how we got to where we are today. And to now, I've designed my own kind of horsemanship program based off of that scientific knowledge of what's happening.
at a neurochemical level in the horse. What's their autonomic nervous system doing? How's it reading what's going on and then applying pressure, release, timing, rhythm, balance, all of that still applies into it. But I'm just following a lot more from a scientific neurochemical what's going on in that horse's head. So, right. That's kind how we got here. yeah. That's great. That is great. How cool.
And so what have been your biggest like aha moments when you started making this shift from what you were doing to applying the science to your horses and and what changes did you notice as you started started applying these things? For sure and one of the Dr. Peters would would share information with me and one of his things he would always say is don't just believe me take this home and go ask your horse you know go
go do this with your horse and let your horse tell you what's really going on. then, you know, that's so some of the biggest aha moments or what I've really learned from this is understanding and reading the horse so much better, so much more subtly. And what we've kind of come down to as far as a, you know, the pinpoint or what is the real thing here is every horse is just constantly asking the question, you know,
neurochemically in their mind from an instinctive base, am I safe? That question is just a constant, everything that we're doing with the horses, that's the constant neurochemical question in the horse's mind is, am I safe? So one of the biggest ah-has that I've kind of got out of this is me being able to influence those chemicals in the horse's brain to answer that question so that the horse can say, I am safe.
and then we can go to the next thing, but then the question comes up again, and now we got to answer it again. And so really it's just become a series of how can I answer that question effectively enough times for this horse, you the caution comes down, you know, the curiosity starts to come up and then things start to really work from there. So discovering that one thing of am I safe? And then
being able to answer that at a neurochemical level, not from a mechanical level, meaning, you know, do this maneuver, do that maneuver. Those are part of it, but understanding the chemistry change in the brain is what really makes that happen. And a couple of chemicals that end up that we're working with, like cortisol is stress and worry, and that's in the sympathetic nervous system. So as humans, we work the same way.
That's probably even one of the bigger ah-has is we're now applying this into human relationships. And my wife and I are talking all the time and she has the same question, am I safe? Right? whatever we're doing, and I'm, so I'm kind of asking that same question of myself and with my wife or the people that I'm working with. We all have that same question in life, am I safe? And so I'm just learning to answer that more and more for the horses and now also with us humans.
Cortisol is stress and worry, sympathetic nervous system, and then with horses, that's where the reactions live. They like to hang out when they're stressed and worried, and the horse is anxious. That's when the reactions come to the surface. When we can transition the horse into the parasympathetic nervous system, rest, relax, restore, when their stomach's turned on and they're relaxed, then that's where the horse can be so much more responsive.
Right, difference between reactions and responses is huge. And the difference between those two is answering the question, am I safe? Because if the horse can be answered, am I safe? I'll get a response. If the horse can't answer, am I safe? We get a reaction. Neurochemically, to me, that's just huge. Because now it takes me, the trainer, out of the way. It takes kind of the horse out of the way. Now we're just dealing with neurochemicals.
Right. It's really cool, because I think that's so truth truthful, or you know, that that's such a deep truth in any relationship is that safety factor. And when you're safe, be it with somebody or with your horse feeling safe with you. Now you can have true meaningful conversation. But if you if you are in a place where you're trying to be protective, and you're just
taking care of self, right? Self preservation. And that can be a little bit of self preservation or a lot depending on the situation, right? But there's not the depth of the conversation cannot be there. What comes out of the conversation is not going to be nearly as much if that safety is in question. Right. And I mean, and so many great horsemen, what are they always talking about? Self preservation, a horse, right? So this, you're putting the science explanation behind it.
where this is something that's known, you're just explaining it more from a science level. And I mean, I would say on one side, you've got reaction and on one side, you've got reasoning. And so you bring that horse over to the reasoning side. So we're always talking about trying to get their mind, but you're explaining sort of the science and sort of the chemical end behind the reasoning side. So it's absolutely clear that, yeah. Yeah, it's really right on, Jack. think that's.
probably one of the biggest things I hear even from my clients or the people that I work with or if I'm presenting somewhere, the science just kind of adds the common sense to what we've heard a lot in horsemanship, right? There's lots of little phrases that are kind of magical rhythms and rhymes that we have a feel of what that is, but why not totally understand what that means? But that's a perfect example, Jack, of what you said, that the reasoning side, the reasoning side is
the parasympathetic nervous system. The horse just got a release of dopamine and some serotonin, which brings the horse into a relaxed, more engaging type conversation with us. So science just puts some good common sense meaning behind all of these. I can't get around that the science takes the whispering out of horse whispering and it just makes it into common sense. And that's the fun part, I think, is it really just does add that to it.
Exactly. And then also people tend to personify their horse because they think horses are like themselves, if that makes sense. And so again, the science behind it sort of gets people to understand these horses aren't necessarily, there are some similarities between humans, but they're not people either. And so here's what's going on. And now you have a better way to go at this and sort of teach this and understand this.
So I like that concept as well. Absolutely. There's a lot of similarities. then as probably even more important is really understanding how we're different so that we can get us humans out of the way. Because we can get kind of too in the way thinking, if we anthropomorphize too many things onto our horse, boy, now we're really getting in the way. We're really causing the breakdown in communication rather than building
that communication. you know, another kind of key factor that science is really proving with the horses that has really helped to understand and help my clients a bunch is that the horse's brain operates from a standpoint of everything is a proven, everything is a threat until proven otherwise. So we might go walking up to our horse with the same saddle blanket that we've used for the last 25 days, but your horse can't
reason they can't think forward in time to know and look and go, hey, that's the same saddle blanket that Jack brought out yesterday. I'm safe, right? Their brain doesn't work that way. They see you come with the saddle blanket and all they see is pressure. And the question pops up, am I safe? Well, when we can slow down, right? And you guys talk about this, we all do as horsemen, you the more we can slow down. So if we can slow down and let that horse
have an experience, The whiskers or the vibri-sci that are on the muscle of our horses, every one of those, those are called vibri-sci, and every one of those has its own separate blood supply and has its own nerve cells going to them. So when we come up with that saddle blanket, if we'll just pause for a moment and let that horse get curious, you know, and just touch that saddle blanket, you know, we hear a lot that they want to smell the saddle blanket. Well, they smelled it, you know.
25 feet away, but when it's up close right there, those vibri-sci, they want to touch. Because those whiskers, those vibri-sci is how they, you know, is this rough, smooth, hot, cold, prickly, alive, dead, squishy, you know, what is this thing? And once they can kind of have that touch with those vibri-sci, then that question can get answered. And you'll watch your horses pause for a moment, and then they'll lick and chew. If you wait a little minute, they'll lick and chew.
And that licking and chewing is that transition back to the parasympathetic nervous system. The stomach gets turned back on. The salvatory glands get activated in the mouth. And that causes that licking and chewing. And that's a great indicator that your horse is transitioning into that parasympathetic, the reasoning side, the responsive side, the thinking side of the brain. All of those things that we have in the industry, science is just able to tell us, the horse is, know,
got turned back on. Because when you're in fight-flight mode, your body doesn't need to worry about, let's digest the last 10 pounds of hay we just ate. No, your body's in fight-flight. Let's get the heck out of here. And so when your horse can relax and get back onto that reasoning side, like you said, Jack, that licking and chewing, and then they calm down, and they'll take a big breath. They'll lower their head. Their ears will lay back a little bit. Their eyes get softer. All of those things as the horse coming back into a relaxed state of
I am safe. And then serotonin, and serotonin really starts to happen right there. And that serotonin balances the emotions in the horse. And I'm not going to go deep into how many emotions the horse has. I'm pretty simple. They're either fearful or they're safe. Those are kind of where I hang out because that's pretty simple. So that serotonin balances emotions in the horse. And that's where the horse can transition and get a lot safer in its mind and a lot less fearful.
But as you guys know, that takes time, right? We gotta slow down a little bit. We gotta pause for 30 seconds or two minutes or whatever that is and let that transition happen. then that's, so that's how those chemicals can really work for us and kinda how they can work against us, right? Right. Yeah, I love it because that, that explain, you sort of went into the direction I was gonna ask with licking and chewing and even things like,
when people always see horse nose when the electric fence is turned on, how do they know? And I'm like, well, they sense it, right? But you got into why, you know, and how that works. And that's just, that helps people understand why horses are as perceptive as they are. And I think that's great. Right. They're extremely, and you know, that question in their mind of, you know, everything is a threat until proven otherwise. When we can really take a look at that, because us humans,
We got this prefrontal cortex, right? This is where we label things, we plan things, we have expectations, we have judgments. We had a million words that we put on things and we say what things are. Horses don't have any of that. So anytime something is new in their environment, it's just a simple question. Am I safe? Period. That's it. We've got to kind get out of the way and let them have that time to find that answer and relax to it.
Right, right. Yeah, and I like how you use it just as that one simple question because I think it's so overwhelming if we if we start to take in too many ideas and perspectives on where the horse is at and that is so true. It's like that is their main question. Am I safe? Yeah. that question is answered, it really opens up the door to a lot of possibilities in your training and your communication and what you can do with your horse and
And I think that's really cool that you talk about, just answer that question, am I safe? And then I love how you say take the time because that's factor that's really hard. And now that we're all in quarantine, I think a lot of people are fighting themselves with a little more time. Absolutely. I had a client just last week call me and she says, can't get my horse down the road away from my barn. so anyway, I went out to her place there and she's talking to me and explaining the setup and she goes,
Well, I don't know if she's afraid of my neighbor's car up there or the trash cans that are over there on that side of the house. And then there's the dog up there that's barking. And she's like, I'm not sure what it is that she's afraid of. And I go, well, let's back this up and let me watch what you do and we'll go from there. And so what she started to do was just kind of quickly saddle up. She was just brushing and throwing the saddle on and getting ready to go and was going to head up the road. And I said, â OK.
Great, let's back this up a little bit. I want you to watch me saddle up your horse now. And I would slow down and take a break in between each thing. I'd brush four or five strokes on that side of the horse and then back up and just stand there and wait a minute. Sure enough, that horse would put its head down and lick and chew and I'd do the other side. So what the difference between her and I was, I was answering that horse's question every step. I wasn't waiting till I got up the road to the pressure point to find out.
I could see that that horse had questions all along the way, so we just slowed everything way down. And that horse licked and chewed. I count how many times a horse licks and chews in all of my trainings or whatever I'm doing. And that horse licked and chewed about 15 times before I got the saddle on. And when she did it, that horse licked and chewed zero times before the saddle got on. So she was getting on a much more worried horse.
a horse that hadn't had the question answered of, I safe? And she was going to ready to head down the road. Well, I'd answered that question kind of, so to speak, 15 times before I got in the saddle. And so when we started headed down the road, as you can imagine, we had different experiences. Her horse was very cautious about heading down the road. And by the time I got the horse headed down the road, that horse was like, man, I already know I'm safe. Where are we going? And then we could just start going down the road.
you know, her, her brains was kind of talking about human brains. She was identifying, you know, is it the car, is it the dog, is it the garbage cans? Right. And the horse can't logically think, but the horse is scared of everything, right? So it's everything. But if that horse can feel safe, then it's nothing. Exactly. And so it was a huge kind of aha for her to go, â my gosh. So if I start with my horse, nice and calm and relaxed, I'll get where I'm going. Nice and calm and relaxed.
That's the idea, yes. That's what we want to have here, right? We want us humans to be nice and calm and relaxed as well, because as you guys know, our horses will, they read us, right? They read us at a core kind of energetic level, because again, everything's a threat until proven otherwise, including us. So if I'm...
anxious and worried about riding my horse down this road and I'm like, my gosh, it's the garbage can. I know my horse is gonna have a meltdown at the garbage can. your horse felt that as soon as you had that thought, your horse is like, we're worried. my gosh, what's the problem down the road? Okay, I agree. Let's be really worried. And then all of a sudden, everything is a concern. they connect a lot with us and it makes a huge difference in our cortisol levels.
our stress levels, right? That's why horses are so good at therapy is they really connect with where we are, not where we say we are. Right? And that's kind of the anthropomorphic side too is we'll even tell ourselves, hey, no, I'm fine. I'm good. Today's time I'm so relaxed. And then, right, we go out with our horse and boom, we have all these problems. Now we weren't really relaxed either. We weren't in that calm, quiet place that we wanted our horse to be at. Exactly.
The real, the real, the horse is real and they tell us how we are that day. And maybe that's why we're all attracted to horses because it's, it's real. Yeah. Right. And they don't, and horses really don't, they really don't lie. Right. You know exactly where they are that day, where they stand that day and make so much sense. know, people will say something like, well, horse never forgets. If you have a bad experience, that horse doesn't forget. And I'll tell people, say, well, I think of it like the horse has an emotional memory.
Now I'm probably oversimplifying that statement and you could probably, you you're going way more in depth in regards to that sort of emotional memory, but that's just an easy way for me to explain to people how that works and how horses do remember, but maybe they don't remember that exact experience in pictures. They just might remember the way they felt about that person then. Right? So they see 20 years later and there it is again, there's the feelings again and that emotional memory.
comes back to the horse. But I appreciate the way you explain. Absolutely, I see that in trailer loading is one of those experiences that if a horse has struggles with trailer loading for whatever reason the first time and I unfortunately I see this or I hear this a lot that well we just need more pressure right to get that horse into the trailer so then I see
you know, we might run the rope up through the trailer and out and, you know, tie it off onto something or we might see two, three, five people, you know, behind the horse like pressure, you know, and really trying to just push that horse into the trailer because our human mind works, says this, right? The human mind says, â if the horse would just get in the trailer, he would see that it's safe and fine, right? That's the human logic, because we can think forward in time.
Our mind says, oh, we just got to get him in the trailer and then he'll see that it's fine. I've got hay in there. There's water in there. I've got treats in there. I've got all these things. It'll be great. And he's just got to get in there and experience that. Right. That's the human side. And then here's the horse. The horse walks up to it and is like a dark, scary cave full of predators. No way am I going in there. Right. So your horse stops, you know, 10 feet, 15 feet, 25 feet from the trailer, wherever.
wherever the brain trips into caution and says, I'm not safe. So that's where the horse's feet will stop. So from that point on, it's just a matter of answering that question of safety. So this emotional memory that you're talking about, Jack. So if we just pressure that horse into the trailer, and then we get back out, and then the next time we come up, it's like, well, this horse is really hard to trailer load. know, I need two or three people, and he's getting better. But you know, we still got to have four or five people to get him in.
and that horse just keeps getting pressured into the trailer, you're exactly right. What ends up happening is that horse starts associating. So it starts walking up to the trailer and it's like, caution, feet stop. And then it's like, â yeah, I've been here before. This is where the pressure gets turned up and up. So the horse just automatically, the nervous system just starts building pressure and cortisol, stress and worry. And then for sure, every time that horse gets presented with that same
kind of a visual setup, right? Every time the horse gets asked to walk into an ambush, into a cave, walk into a slot canyon, it's mind just says, oh my gosh, and now a whole bunch of pressure is gonna come. And then we do what we do, and sure enough, a whole bunch of pressure comes, and the horse is like, I knew it, I knew that pressure was gonna come, and so they just build and build and build. And then that's, like you're saying, Jack, that's how that, so that neurochemistry just kind of starts to get recorded.
in the horse's mind. And so when the horse starts feeling stressed and worried, instead of down regulating or self regulating and coming down, the horse feels that pressure and starts up regulating because that's what we've taught it, right? Cause we keep adding more pressure. So that's how that emotional memory starts happening. It's not that the horse looks at it and goes, oh, and now I'm going to have, you know, five young who's behind me, push me in this trailer. The horse just says, I feel pressure.
And when I feel pressure, what works? Mother nature says, worry more. And so then more and then more and then more and to where that becomes that horse's emotional pattern. And then they just keep doing that over and over and over. The really cool part is we can take science and walk that horse up to the trailer and wherever their feet stop, right? Wherever caution gets them to stop. If we'll just wait and slow down right there and let that horse
lower its head a little bit. Maybe it'll lick and chew, right? We'll get back into that parasympathetic nervous system. We're teaching that horse to self-regulate. Maybe we can take a couple of more steps and then the horse's head comes up and we're cautious again. We'll slow that down, let them lick and chew. So we can build the same emotional patterns. Let's just build it in a very relaxed emotional pattern. So if we do that and let that horse lick and chew and we go really slow and let curiosity
start to play to where the horses using those vibrancy to touch the side of the trailer, touch the floor of the trailer, know, nuzzle around in there. I see this happening. know, a horse puts its head down to touch the floor and just check that out, right? Because everything is a threat until proven otherwise. They're not just going to jump on the floor. like, I know this to save. They want to touch it. You know, they want to have that feeling. I see a lot of people pull the horse's head up. Don't be eating that hay in there.
don't be doing that, we're loading in the trailer. And I'm like, man, your horse was just about to answer the question of safety. He was going for the answer and you told him no. Right. And so that's where I see so much of this gets stopped right there. Because curiosity leads to confidence. So if they can be curious and touch the floor and touch the side, you keep waiting, that horse will load itself. You know, he'll he'll get curious enough and feel safe enough. He'll be like, I think I could go in here.
And sure enough, they just start loading, because they can self-regulate. that's the real key part of that, Jack, of what you're saying is that emotional patterning. Are they patterned to up-regulate or are they patterned to down-regulate? We teach them both, right? It is how they're handled is what puts that patterning in there. Yeah. Awesome. That's cool. And it's that patterning that you're talking about. So through...
like you did with your client's horse, you had how many and we will talk about life experiences and you want to have good quality life experiences with your horse. So it's not necessarily about training, but it's about having these life experiences and the more you have, and the horse knows they're okay, and you guys are going to be just fine, and you're never going to overexpose them. When something really big does come up,
The horse looks to you and goes, well, what do you think? And you say, like you did with your client's horse, you're safe. Just like I said 15 times before, when we are grooming and settling, you're safe, you're safe, you're safe. So then when that is the basis of things and your horse says, I safe? And you say, yeah, we're just fine. Your horse believes in you. And all too often, the horse starts asking that safety question, like you're in your trailer example right now. And.
people either say, know, no, you can't explore or they say, now's the time to really shove them in. I see that too. I can almost, know, the horse is just about to go in and then, a bunch more pressure. Yeah, that's the thing, go. And that's the exact opposite of what the horse's mind needs. You know, that horse is just starting to be curious. And then what he needs is just a time out or he can go.
and lick and chew and then that starts to reinforce, hey, I got curious and I looked in the trailer, I leaned in the trailer, I touched the trailer and then that dopamine release comes right before they lick and chew. So that licking and chewing is a body reset, right? That's the horse coming back and parasympathetic. So I really watched that licking and chewing to when I see a horse get stressed, head comes up and ears get alert and the eyes kind of pull back and.
there's a nerve that runs across the top of the eye and down the side of the face called the trigeminal nerve. And it's very much wired to the sympathetic nervous system. So that horse gets cautious, right? That nerve starts to pull and get tight and it starts to pull the eye open, right? You've seen this, you know, when those eyes start to pull back, when you can see the whites in the eye, right? Here's kind of the old cowboy's thing when, well, if you can see the whites of their eyes, you know, there's trouble. And well, now science is saying, yep.
That's the trigonal nerve pulling the eyelids back so they can gain as much light as possible and find their escape. Right? That's what's happening internally. The horse is saying, I'm in fight flight mode. How do I get out of here? Right? So wants to gather light and find the escape. And then another part of that trigonal nerve runs down across into the top of the muzzle there. And so you see really tight-lipped horses that are just really puckered. And you know got problems when you got that really tight puckered lip.
Well, that's that trigeminal nerve. And so I'll watch that lip and like, this horse is pretty stressed right now. We just need to wait a minute and let's let this stress go away. And if you wait, that horse will lick and chew that licking and chewing that dopamine release tells the horse's body, we're relaxing. And then the body says, well, if we're relaxing, I can go back to digesting breakfast. Salvatore glands get turned on, licking and chewing happens.
big breath, soft, know, all of those things happen. And so that's, that's just the science that all of these little things that we kind of know as horse people, but now we've got science that just tells us scientifically what's happened instead of, well, great grandpa David said that, you know, if you can see the whites of the eyes, you know, you're in trouble. And so now we know why that's, that's what I'm really enjoying about it. Yeah. The actual science behind it. You know, yesterday we had a group coaching call and this, this gal, asked us to
about licking and chewing and she said she never sees her horses do it. And I believe she had three horses. She has four. Four horses. A few of them are in training. And she said she never sees her horses licking chew. So I paused a little. I thought about this and I said, well, are you in a hurry? Are you an energetic person? Are you and it turns out she was trying to get as much done as she could in the time she had allotted. She licked her.
Yeah, and so our answer to her was, well, first of all, sit, observe. You don't always have to be working with your horse. gosh. And take time and stop. They need, the horse needs time. And it's exactly what you're saying. You're just explaining the why and the reason behind that. So I just thought that's great. Jack, you're right on. a story I kind of tell people is, right, I mean, we've all watched a scary movie or we've gone to the theater and then we've watched a scary movie.
What is your brain like for the next hour after that movie? Right? Right. You walk out of the theater, you're heading out across the parking lot. It's 1130 at night. Everything's down, it's quiet. You're walking along. And then in some little grandma car that you walk by, this cute little poodle comes up to the window and is like, do you do? Right. You jump out of your bin. You're like.
you ratchet clear up in the sympathetic nervous system, you hit in internal panic. When have we ever been attacked by a cute little poodle inside of a car with the window rolled up, right? I have never physically been attacked by that. But you know what my nervous system does when that happens? Yeah, ratchets me to the top. Our horses are constantly walking around like they just come out of the movie theater, right? That's how their mind is pre-programmed.
Everything is a threat until proven otherwise. Right. And so if we're hustling with our horses, we just got to know we're lighting fuses. Yeah. Things are going to pop. Right. We're just lighting fuses. When we go really fast, we're just lighting fuses and going, well, I hope I can deal with this one when these one when that fuse goes in and blows up that little thing. I hope I'm ready. But when we can slow everything down, we actually go along and we start putting fuses out.
you know, we start turning things off to where, so if I walked out of that same movie theater, and let's pretend that I went into another part and I had like a nice calming hour long massage, right? Quiet music, little waterfall trickles, and I get this massage, I'm just all relaxed, and now I go walking out of the parking lot, and that little, that dog comes up and barks at the window, I'd probably turn and be like, isn't that the cutest little poodle ever? Look at that dog in there, right? I'd have an entirely different,
response because I'm in the parasympathetic nervous system. I'm very relaxed and calm and confident versus being very stressed and sympathetic and like I am ready to blow up. That's how our horses are in that nervous system. Yeah. And it's so hard for people to just understand that slowing down is actually faster in the end.
You know, initially it seems like it's just, it's so slow and you're getting nowhere, but it makes such a difference in the speed of actually attaining your end result, whatever that might be. Absolutely. Yeah. Touched right on it, Paul. We have a phrase that I use here with my trainers or whoever's kind of working with me when we're going that, slow faster to get done sooner. Right? So when I see somebody having trouble with their horse,
the best advice that I can give that I know will work every time, slow down, back up and count to 50. Go back in and slow it down. Just slow down faster to get done sooner. Like I said, we count the licking and chewing during our entire training processes or working with clients. And I'm trying to get my clients to really watch and pay attention to the licking and chewing. Because if I can get people to count how many times their horse licks and chews,
I'm getting people to be aware. I'm getting their eyes to pay more attention. I'm getting their ears to listen a little more, because you can hear them when they're looking at you. You don't need to see it. You can hear it. And so as I can get my clients more tuned in and more aware, everything gets a lot calmer. And so in a typical hour training session, a horse, you we're working with Mustangs, any horse really,
In 60 minutes, I want on an average that horse to be licking and chewing about 30 times. So every other minute on an average is kind of the number that I'm looking for. So if I'm working with a horse that doesn't lick and chew very much, that's that horse telling me, hey, I'm pretty chronically stressed. I'm pretty used to being stressed all the time. I've learned to tolerate pressure. Because they'll get pressured up and then just
Yes, tolerate. They'll just hang out right there. You know, heads up, stiff neck, conscious eyes, and they're just, I can tolerate this pressure for, you know, 87 minutes until you're done and you go back in the house. And then you go put them in the corral and watch that horse. Oh, you know, head down, licking and chewing, and they just go through this big release. And so I use that counting and licking and chewing to just help me be more aware of, I pausing enough?
You know, it's been 19 minutes and we've only licked and chewed three times. Yeah, something's a little off. I need to slow down more in between steps. So that's been a fun thing that we've really had some fun with. And some horses, when they first get introduced to this, they've never had that opportunity to really relax with Predator, right? They've never had it go that slow. Once they start feeling that it's safe to do that, oh my gosh, some of them can't stop licking and chewing.
Right. And going into a yawning state. yesterday we were talking about how we'll get horses to, we'll get them to yawn and sometimes three, five, I've seen horses yawn like 10 times in a row where we say relax, lower your head. yawn. That's an opioid release and that is a huge, huge mental nervous system. Right. It usually
you'll get them to start yawning after you've done some kind of... You just had a training session or whatever it is and then you leave them alone a little longer and then that's kind when they hit that yawning part of things and they really start just going into it. Yeah, that is a huge neurochemical change in the brain and so, Jack, I love that. When that starts to happen, it's like time out. Don't anybody cough. I just want the world to stop spinning and just let that horse...
Bake man, let this dude just bake on this right now. This is good stuff. It is it is and sometimes you can get you can cause horses to do this multiple times in a row and like the first three times it happens people just notice it but I say look it's gonna happen again and you might get it more you might get it five you know six times yes your cause it's just think you're causing this to come through and the horse has this
opioid release and they yawn and they relax and it's just amazing and once people realize and I love how you quantify licking and chewing so you have people count so that they observe so you're getting people to observe what's taking place it's the same thing with yawning they're noticing it and they see my gosh this is huge like you said just everything stops yeah and let's let Thor's do its thing you know it's great. Notice though how much we have to get out of the way.
Right? They don't yawn and do all of that when we're in there fussing around and trying to put the bridle on or dressing the forelock or whatever we're doing. They're like, what's happening? Yes. have to get out of their way and just create that pause, that safe play there. And then that can happen. So that is that is gold stuff. And really it is. it is. I'll tell my clients, you know, to count that licking and chewing because I tell them, says, because here's why.
when you call me later and said that this horse had a problem, my first question is going to be, how many times that horse lick and chew? And if you can't answer that question, go start over and call me back later. Right? Because they weren't paying attention. They weren't being aware. They were like, well, we were working on trailer loading today and I got him up with the trailer and he almost got in and then he reared up and pulled back and you know.
give me a rope run and he ran to the neighbor's house and stopped through their garden. It was just a terrible thing. I was so embarrassed. How many times did your horse lick and chew before you got to the horse trailer? Well, I don't know. I only had like 15 minutes to try to do this before I had to go somewhere. Well, there you go. No, I love that because you know, the quintessential
Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, it answers that completely. Because it's like, well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't all of a sudden. Now you've got an awesome question. It's, well, how many times have you licked and chewed? That's my go-to. And I tell my clients that. they're like, are you serious? And I go, you know I'm calling. Call me, and I'll find out if I'm serious or not. And they're like, my horse licked me off. How many times did lick and chew before he licked you off? Well, I don't
Go do it again. I bet you he won't buck you off if you count, right? Because now we're going to slow everything way down. Because yeah, I want a horse to lick and chew. You know, I I play around with it. When I go out and catch my horse, I want him to lick and chew three to five times before I even get the halter on. And so I've gotten really good at setting up pressure and release. And then, you know, when we release on that prep, when we release, that's kind of telling the horse, hey, you just found the thing.
You just did the thing and you're starting to think the thought I'm wanting you to think and we want to release on that. And then what science has added in that has helped me so much is from the time of the release until I start the next thing, whatever that is, the release begins the horse's mind in the seeking mental relief. Okay, so that horse needs to seek mental relief. And then that's when the question gets answered.
Am I safe? When they have time to seek mental relief, that question gets answered. And then when that question gets answered, that's when learning really happens. From the point of release until we start again, that window is that learning window. So, right, there's a lot of times we'll dump it and then we get the release. like, good, that was the thing.
But then too often our mind just starts patterning. like, okay, well, I got to hustle and go do the other side. I'm going to give that horse time to seek mental relief. And that's when the licking and chewing happens is in that seeking to relieve. So slowing down, Paula, like you said, slow down faster to get done sooner. More time I give my horse in that seeking mental relief range, the more learning that's happening. So I tease people.
If you drive past my place, you'll see me a whole lot of times standing there staring at a horse with a leader up on the ground and I'm just standing there and I tease around. I'm like, people pay me to teach the horse to do nothing. And then they pay me to stand here and look at their horse while the horse is doing nothing. Right? That's the learning. That's what it's really happening. And so now we do a little thing, back up, wait.
And wait, and wait. But I tell you, it gets done so much faster, like you said, Paula, it really makes the learning happen. There's, there's an optimal learning range in horse behavior. And Dr. Peters designed this. He's got a pyramid that shows all these behaviors. And there's an optimal learning range right in the middle. And that's really where we want to be working with our horses. And that's when they're, you they're not too cautious that they're in that self preservation that you talked about, but they're also not too relaxed that they're totally not even paying attention or, you know, they're not even in class.
Right? So we've got to get him in that optimal range. And that's when you see me standing around looking at your horse all the time and like, no, I'm waiting for him to lick and chew. This will be the 112th time he's licked and chewed today. We've learned, we've had 112 learning opportunities instead of 12. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. I was going to ask about eye rolling. if a horse
it's kicked or if a horse, you know, obviously like say they, they bop their head, they, they'd slam their nose into the stall wall or something. You'll see them lift and roll their eye and obviously they're in pain, but what's going on inside their head when they're rolling their eye. And then the other one would be, um, when the lip comes up and they're smelling like, so I believe Flamin, but anyway, what is, what is that? I mean, they're smelling, but can you explain those two, those two sort of physical,
behaviors that we see? Yeah, one I can address a little bit more than the other just because I'm quick to say when I don't know man I'm the first guy to raise my hand and say you know I don't really know because I've got men and I see a lot of people get into trouble when they try to do things that they don't really know or they're not really quite that sure about on things. Let's start with the eye rolling. I don't know what it means in a sense in like a pain or in kind of a reset that way but if you watch when they
Right before they get into that yawning stage, if you're watching their eyes, well, you'll see that third eyelid kind of roll over and you'll see their eyes just roll back in their head. It's like they're, they can feel it coming on. They're like, whoa, what is happening? And those eyes start to roll around. So in that setting, that's in the beginning of that opioid release. they're really just, their brain is just like, wow, I can't, they're just really down regulating. So in that sense,
That's how I read it that way. I don't know scientifically, like if they bump or bang on something, I don't know. So I'll just leave that at that. But that Fleming response, when they curl that lip up and they pinch those nostrils down tight, they're trapping those pheromones, those molecules that they captured in the air. And the sense of smell goes directly to the brain. It doesn't go through
any processing centers or any evaluative centers, that sense of smell is a direct connect to the brain. And so when they can trap that in there, I mean, they're reading so much data from that smell. And if it's a stallion in that sense, they can tell whether the mares are ready to breed or how old or how long ago this scent was left here. They're reading just a bunch of information in that. And I see horses kind of doing that.
in the training in a sense too with me and interacting with me a little bit. I don't know what they're doing in that sense when it's with me, but as I watch horses on their own, you know, doing that, it's very related to breeding in a sense a lot with the stud horses or even, you know, some of the mares and just kind of how they're capturing and reading. I think that the sense or the wellness of whatever that other horse, you know, the smell that they've got. So I'll stay like this, I just haven't dove into that.
sometimes you see these horses that have been with their person for a very long time, and they are just shut down. They haven't been listened to. Maybe their question about is, am I safe has not been addressed ever. And the horse is just in complete like internalized tolerance mode. Where do you go with people like that? And their horses?
For sure, and I've experienced horses in this setting in a couple of different ways. One way in describing that can be a horse that has been maybe very, very abused, very, it's just been traumatized or it's been under so much pressure and on this pyramid of behaviors at the very top of the pyramid is panic, right? And so if that horse has gone clear to the top of the pyramid and then been in panic and then still not been able to get relieved,
you know, whatever the pressure is. And I see this a lot of times, and you know, we call it desensitizing in the industry. I see a lot of that happening way too long. You know, we're, we're, we're flagging that horse. You know, I'll do it as just seconds because they get up and alert. I want to come down and let them reset. When you stay up there too long and too long and too long. And if it really gets into a fight mode or a fight mode and they can't get out of that,
They go past panic on that pyramid and then they go over to the other side of the pyramid, which Dr. Peters calls the dark side. And when the horse goes to the dark side, if you guys have worked with some rehabilitation type setting situations, when the horse goes to the dark side, you're past training and you're now into rehabilitation. And boy, that can take a lot of time and you may not be able to get a horse completely out of that.
That's a bad thing. That's really a bad thing when they hit that dark side from being over pressured in a traumatic type situation. I've got a horse here in training right now that isn't that, but this horse is very disconnected from humans, meaning this horse just avoids and is just really quiet and just shut down, doesn't engage, doesn't really even look at you when you're doing anything. And so this horse is different. And this one we have a lot of experience with in that,
Clients aren't aware that their horse needs these resets, know, needs these little moments to kind of recover from the stress. And so the horse becomes so tolerant that it just starts turning off and turning off, turning off and turning off and to where, and unfortunately you see this a lot in dude horses, you know, on the string or, know, you go do a tourist ride where a lot of times those horses are just so shut off and they just have nothing to say because they've been
knows to tell for 10 years, there is no communication needed. They're just a zombie in a sense doing their job. Man, interaction, you're building some curiosity and doing some things that can help engage that horse's curiosity. And so this horse that we have here is just getting her to look at me has been a big deal. To get her to just have eyes on me and then stay there long enough that she can relax.
And so I do lot of games with her in the round pen. I'll have her out there and then I'm, know, I'm body language around kind of pressure release. And when she'll look at me, I release the pressure and just kind of drop back a little bit. And I'm just trying to keep her attention on me long enough that she can relax and lick and chew. Cause now that that behavior of paying attention all of a sudden felt good. Dopamine rewards behavior. So dopamine causes, you know, this feel good feeling.
So I'm getting this horse in a sense addicted to paying attention because paying attention feels better than the stress worry. we're playing a lot of games with her and a lot of things to just, hey, look at me and relax. Hey, look at me and relax. And one of my other trainer's assistants has been working with this horse quite a bit. And he came up to me the other day and he says, you unbelievable.
Dusty finally looked at me and she like stayed engaged with me and she chewed like four times and stayed looking at me for like five minutes. I mean, he noticed this huge change in her and I was like, dude, you're on the right track. That's it. That's what she needs. She needs to feel comfortable paying attention and being engaged in the relationship. that's what I would say is we got to get our handlers, right? As humans way more engaged with what's going on with the horse at a neurochemical level.
You know, are they totally shut down? Are they totally cautious, totally self-preservation? We've got to slow that down and get some curiosity going. And that'll get some confidence going. And then we can start really communicating and really getting somewhere. So it's building that connection and we've got to slow way down, right? And it's lots of trainers, we're discovering this. We're really learning in the last, you know, 10, 15 years. We've got to slow this down. And we'll get a whole lot done faster.
And we end up riding a much safer horse because we've slowed down and let all that pressure come out instead of by the time we tack and do everything, we're building all that pressure in and then we get on and go for the trail ride. And you know, the horse is jigging and jagging for 45 minutes and it's like, oh, he's like this every time. I know it'll take a little while and he'll calm down. Just don't worry about me. 45 minutes later, finally that horse has gone down. Let's just get on the horse nice and calm to start with.
you know, let's break it down beforehand. And then it gets where we can go pretty fast, right? When the horse is used to relaxing, we can catch them and brush them and saddle them and they can self-regulate. They'll just keep fixing themselves and fixing and fixing and come down and down and down and then they're ready to go. There it is. Yeah. And what a great way to talk about a horse that is disassociated or in the horsemanship world you hear checked out. So you just sort of explained what's going on when a horse is checking out.
And then you gave us something to do with that horse to cause what we want to have happen, which is look to me, get curious about me, get curious about life. We'll go to, you know, come here, let's go encourage that. And what a great way to explain that to people, because you see this all the time where horses are checked out. So that's, that's, that's great. They'll just get chemically, chemically totally checked out. And so they're just chemically not even motivated. they're just, the best thing to do is
just ignore and they're like this is where I'm comfortable. I'm so comfortable in ignoring. great. dopamine. It made me because you said, going under the dopamine, it made me laugh because you said get that horse addicted into looking at you. right. like that too. I like that too. I, I, in dealing with these neurochemicals in the brain, I mean they are drugs. They're very natural drugs and we get addicted addicted to dopamine as well. I mean when
When somebody's addicted to cocaine or to drugs, they're not really addicted to the cocaine, they're addicted to the dopamine that that drug release. Well, we can release that in our horse and ourselves very naturally. We just have to find that path, right? Instead of it being a chemical input from the outside, it's a chemical release in the brain. once these horses, they really do get addicted. They get addicted to learning. Because
they start to feel good. They get rewarded for that behavior of curiosity. And once they get rewarded for being curious enough times, I can take a running chainsaw out into my round pan ring. I'll have horses come over and be like, what the hell is that? Because they're just like, I know if I'm curious, I'm going to feel good. So they'll come and be curious or an air compressor, know, an air chuck off of an air hose. The horse is like, what's that?
You know, they want to come over because their caution has gone down because they've been rewarded for being curious so many times. They're like, I'm addicted to being curious. Now they might not come right over, but that's where I'm kind of leading to it is I want to get them. I want to get them addicted to, to dopamine, which means they're addicted to down regulating when a horse can self regulate. That's, that's what we call a bombproof horse or, you know, he's a great kid horse.
That's a horse that just knows how to self-regulate. That horse has known, he's just figured out how to take care of himself and come down and come down, right? Right? And the horses that are just crazy, those horses are up-regulated and they don't know how to come down. That's our role as handlers and trainers is, here, let me show you. Like you said, Paula, let's slow down. And then that horse can start to think about curiosity. But if they're cautious,
Curiosity is nowhere on the option list. It's down here. They got to calm down and then they can go, what about curiosity? And that makes all the differences as you can, you you can get a horse to, you know, we just call it want to, right? When I take a horse up to the horse trailer and they want to be curious, we've taken Mustangs that have never been trailer loaded other than being stampeded on at the BLM, right? And that all happens. And then we get them to our facility and we go through
the science-based training and get their mind so relaxed by the time we take them over to the trailer for the first time to do trailer loading, I can just stand at the trailer and allow them to be curious. And I've got it on numerous videos of trailer loading a wild horse for the first time. They self load because they're so addicted to being curious. They're like, well, normally I'd be cautious, but I know that being curious feels better.
They just go in the trailer. I've had to stop them a couple of times. Like, hang on, I'm trying to do a video here of teaching this. Stop already. Don't get in. But that's the beauty of the science is their brain just gets chemically dependent on wanting to, of being curious, of investigating. And that answers the question of, I safe? And when that question is answered, man, you and your horse are unstoppable. Away you go.
Yeah, so cool. This is just a great interview. I learned a lot and I'm sure everybody that's watching has learned a ton. Well, know I've learned a ton. I'm in the learning model just all the time with this and with Dr. Peters, I call him fairly regular and ask him some questions about things and we're now starting to do some research on variable heart rates. So not the beats per minute.
but we're starting to look into this heart rate variability and that's connected to our autonomic nervous system. There's tons of this with humans and very little if any on horses. So now I've got a variable heart rate monitor that I put on my horses and so now I can watch in live time what that stress level is with a digital number on my phone instead of looking at the horse and kind of trying to read it and then feel we have a live digital readout now but
We're early in that and that's about all I dare say right now because I'm just, we're learning how that works. But what I'm seeing with that is even when I am now thinking the horse is pretty relaxed and then I take a look, I'm like, I think I'll wait another 60 seconds. And then I wait another 60 seconds, I'm like, yep, way more relaxed than what I thought. And so it's just really helping quantify this in technology rather than
A fooling in a sense. I read a while back they had done a study on heart rate variability with humans and horses and how horses and humans â will start to sync up a little and the horses can actually bring the humans heart rate down. Can you expand on that at all?
We're just barely coming into that exactly. I'm working with another neuroscientist and he's kind of helping get that data to us and us to understand that. But there is this lower heart rate frequency that is a common frequency between horses and humans. I'm pleased. I'm very elementary at this. So if I'm off a little, it's because I just don't know. So I'll quantify this with saying first, I don't know. And then we'll kind of trip along with what we're playing with. And so
As the horse wants to connect with that same heart rate frequency, if we as humans are too far out of that range, imagine what that feels like for the horse from an autonomic nervous system of, can't connect, I can't communicate, I can't resonate with this being caution. And so then that horse becomes cautious. But those really good therapy horses, those horses that are just really calm in their being,
that horse can hang out and wait for the human. Keep relaxing, human. Keep relaxing. We'll find our connection here. And I think that's why equine therapy is so valuable. I feel that's where it really happens. But again, this is just me, Wes Taylor, the cowboy talking. And I have a long ways to go. But it's so fun. It is so fun to be investigating this stuff. So I love the question, And I science will bring us more as time goes.
Yeah, well it sounds like you're kind of on the forefront of this experimenting with some new technology and stuff so I can't wait to hear more from you as you learn. We're having some fun and I wish we had you know this isn't funded by anything this is just me out playing around and then I get some data and talk to some neuroscientists on the phone that are are graceful enough with their time and their knowledge to help me interpret it so it's very just
backyard cowboy, but it's, we're finding some cool stuff that really makes sense. Explain the picture with you in the grocery store with your horse. gosh, yes. Great question. so Carhartt Clothing Company sent one of their photographers out to our place to do â a photo shoot for their clothing line. And so it was pretty cool. They sent us cases of Carhartt clothing. So man, I got a bunch of Carhartt gear. Super cool.
And but the photographer, Elliot Ross, super talented photographer, so shout out to him. But he was at the ranch there and we'd shot around the mountains and with cows and rivers and all these different shots. And he was like, man, I just feel like there's just, I don't know, there's just maybe one shot that I don't, there's something that's kind of spectacular or something. And I was like, man, I don't know, dude, we've been out cliff jumping and running through rivers and, you know, doing some pretty crazy stuff. And then I sink in and I was like, well,
I got an idea and I got a friend, right? I got a friend that has a grocery store. So anyway, we did a photo shoot for Carhartt in the grocery store. It about one o'clock in the morning. So the store was all closed down and he wanted to have a, you we just got some pictures. I said, I'll just take my Mustang. That was my Mustang Cassidy. First Mustang I ever adopted. First horse I ever even thought about training or whatever. And I said, I can do some shopping with her. And so,
You know, we had to work through this down regulation of the loading dock in the back through the big rolling doors, past the big cardboard compaction machine with, you know, this big scary thing. you know, we worked our way in just licking and chewing and licking and chewing and nice and calm. And yeah, I just kind of rode around the grocery store and this photographer was just zinging around taking pictures. And some of the ones that you saw was, you know, him taking those pictures. And to me, it said a lot. wasn't about a
hey, look at me, I'm in the grocery store kind of a thing. But if you just look at the horse, when that answer of safety is properly, when it's answered correctly, it doesn't matter whether I'm in a grocery store or an arena or a mechanic shop or riding in, know, anywhere. When our horse's mind is calm and in the parasympathetic nervous system and relaxed and they can self-regulate, that's how those things can happen.
Yeah, we didn't do any grocery store training, right? How would I know? didn't set aisles up out in the round pen and practice that. That was just a relaxed horse in a chaotic environment, finding calmness. And she nailed it, man. thought my Mustang Cassidy, she just nailed that. I was tense as all get out. I'm not going to lie, man. My cortisol levels were stressed. I was like, my gosh, this is intense. Wow, I've got to just relax. So it took a lot for me, too, to just
and bring that down and relax and be calm. So that's kind of the story behind the picture of what that was. And yeah, I ended up Carhartt out there for a whole year. Their monthly email was going out with pictures of me and the Mustangs. And then that was one of them in the grocery store. So it was kind of a cool thing. It's awesome. That's great.
That's really what my passion and purpose is right now is getting this information out there. I think it is time for that next big thing. we're all touching on it, but now we have words for it. We have science for it instead of these horseisms or these old cowboy things.
or these sayings, you know, they have sayings and the sayings are good because it's to teach people, you know, that horse is trying or that horse, you know, don't discourage it from trying, but it's good because those sayings do help people, but I appreciate you putting the science behind that. It's made it make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I, you know, those sayings and I was trying to interpret those. What does all that mean? You know, make the right thing easy, wrong thing hard. And you're like, okay, but I get it kind of what, how.
But boy, once you got the science to it, and it's just like, get that horse, you know, wanting to relax, that's, it just helps all the way around. So it's a fun thing that I'll do with my clients in that, you know, let's just say you've got your horse standing in there and right, can take my training stick with a flag on it and just raise it up above my head. Right. Boom. Right. That horse head up, eyes, ears, boom. Everything's like, what the hell is that? â We just hit the sympathetic nervous system.
And now just stand back and watch. And if I can get my clients to see, okay, there the head come down a little bit, there the eyes are blinking a little bit. now I'm, you know, I saw a bigger breath. Now the ears are kind of floating backwards a little bit. The head comes down even more. Now they're going to cock a hind leg. They're going to take a big breath and then they lick and chew. Whatever that sequence is, and each horse has a little different, but when I can get people watching that,
The licking and chewing is the confirmation. and cause then you can kind of call it out like, okay, the horse is going to do this, this, this, and this, and then lick and chew, and then just stand back. And boy, when the human can see that happening and then the horse licks and chews, cause right in the frontal part of our brain, need to label it next to all of that. It just starts matching and like, well, I can do that. You know, they can see that happen. That's, that's when it gets really fun is when a client that has never noticed that their horse licked and chewed.
half hour later can go, well, now the ears are gonna get soft and then she's gonna blink her eyes and then her tail's gonna twitch and then she's gonna cock behind leg and then a big breath and licking shoe. That's just awesome. Connect the dot things that they have for kids, right? And then the picture's right there and it's so clear. We're much more connected now if we're sitting there engaged watching instead of I did the thing,
And now I'm going to do the thing. We just missed two minutes of connection, of engagement. And when that horse discovers that you don't connect or engage, then they just start to turn off. Yeah. And then over time, you you just got a horse that tolerates and is just checked out and just stands there and then it'll blow up later, right? Cause it got loaded with all this stress. then, you know, it's that,
one scary shadow out on the trail, right? He's never bolted a shadow before, but today it was just terrible. Like, well, what happened before what happened? Exactly. Let's back that up. How many times he's licking chew before he saw the shadow? Right. I don't know. Yeah, no, what happened happens, right? was a saying you hear a lot, but yeah. Yeah.
What do you yourself, do you do anything else besides horses for, let's say fun? Do you have time to have fun? I'll tell you what I'm really getting into that is helping me with horses a bunch. And just the last year is physical fitness. And so I turned 49 last December and when I turned 49, was like, dang, am getting like 50 is just right there. I can touch 50. that was, and I told myself, I'm like, man, I want,
I'd be fit at 50. And so for the last year and four or five months, I've really been getting into CrossFit, healthy eating, yoga, meditation, you know, just lots of internal kind of physical, spiritual, quiet things. I've been doing some of that longer, but for the physical part and stretching, flexibility. And I honestly, I'm kind of addicted to it that
that really feels good and it's helped me so much with the horses to be flexible instead of being chronically stiff and something moves and I can't flow with it because I'm stiff or structured or I'm very tight and tense. So that's been some really fun stuff that I've been aging with is. And then also in kind of converting what happens with the horse's brain and our brain. So where a lot of the similarity is
The horses doesn't have that prefrontal cortex to lie about what's really happening where we do. So when I can watch a horse relax in a very tense environment, I'm like, brain functionality, it's possible. So how can I do that in a really tense environment? And so I've been taking ice baths is one of those super intense environments. And for me to get in an ice bath,
and negotiate by flight in my mind and turn that off because as soon as I'm submerged to hear an ice, my body is saying, you're gonna die right now, you should leave. And I'm like, that's exactly how the horses feel. They feel that same way when they hit a tense environment. How quick can they come down? That's why I'm asking myself, how quick can I come down? And so I've been taking ice baths to really
focus on my mentality of how quick can I not panic? And I tell you, it's given me huge insight to the horses. Really, really can be empathetic with a horse. When I unload a horse, a young new horse out of a horse trailer in a new environment, and that horse gets out of the trailer, what do they do? They're like, man, you they want to know everything, right? Nobody told the horses that the dinosaurs are extinct. So when they get out of a trailer, they're like, I know there's dinosaurs here somewhere. they're just like, panic.
I look at that as like the ice bath. I'm like, oh dude, you just got in the ice bath. Let's bring this down. And so I've got a meditation process I do with the horses and maybe that's another conversation another time, but how quick can I get that horse to find me energetically and just come down, come down, come down, come down. And then when the horse is nice and relaxed, I'm like, go ahead and take a look around. You're safe. We're okay here. And so that ice bath has been
massively impactful for me to... Well, you guys know Warwick Schiller and I saw you had an art time with him and he and I were together up in Utah, I think about a year and a half ago and he's the one that introduced me to the ice bath and he was studying, doing a little bit of the Wim Hof method and he had done one ice bath and we were at my place in Utah up in the mountains and I was like, dude, I wanna do an ice bath and he's like, well, let's get some ice. I go, how about we just go chop a hole in the lake? That's what we did. Let's go up to the lake.
a lake above my house on the edge was still like slushy. It was in March and it was like super ice chunks and walked me through an ice bath at the lake and one of the most intense experiences of my life. that's that was a cool thing that really shed some light on this is how the horses feel. And it's that rush. It's that rush. I cut a hole and took a chainsaw, cut a hole in some ice this year. We jumped in.
Not do. I mean fully jumped in and yeah it just hits you just whoosh. But you can practice bringing it down and we cycle. So we used to, well we still sort of mountain bike race before COVID stuff but at the beginning of the race it's this big, you want to get in the front because it's open and it's going to funnel down to trees and single trap. And you're just in this battle.
And everybody's excited and people crash at the beginning of the race. And it's like, you feel you have to practice bringing it down and heart rate down. and so I can all that. helps you understand what is it like from a horse. So, so you're doing this. What a great way to like learn what is it, you know, from the horse's perspective, more from the horse's perspective. I'm trying to say, yeah. So we leave such cushy comfy lives now. So we're never really.
truly in a fight or flight. And yeah, that whole ice bath thing. I've listened to some podcasts about people that do it and you know, the regulating of it and the meditation through it and some people will do like hot and then the ice bath. Yeah. And all the biology that actually is so beneficial when you are doing these things because you're really causing your body to have to learn how to adapt and
get rid of things that aren't beneficial to you and yeah, hone in on the things that are and it's it's interesting because because I never really thought about how that those ice baths might apply to the horses where they're at. didn't either until I did that. It wasn't even that day. It was like a week later. I was in a meditation just calm quiet myself and
And that thought kind of come to me, that download come in of like, hey, what you felt in that ice bath, that's what the horses feel. And then the difference between what we call a broke, gentle horse is how fast can the horse recover when it gets in the ice bath, right? You're walking down the trail and boom, there's that noise over there or that thing or the whatever. How fast can the horse just go, what?
You know, how fast can they go to zero? And that's same thing with us humans, you know, I mean, our first responders and our cops and law enforcement, military, all those guys are just trained badasses and staying calm under pressure. That's just the difference between, you know, that dude and the accountant, right? Or you take me, you put me out on the battlefield, I'm going to freak, man. My ground's going to pass me, I won't be able to write my name.
dude that can stay calm, can freakin' read a book and count his heartbeats, right? That's, it's the same neurochemicals in our horses. And so that's what, it's fun for me to put myself in these different environments to kind of feel that and go, okay, I can be way more empathetic to the horse, because now I have a feeling to associate it with instead of, why are you so scared getting out of the trailer? We've been here 10 times at the same trailhead, come on already!
Yes, well now I'm like, you just got in an ice bath for the tenth time. I know what that feels like. Let's take a minute. Right, Yeah. No, it's because I promise you if I go jump in an ice bath right now, the first 10 or 15 seconds is complete chaos. I just need the time to come down. I can't just jump in and read a bedtime story right and have it be relaxed. No way. No way. Well,
like you said it empathy for the horse. So we are thinking about feel for the horse and what does the horse need? But yeah, most people like you said, they're not able to feel for the horse. And so they can't give the horse what it needs. So work on yourself. And that's why I asked what you do for fun. And I can see you look great, you look fit. And that's why I asked that question, because physical fitness teaches us so much. And it's hard to tell somebody you need to get more fit.
It's fun for me to work with the horses and you know, I do my stretches with the horses. I kick the leg up on the hip and lean in and you know, put my forehead on my knee or up on the saddle and people are like, holy cow, you're flexible. I'm like, I'm just serious about what I'm doing. You know, I'm just done into this. I want to be fit for the horse so that I can do the things we need to do and be flexible. And yeah, it's just turned into a whole bunch of fun.
It's amazing what horses cause us to do. gosh. And not just financially and not just like equipment and vehicles, but also learning. We will, know, maybe because of horses, you're doing these other things for yourself. Yeah. Spiritually, emotionally, physically. mean, they touch our lives at such a deep level if we allow it, you know, you have to, but once that true meaning comes in, it really is transformative.
Absolutely. one last thing, if you don't mind, that the horse helped really teach me. I got in a pretty bad wreck with a horse about five years ago and got the whole left side of my face crushed and my skull cracked open. I mean, it was a bad deal. But anyway, since that point, I was really focused on safety. I was like, I have got to figure some things out because that was
just super unfortunate that that happened to me and I just didn't know enough to have it not happen. So I've really focused on that safety. But what that's meant to me over time, every time I get hurt now, anytime I feel physical pain, a rope burn, a nail gets pulled back, I stub my toe, whatever that is, and I started with the horses, every time I felt pain, I would immediately stop and then rewind my thoughts of
What happened before? What was I thinking? What was I thinking before that? Where was my mind mentally? And every time I backed that up far enough to go, okay, 15 minutes ago, when I tipped over that feed sack and dumped all the grain out in the tack room and geez, you know, I got negative and I was cranky about, well, now I gotta clean all this up and you know, maybe another trainer left it in the way and I tripped over it or whatever. But whenever I had that negative thing,
And then I would start playing it back from there with the awareness of, I was negative here. And then I went here and did this and said that and thought this. And then I went here and did this and said this and thought this. And then, and then, and then I got stepped on. Okay, so there's the pain, there's the thought. And every time I'd rewind that back and be conscious of that thought.
I've experienced so much less pain. Like rarely do I get a rope burn, do I pull a nail back on the saddle because a horse is jumping or moving around or something. I'm just so much more aware of what's going on up here so I can stay slow. And then I've taken that and incorporated it into my everyday life with my wife, my kids, my neighbors, my friends. When I feel that negative thought coming up, I'm like, okay.
I can keep thinking this and I'll probably experience pain in a little while. Or I can change this thought, let me relax and down regulate, let me lick and chew and then go through my day. That has changed so much for me in what's going on up here. I'm way more conscious of it. Because with the horses it just becomes super real. You're doing stuff with a 1200 pound animal that has the fastest reflexes on the planet.
and I have zero chance of getting out of the way, I really need to be conscious of what I'm doing. And so that is just, when I'm with a horse, I'm with that horse. My wife can talk, I'm gone. There is no multitasking. That's one thing, one drawback I've learned with working with horses, my multitasking capabilities suck. I cannot multitask anywhere near as good as I used to because I was so distracted and fragmented.
I have my head in this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing. Boy, now when I'm out with a horse, it's 100%. Nothing else exists. I've missed phone calls and appointments and important things, whatever, just because I've been so there. But my injury level has gone to nearly zero. And that's what's important. That's what I really like.
wild horses is our normal every day. That's pretty critical that I mean, a sprained ankle puts me out of business. I okay, let's just stay safe then. Let's just not have that ever happen. How do we do that? We've got to be 100 % connected with the horse and be 100 % focused and be there. And then that relates into people. When I'm engaged and talking with my wife and out to dinner with my wife or something online.
100 % there, I can't get on my phone. It drives me bonkers to even have a text come in because I, like I said, my multitasking has gone away. I can't do it very good. People that lived 100 years ago, they were more like that. They were more on the moment and present because they didn't have a hospital to go to if their horse stepped on their foot. And, or when you go ride, and we like to do this too, we just want to do this more, but when we go ride rough terrain, go out in the mountains and ride, you're in the moment. You have to be.
You're focused. You're focused now. Yeah. I mean, there is no multitasking because this is real. We need to do this. And maybe that's why we like to mountain bike race or maybe whatever. hundred percent. Right. Your subconscious becomes so engaged with what's going on. So I like trail running, right? So I'm running on uneven terrain, rocks, bushes, cactuses and stuff. I love that because my mind gets so just like mountain biking. don't mountain bike, but
you lose focus, you're gonna feel pain. When I'm out jogging and running on that trail, and I'm just feeling how I'm going along, I'm like, man, Wes, did you feel how your left foot sprung a little more to get you over that rock? You didn't have to think about it. You didn't have to analyze it. It just happened live time. That's the parasympathetic nervous system. Even though you're stressed, you're doing something,
you're responsive, you're 100 % engaged, you're there. You can't do that and then look down and look at the text messages that come in. If you got your phone on your bike, right, you look down for a text message. The next thing you're gonna see is an EMT, right? You're like, okay, you're fixing me, 100%, man, that's where it's at. Yeah, mean, we could go on for hours with you, but maybe someday we can get our horses out there, who knows? Well, get it going and if you, I mean, people can find...
You know, more about me online, Facebook, Instagram, my website, know, West Taylor, W-E-S-T, like the direction, that's my first name. And then my website is WestTaylor.net. You can kind of see what we got going on there. And we've got an online video library walking through this science from starting a wild horse at zero.
all the way through saddling and riding and all the way through using science every step of the way. And anyway, people can find more there. I'd love to have them join us there. Thank you. And thank you to everybody who's either listening or watching.
