Paula Curtis (00:00)
Welcome. Today I am so excited because we've got three authors here. And this is the book that they just released. It's called A Horse's Life: The Neuroscience of Equine Welfare. And so we've got Mark Rashid, Dr. Steven Peters, and Chrissy McDonnell. And they are here to share a bit about the story of how this book came to be. It's a beautiful book, and it's neat because
Not only do we get the neuroscience behind what's happening underneath the hood, underneath our horse's hide and hair, what's going on deep down in there, we get that perspective, but it's put on a platter in a way that we as humans can fully understand. And that is through story. Stories are something that we've used for a very long time in our human existence to share.
meaningful experiences, important topics. And this book brings those in, and then we get to hear the neuroscience behind what's going on in that particular horse's story, which is such a neat and beautiful way to present these ideas. And I would love for you all to share a bit about how this came to be. And I'm gonna have Chrissy, you're going to start and then from there we will go to
Steve and then Mark.
Crissi McDonald (01:21)
All right. Sounds good. Well, this idea came about because we have been working with Dr. Pierce doing collaborative clinics for the last eight years. And we were talking one day and we were, you know, talking about horses that have been in the clinic and how much Mark and I had learned by listening to what Steve was offering. And I don't know who came up with the idea, but some there was a idea thrown out, you know, we should we should do a book like the clinic.
And it took a a year or two to to get rolling and for our schedules to kind of allow for that type of work. But once it got rolling, it was written, I think, in six weeks, because Marker and I would have a story and we'd email it to Dr. Peters and we'd wait. What is he gonna say? Usually sometimes the same day, definitely by the next day, we had a full explanation of what was going on in the horse's brain.
And so horses that we've known or horses that we worked with in clinics, we knew that what we did helped them, but we didn't necessarily understand the details behind why. And so to read those details and to hear the science and get the validation from this the science side, as well as the horses themselves, it was it was like riding a rocket ship for me. It was, it was so, it was just intoxicating to get that information.
And then, you know, I would write a story and send it off. Steve would send it back. Mark would write a story and send it off. And Steve would send it back. So we just Mark and I, Steve kept up with Mark and I because we were sending stories every time we got something from Steve. So it was a very it was an incredibly exhilarating process. And yeah, like Steve mentioned, it we started getting toward the end of it. And we thought this, this is different. And this has the potential to reach a lot of people and benefit.
Their lives and their horses.
Paula Curtis (03:02)
Lives
too. Yeah. Wow, rocket ship, I would say. Six weeks. That's incredible. That's a fast write. But how neat to be able to collaborate in that way. So, Steve, what do you have to share about your role in this process?
Dr. Steven Peters (03:15)
If we go way back when I first met Mark, I had talked to him and I gave him a a little presentation, Chrissy as well, about the equine nervous system and the horse's brain. And afterwards Mark and I got to talking, and I quickly realized that he was seeing all these things over years of interacting with horses.
Not even just seeing them, all the nuances and the subtleties he w he was reading into those horses. So when we've had clinics together, we'll go out and look at a horse together in the round pen, and it's amazing how it it sort of evolves where I'm giving almost like the book, giving clinical details and Mark's actually ad libbing.
So I guess but we know where we're going with this. We know what we're we're seeing. And we used to talk, there's this little breakfast place, first watch, and and we'd go there and talk about all the horses we'd seen in history. And it started to dawn on me. I want people to be able to see what I see because I think that's gonna benefit the horse. If we can understand the nervous system, but I'm not a storyteller, I'm a scientist.
And these two are master storytellers. So I think you are right, Paula, in that the story provided context. And that was the magic. I knew all these horses before they were even sent to me. What I mean by that is I knew these nervous systems. I knew damaged nervous systems. I knew shutdown horses. I knew horses with learned helplessness. So I I was almost waiting for, give me one of these cases, and sure enough, it would arrive on my
on my doorstep. And so this book was was written because I think I knew these these horses anyway. And behind the scenes, I can now confess as a scientist, they were quite emotional because many of these horses, I felt how their nervous systems had been damaged because they are misunderstood, and where their lives could have gone and how they could have been, but also hopeful for the recovery.
process as well. So it was an emotional scientific roller coaster with two friends I really trusted. And gosh, I think w when the dust settled, we said, Wow, we have some kind of book here.
Paula Curtis (05:24)
Yeah, and it's like you were saying, you know these these horses already. I think for many readers that have worked with horses and especially for professionals, the reflections and the stories of these horses, we've all seen these horses as well. So we we know them and and so now we can know them and understand them in a much deeper and more profound way.
through how this was shared. So yeah, how neat. And Mark, what about
Mark Rashid (05:54)
you. well yeah, I mean I think Chrissy and Steve kind of covered a a lot of the bases. We started working on it. Chrissy said we had it had taken us a couple of years to get to where we could finally step off and do this. And originally we had thought about going to a traditional publisher with it. And they needed an outline. So we c we did an outline and for one reason or another we didn't go in that direction.
But we hadn't we had an outline of kind of what topics that we wanted to hit on. And so we had a list of horses. We would talk back and forth. And there were some horses that we had seen, all three of us had seen together. Some of the horses we had Chrissy and I had owned, or I had owned, and they were personal horses of ours, and then others were clinic horses or horses that we've run across and that kind of thing. There were also
a number of horses and mules that we had on the list that that just didn't make it in the book. So maybe we maybe another book comes of this if people really like this, but 'cause we have plenty of stories and horses and mules and and whatnot.
I mean it was it went fast. it was a great experience that way. It was it was one of those things and I've never written a number of books and I've never really gotten to the end of it and was kind of sad it was over. And this was definitely one of those where we we got to the end of it and and it was like I missed the communication that we had had where we would send each other 'cause of course Chrissy and I would read each other's stories here at at home and then we would send them off to
to Steve and then we would read what he had written. And so by the time we got to the end of it, you know, it was kind of sad to see it go. But it was tough to not be sitting down every day and writing a story that was going to go in this book. So it was a great experience. It was very eye opening for me. Again, having known these horses, worked with these horses and with kind of flying by the seat of your pants when you're working with them and hoping that you're doing the best thing by For me, it I've I always kind of have
the horse's best interest in mind when I'm working with them, what that looks like or what it should in my opinion, what it should look like or how it should feel. And it's reassuring to know that we were on the right track with these horses that we that we put in the books.
Paula Curtis (08:08)
Yeah, it sounds like you wrote it too darn fast that you didn't have time to actually enjoy the whole process.
Mark Rashid (08:14)
It was a fun process. It was a very fun process. Yeah.
Paula Curtis (08:18)
And I s and I did say that wrong 'cause yeah, you enjoyed the process. It just was you enjoyed it too much that it went so fast.
Mark Rashid (08:24)
Yeah, it was that's it was a record breaking writing. Yeah. Especially for three different people. I mean, to have it go that fast. It was and for have three different people writing the book to have it go that fast, I don't it it's a pretty incredible process.
Paula Curtis (08:38)
Yeah,
I would definitely say that that's the case. And I'd love to start out with the first question of and this is for Mark and Chrissy, and I'll let you determine. You can raise your hand if you want to go first, but how do you how do you determine if a horse is very calm and confident and sure in their job where they're looking externally mellow, relaxed, and just solid and stoic?
Versus a horse that is maybe shut down or frozen or in a state where they're really not in their body and they're almost associative. What are the things that you look for in those states? Like when they're in those states? What are you seeing the differences?
Mark Rashid (09:22)
There's a couple of things that I I kinda look for. one of is how does the horse do when they are out of a familiar place? So if the horse is at home doing a job they're familiar with and they are able to do the job fairly well, and then you take someplace else that they're where they're in an unfamiliar situation and it's as if they nothing is familiar to Maybe they they were really responsive or appeared really responsive.
in the familiar place and then you get them into an unfamiliar place and they have trouble responding to just about anything. That can be kind of a red flag for me. Usually that that that might tell me that the horse maybe was going through the motions in the familiar place. That once they get into an unfamiliar situation, they start getting overwhelmed. That can tell me that maybe they they didn't really understand what they were doing when they were in the familiar place. They were doing it probably just through sheer repetition.
in the familiar place, but once they got out of the familiar place, the familiar airity went away and they don't have a foundation to rely on to be able to in other words, they don't really know the job that they were being asked to do. They were just sort of doing it through rote behavior. And then once they get into the unfamiliar place, that comes undone. It c kinda comes unraveled. Is that a a shutdown horse? Is that a horse that's frozen? It's one of those things where
It could be where the horse is just going through the motions in the familiar place, but it does tell me that the horse probably didn't understand what was being asked when they were in the familiar place. They they had just sort of developed a routine that got them through the day. And that happens with a lot of horses. Trail horses that horses that have been on the trail for we've seen where they were on the trail for twenty years and you put in an arena and they don't know how to function. No, but they're great trail horses. Show horses that people want to
turn into trail horses that they have trouble with and and the list goes on. So so that would be I'd probably just kind of throw that out there as something to think about.
Paula Curtis (11:20)
Yeah, that's interesting. So by taking them into a new environment, it really gives you a better picture of what's going on. Are they just automatic and going through the motions? Or are they doing their job and now they can take that job and transfer it to this new place? Interesting. So Chrissy. Yeah.
Crissi McDonald (11:40)
That's a really good question. And I was listening to what Mark was saying. And one of the things that struck me is one of the horses in the book, his chapter is called Rusty. I won't go it's already written down, so I won't go through all the details. But basically we we bought Rusty as a beginner friendly horse to use in the movie that we shot in twenty fifteen. And so he was advertised as been there, done that solid. And when he got to us, that certainly seemed true.
He was pretty tired the first two or three days he was with us, so we weren't sure what we were seeing. But once we introduced him to the herd, it was very apparent that he was skilled. Yes, he was quiet, but he really didn't want any horses around him. He was very violent about his corrections. It wasn't just pinned ears, it was charging. It wasn't just lifting a hind leg, it was throwing kicks. He didn't want to be caught, didn't want to be brushed, didn't want I mean
The list of things he didn't want was long, but once you caught him and started the process, he it felt like he went away. So the things that told me that that was happening, and Mark and I is that there's a difference between quiet and absent. Quiet horse, they'll still engage with the environment. This is what we've seen. So the eyes may track something, the ears may track something. If you dropped something on the ground, they may look at it.
And I see he didn't do any of that. He put his head down, shut his eyes, and stood tied at the trailer while we groomed and saddled him. So that was a big clue between, you know, is this a horse who feels okay about what he does, or is this a horse who's just putting up with it? So in his case, both things were true. He was skilled, he was confident, anybody could ride him, and he did not feel good at all. And he didn't really want people around him.
So if I'm looking at a horse and and the owner's saying, well, he's so quiet, that may be true. He may be a very quiet, confident horse. What's also true is that there may be an element of them tolerating whatever is being done. And that usually what I've seen comes with a lack of like micro engagement with the environment.
Paula Curtis (13:35)
Interesting. I love how you say that we can have multiple truths with the same horse. And I think that's important for people to understand and to realize because it depends. That I mean, when you work with horses, you start to understand that it depends. But watching for those little microengagements is a great thing that people can use in their application with their horse and in watching and observing their horse to know
a bit more about what's going on underneath the surface. So Steve, I'd love to get your take on this.
Dr. Steven Peters (14:07)
Yeah. My perfect example of this in the book would would be Tuff. Tuff was highly competent but low arousal. And so if you look at Tuff's history, it was one in which he'd get to do something and then allow his nervous system would pendulate back down again. And so he just developed all these competencies. And so people who didn't know what they were reading began to think of Tuff as
Is this horse shut down? Well, Tuff simply needed someone to communicate and say, okay, this is what our job is. And the example of Tuff is that he was in a parade and there's all kinds of things going on around him. And he wasn't shut down. He was well aware of everything around him. And that's actually an indicator that the nervous system has been trained over time, that they've been challenged.
And then been able to adjust and adapt and challenge and adjust and adapt versus the horse that's been forced to go beyond that challenge, not allowed to recover. And so their nervous system kind of gets stuck either in a hyper-vigilant way that they have to protect themselves, or in a shutdown way. Their nervous system isn't able to, doesn't have the capacity to cope. And
That's where Mark said, when you take that horse out into a brand new environment, if you took Tuff into a new environment, Tuff would just say, Well, what in my background? He wouldn't say this to himself, but what in my background is close to this and I'm predicting that I can handle it because we're learning more and more that horses predict, and so do we, just as much as we think. And so i if he's developed options.
And he's predicting that I can figure this out, then he stays a very cool cucumber at that point in his age. Those are just based on his experiences. If you get the horse that checks out and just s really has trouble staying engaged, has trouble being curious and exploratory, sort of stays in that shell. And as Mark said, doesn't really understand what's being asked of them. Their nervous system really has no experience.
in new situations. So the difference between the two from the outside might look similar. A shutdown horse who's actually temporarily gone offline versus the horse that I've seen it or I've seen something like it. I'm predicting that this is just going to be fine. And here I go. What do we have to do today? Knowing their history is important. I think this idea whole idea of horses live in the now get us in a lot of trouble because horses
Really, the horse you have today is based on the history that got him up to you to that point in time. And so really being aware of that can be a big guide to where you want to go in the future. And is that horse available? I think if everyone asks, what is that horse's nervous system state today? Then you'd know what's what's available if the nervous system state is shut down, if the nervous system state is hypervigilant.
Doesn't mean you can't work with your horse. It just means you probably have to look at this a different way and provide a different support for your horse.
Paula Curtis (17:15)
And that's a great question to ask. Is this horse available? And if they're making like Chrissy was talking about those micro tracks and they're aware of their environment, well, now they're available to have a conversation. It's just like anybody, if somebody is sitting there looking at their phone, you're not going to start having a conversation with them. First, we need to make sure they're available. So that's what you're bringing up here is you're well, you're not saying get your horse available, but
Be aware, are they available? And then, of course, we do need to get them available before we start having a conversation. And you talked about the horse being able to predict what's going on. So I think that leads us great into this next question, which is horses that can get overwhelmed when they're unable to predict their environment and what's going on. So
Chrissy, I would love for you to talk to this point. What do you look for when a horse is no longer learning, but is just trying to survive in that moment?
Crissi McDonald (18:14)
Not really looking for anything. It's what the horse is saying. I notice most horses will want to get back to the last place they feel they felt safe. So that's either with a pasture mate, that's wherever they were being kept, whether it's a paddock or a stall. You will notice that simple what we thought of as simple requests may seem particularly difficult. There may be more defensiveness. So if we ask them for a turn,
They may, and it's in the opposite of direction of where they last felt safe. They may want to pull back toward that direction instead of turning. There are all signs that the horse is in a place where they can no longer hear us. And at that point, there's no it's really not about working with them. It's about how can we hear what they're saying and how can we help them feel better first. So, you know, we go out to our horses and we have an agenda.
Well, I'm going work on this thing because I worked on it yesterday and it came and it came through pretty good. But I think I want to work on it again. We go out and for whatever reason our horses feeling a little edgy that day. But we go out with our agenda. And if we're not careful before long, frustration and anger are going to come in because dang this horse, he did it yesterday. And what what's going on today? And I think instead, if we if we realize that
those signals are telling us something about how the horse is feeling in the world right now, that it's much easier to respond to that than going with our agenda. If we're listening to the horse, there's really no need to get frustrated or angry or anything else that isn't going to help the situation. Because if we're listening, we can respond
Paula Curtis (19:47)
I think that's great. And I think that's that's so important and understanding that this horse that might be overwhelmed, safety is going to be so important. So if we can help keep them safe and now we're on a foundation that we can actually do something with. Whereas if we're trying, like you said, to steer them away from safety, well that's now we're inviting them to be even more unsafe. And so like a young child
you want to take their hand and that should be a comfort and we're guiding them towards feeling better with whatever it is we're asking. And once that overwhelmed child has felt better or a horse has felt better with us over and over again, then now we can start maybe asking for more. So Mark, what are your thoughts on that?
Mark Rashid (20:34)
Well, this is something that we run across quite a bit actually. Especially in a clinic situation where horses will come in on the first day and they're and they are overwhelmed. And almost always if things work out for the next day they're gonna be fine. They're gonna feel a lot better, we'll say it that way. But it's interesting because I I think sometimes we look at the horse and what we do really is we we sort of we
anthropomorphize what we're seeing. And we just look at the behavior as either good or bad. We kind of put we put the behavior in in one of those two categories that the behavior I'm seeing is either good because it's what I'm looking for or it's bad because it's not what I'm looking for. Horse behavior has no value to it. It's it only has a value when we put value on it. So but I can give you an example that happened earlier this year.
There's a big draft horse at a clinic we did we did in Arizona. And the complaint with this horse was that it it was bought, it was a it was a rescue horse that this woman had bought online. They she got the horse home. It was supposed to you you were supposed to be able to ride and drive it. And she couldn't do either with this horse. It was and she had seen videos and the horse was doing both, but the he was not available at all for any of that. So she brought him to this
place where we were doing the clinic. he'd been there for a couple of months and he had just started feeling good in the pen that he was in. And the sort of the complaint was that when I got there was that they couldn't get him up to a mounting block. You know, he's a big horse and so they couldn't they had trouble getting a saddle on him and they couldn't get him to a mounting block.
And so the first day of the clinic, they had brought him into the round pen and it was pretty clear from the get go that he he wasn't okay in the round pen. So that was and then they were 'cause I just I asked him to show me what they were doing, how things had been going between And they took the mounting block in and as soon as they opened the gate with the mounting block, he was already thinking he wanted to leave. He was looking for a way out. And so we that's where we started with him. We left the mounting block in there just because it was already in there.
But it took that whole day for him to be okay with just an approach, just approaching him. Because he was so this is my opinion, I just don't think anybody had listened to him. They were going over his the hit the place where he was worried and then they were going past that and doing way more. He couldn't even be approached in the round pen. And they said that you could catch him in the pen that he lived in, but he was hard to catch in the round pen. And it took
it took an hour for him to feel good enough just for me to go up and touch him or for him to touch me. And from then, you know, then the owner could catch him and put him away. And then the next day, he felt a lot better just with the approach and being able to go up and touch him. And and he felt a lot better about just being with somebody. And by the end of that time, he was willingly going up to the mounting block on his own. And he he g he became curious about what we were doing.
We allowed him time to get to move away if he needed to go do that. Probably halfway through that second session was when I put a halter on him. I hadn't haltered him up until then. And but it it was that quick from him not wanting to be touched really in the round pin to him being okay with being haltered and then even willingly and he was fine at the mounting block. It was really interesting because once he figured out what we
were looking for from him, he was happy to do it. But we weren't trying to drag him to the mounting block. We weren't trying to force that on him. And she was only there for the two days. But that was just in that short period of time, you could see his nervous system down regulating because of the first day when we said, There's I'm not interested in catching you. I'm just I just want you to feel a little better than you do. Can we do that? Is that would that be okay? And then once he trusted that that was going to be okay
then he could trust other things.
Paula Curtis (24:24)
That's great. And I think it's so important that people understand that it's behavior that we see is not good or bad. All it is is it's information. The horse is telling us what they are feeling about the current situation. And this comes up over and over in the book. The idea of taking your time. Because when you take your time, it actually will take less time. But I forget the name of the horse, but the one you walked.
On him for almost, I think, six months or a year. That
Mark Rashid (24:51)
yeah, that was Rocky.
Paula Curtis (24:53)
was Rocky. Yeah. And then I mean, he ended up being absolutely wonderful and could do walk, trock, canter in the arena, out on the trails. I mean, really just about anything. And, but it's because you took the time. And if we start labeling these behaviors bad, we're going to be coming at it not from curiosity and seeing, well, what does this horse need to feel safe?
But instead we're gonna come at it as, well, they're bad and I need to make them make a change. And Steve, I'd love for you to describe what's going on in these overwhelmed horses where they're just it's hard. They're overwhelmed. And what's going on underneath that people can understand?
Dr. Steven Peters (25:32)
It's a nervous system. It's very simple that their biology just wants to relate, wants to be safe, wants to adapt, wants to understand their world. And they survive by being able to predict is this going to be a decent situation? Well, in the horse that Mark just talked about, that horse was not convinced or had been convinced now that this is not going to be good.
What we would like to do is actually call what they call in the literature a a prediction error where they may predict this is not going to be good, but we've gone out of our way to show them that they're going to be safe. Now they'll have to recalibrate that. And if we do that continuously, and they can start to predict that I'm going to be safe and I'm okay with this. And Mark just told you how quickly that horse could adjust when we did that.
Unfortunately, what often happens when we can't understand the nervous system, our solution is more pressure. We're gonna we're gonna make this happen. And you actually start sending messages. The horse it makes no point to call them names. Here's behavior, but here's the nervous system state. The nervous system state determines the behavior. And so behavior is way down the line. If you want to get upstream,
You really want to look at the nervous system state. And if the horse is flooded with neurochemicals that has them hyper alert, you have to realize there's no learning that's going to take place. They're just going to be in a self protective mode. So they might get bits and pieces, but really what they're trying to do is survive. A lot of those messages that are now going down to the brain stem, telling the spinal cord, we need to be thinking about how to.
Get ourselves out of this situation where if instead of the task you were to work with the nervous system and say, you know what I have to do here? I have to drain off a lot of these neurochemicals that have this horse so hyped up. And I have to do something small and engaging, and perhaps even create the smallest bit of curiosity, and then allow that horse time to recover from that.
It's the opposite of putting on more pressure. Actually, what we're going to try to do is make sure that that horse's predictions are this isn't so bad. And it's amazing that just that little answer for your horse allows them to start to recalibrate this and they're a willing participant. So to call them names when they are actually truly victims of the messages that we're sending to their nervous system.
They're only responding is to to where our messages are going. Perhaps if we took responsibility and said, Hey, wait a second, I'm sending everything to the amygdala. I'm sending everything towards fear. You know, how could this horse possibly learn if that's what I'm going to do? Maybe I need to take a step back and help my horse find a safe spot for the day. And then maybe tomorrow the safe spot somewhere else.
And once they learned that that safe spot's portable, now, like my horses, when they came from from Utah to Colorado, I heard them over say to each other, hey, they got safe spots here in Colorado as well. I didn't really hear hear them say that. But and I don't want people to say, hey, this guy's not a scientist. But but basically, if you just work with their nervous system, my goodness, their biology is set up.
To adapt, to understand, to relate. They're social creatures. And if we can meet them, if we can rise to the occasion and meet them at that point, which may take a little bit of effort, but if you go slow enough to work with that nervous system, you'll end up with horses that can do just about anything for you if you're if you're willing to do that.
Paula Curtis (29:11)
Yeah. And it it reminds me of the it was the Mustang, I think, that did the like the hundred day makeover that there's this video of this horse doing sliding stops and spins and this, that, and the other thing. But then you get a hold of it and this young girl now that this horse has been flooded. It's been in a heightened nervous system state where it's going through the motions and doing these things, but it hasn't really actually learned. And and now it's it was passed on to this younger girl and
That's hoping to have a a well-broke horse and that she can do some things with. And the horse can't cope. And even steering is difficult because the horse doesn't have the ability. It hasn't learned how to learn the person. Like if a horse is relaxed and they're in a nervous system state where they're receptive, they're going to be able to see you and come and match you wherever you're at. And
Try to feel what it is you're looking for and understand. Whereas the horses in the state that you're talking about, how do they relate to the world? They're relating to the world, just trying to get through. They're not curious. They're not trying to figure it out. They're not trying to come at things with this mentality of, I'm going to sort this out and it's going to end up being good. They just
want survival. So yeah, that's that's very interesting that we've got these two different nervous system states. And obviously they're not you're not in one or the other all the time. But if you're predominantly in this heightened nervous system state, you're probably not going to be learning nearly as well, or you won't be learning nearly as well as if you're in this relaxed nervous system state. So then like what Mark was talking about earlier with that draft horse with the mounting block.
It was let it relax, let it get comfortable. And now in a short amount of time, we have a horse that's able to be by the mounting block, haltered, handled, and they're comfortable. So now we're receptive for learning what's next. And that's pretty cool. Let's talk a little bit about that Mustang that's got this almost overlearned fear state where they're a bit stuck. And even just being in
A human's presence causes them to be in this state where they're nervous and fearful. And Mark, I would love for you to touch on that.
Mark Rashid (31:28)
Well, anything can be a trigger to send send horses into into a state where they just can't function very well. And so everything is situational with horses. And th which is one of the one of the things that I think can be the most difficult for people to to understand is that once a horse is in a situation that reminds them of something that maybe didn't go as well for them, you know, that can be a trigger for them to go right into a sympathetic
state and a state of arousal. But it's and and a lot of times people will think, well, they my horse doesn't like me. And really what the horse doesn't like is the situation. And you are part of the situation. That's the only reason it's not about you. It's about the fact that this horse has been triggered by the situation. Or in the in the case of that Mustang, it had learned to get along because of the way it was ridden.
And so it could it could kind of take that as long as the as long as what was being done was similar to what was being done at home during its training, it could function. But then once this little girl got this horse and it wasn't those behaviors that it was taught and was able to replicate, once that foundation
wasn't there anymore. It just couldn't function. And then the stress got bigger and bigger and bigger. Even though that girl was trying to do all the right things, it just the horse wasn't in a place where you know people had become a problem for that horse. And, you know, luckily she was a gymnast when that horse came apart. She didn't get hurt. But the the bottom line is I think that it's the it's the situation that I mean I've seen horses
where somebody would bring a saddle out, a specific saddle, and the horse would start having trouble. If you brought a different saddle out, the horse would be okay. So that's the that's what I'm talking about. I mean that's how that's how specific they can be i about situations. So it wasn't all saddles that triggered that horse. It was one particular saddle that triggered that horse because it didn't it was a
horrendous fit for that horse. So those are those are things for us to I think for us to to keep in mind that, you know, it w we can pretty much unless it is you, unless unless you are the problem, you could be the trigger for the horse. But in general it's the situation that's the that's the problem.
Paula Curtis (33:43)
Interesting. So we've got to be our own scientists and researchers and figure out what are these triggers and what exactly is putting the horse in this state. So then we can adjust and find a better way. All right, Chrissy.
Crissi McDonald (33:57)
You were asking about the Mustang who went through the Mustang makeover.
Paula Curtis (34:00)
Well, I was asking more about the the horses that are in these persistent fear states and how do we help them start to first of all, what are we seeing when they are? and or how do we help them when they are in these states? What are you looking to do to help them out?
Crissi McDonald (34:18)
that would depend on the context. So when if we frequently buy ranch horses and some of them come in and after the shell kind of wears off, we see that they've had some unfortunate handling or or handling they didn't understand. In that case, we slow everything way down. So the first things we do are we take care of the horse physically, meaning we get them looked at by a vet.
Worked on by a body worker, maybe an equine chiropractor. We make sure the teeth are okay, the feet are okay. We usually do something to support their digestive system. And we overall make sure that they're feeling good in their body. They will stay with our herd, and our herd is out either on pasture or in a paddock altogether, so that they have the social aspect. And then depending on how they're doing, we may or may not ride them in.
clinic situations. So maybe we get them out and groom them and put them back. it really is depends on the horse. So we spend anywhere from weeks to months getting to know a horse before we ever get on their back, especially if we think there are some issues there that are going to need to be addressed. We want to be sure that we're looking at a behavior and not the result of the horse being in pain or discomfort because they can look
Very similar. If we get a horse who comes into a clinic situation and the person is saying, My horse is always afraid, the only time they're not afraid is when they're in the paddock with their friends. We will try to find out where the horse feels comfortable. So we may not have a lesson in the arena. We may have a lesson right by the horse's paddock where their friend is. And then we can work on usually we work on leading, making sure the horse understands how to follow.
And we talk to the riders about the physical. Have has your horse been seen by a vet? Do you know if they feel okay in their body? How are they? Just going through the checklist and making sure that that is in place too. So a lot of times we find if we can get the horse feeling comfortable in their body and we are reliable and consistent around them, that at least 50% of those that kind of heightened state, the questions that the horse has, they just tend to drop away. And it
It's a nice way to make sure that we're dealing with the behavior and not with the effect of pain.
Paula Curtis (36:24)
I think that's so beautiful in the respect that it it's taking into account the whole being, this whole horse. The horse is not just who you pulled out of the pen that day. They are, like you were talking, the pre their previous experience, but companionship. Do they have companionship, the ability to move, to the ability to play, the ability to really connect with others and move as one? Because that's what a herd does.
all day long and they're in constant communications. And then of course the physical comforts. These are all things that are so important. And I love how you touched on each of those. And then you're building in like Mark's talked about the time and you have as well. And you're building in this time aspect. So such important points for people to keep in mind because oftentimes we as people we have an agenda and we want to go do X, Y, or Z, and it might not fit our horse today.
And that's okay. We can do other things. Steve.
Dr. Steven Peters (37:24)
I like the fact that earlier you had said, well, maybe we need to be our own scientist. And this should be very empowering to people, actually, because if, as you had mentioned, all those environmental things, if you were a gardener, if you could provide rich soil, if you could water your plants, you could even put on some miracle grow, make sure they got sunshine, and they could just sprout and grow.
Brains actually do the same if they feel safe, if brains are nurtured, so you can create an incredible set of neuronal connections in your horse's brain. And simply if you stress your horse enough, the brain's not going to be a paying attention to what you're trying to communicate to your horse. If your brain's not paying attention, then it doesn't know what to wire together.
So those things don't get wired together. So when we have gaps in our foundation, it's oftentimes because we wanted to get there so fast that we left some of the wiring undone. And then we go back and blame our horse because that wiring's not in place. But they may not be capable of doing what we ask. Not because they're defiant, but because we left a hole in there. And I think sometimes in learning, one of the things that we see are
Horses with a lot of these disconnections or connections that were never made. And then we put pressure on, and we're not providing the environment that allows for growth. And it's interesting. What we know is that if we can provide these nurturing environments, we actually help our horses be more resilient to stress throughout their lifespan. So
Stress has less impact on them if they feel comfortable, if they feel that their life is worthwhile. Now you might say, well, that's too cognitive. What do you mean if they think their life is worthwhile? Well, if they're able to make choices, if they're able to interact with other horses, if they're able to make decisions, and that doesn't mean drop your reins and let your horse do whatever, but
If your horse and you are responding in communication, your horse almost feels like it's training you to take the leg off. And that's part of your your cue. As long as it knows that its behaviors matter and it has some agency in this world, then our horses can show up for us time and time again. And when we run roughshod over that, and the brain decides, hey, I'm too stressed. I can't focus on this.
I can't make those connections. We've left the gaps.
Paula Curtis (39:53)
Excellent. It's that idea of having an internal locus of control, which, like with the Mustang, he didn't have that. He was doing the things and going through the motions in this heightened sympathetic state, never really go dropping down into a more parasympathetic balance. So now he's sitting here unable to learn. And actually, do there do these dendrites start pruning even?
When this is happening, so we're actually losing connection?
Dr. Steven Peters (40:21)
I'm glad you said that because that's exactly the scientific term, pruning. So if you're a gardener, do you want to grow dendrites or do you want to go in there with the clippers and start pruning? Because that's what happens under stress. And sometimes that circus horse, like or like Mark said, with that Mustang that's just learned, just do this, just do this, just do this. And that's all that's how rigid you are. Well, you've
Pruned off all the dendrites, and you may have a strong connection on that one very rigid behavior. But take that circus horse out for a trail ride and watch what happens. You know, they don't have all those dendrites, they don't have options, they don't have capacity any longer. So yes, pruning is a great word.
Paula Curtis (41:05)
Ooh, and I like that options. They don't have options. And we they're so much more available to us and our horses when we've got options. And we can only do that if they're in a nervous system state that's able to create those and now fire and wire the right connections. So we've got all these different options available to us and and now we can go.
Dr. Steven Peters (41:27)
You
read the book.
Mark Rashid (41:28)
Mm-hmm.
Paula Curtis (41:29)
Yeah, I did. I did. So everybody listening, go read this book because you'll start drawing connections and Yeah. So we'll go to the next question here. But we'll start with you, Chrissy. So several stories in the book show the importance of going slowly. And we've we've touched on this a lot in the conversation here today, whether it's trailer loading, separation, positive reinforcement. And we should touch on the positive reinforcement because a lot of people, you know.
get into that that piece and I think they'd be curious about that, or rebuilding confidence. So how do you know when you're moving at a pace that the horse is actually able to absorb and start building these connections in? All right.
Crissi McDonald (42:09)
It's different with every horse, but one of the things I look for is that the horse remains curious. And when that curiosity starts to wane a little bit, I usually will pause or stop or put the horse, you know, call it a day with that horse, or or s you know, stop doing the activity. Horses move a certain way when they're not mentally tense. So their bodies, you know, Mark always says horses act the way they feel.
And so when a horse is feeling relaxed inside, the body will move a certain way. So the joints are round, the the head is generally wither height, the ears move in a relaxed way, the muzzle is relaxed, the face is relaxed, you know, they will cock a it's not always a sign of relaxation that they cock a hind foot, but sometimes it is. So the overall appearance of the horse will will be softer.
Than a horse who has a lot of tension. So those are probably the two main things that I look for. You're asking great questions because I haven't thought about this in eight. I'm like, what I don't know, what do I do? so those are those are two of the main things I look for is is the horse still engaged and curious? And is their body showing that even though they're learning something and they may not quite get it, is their body still relatively relaxed?
And then let me know when you want me to chime in about the positive reinforcement.
Paula Curtis (43:23)
Okay. We'll maybe do that as a separate aside after this this question because I think that is something a lot of people are curious about. So Mark, what about you?
Mark Rashid (43:33)
What what was the question? I wanna be I wanna make sure I get the questi the question right.
Paula Curtis (43:37)
The importance of going slowly, whether it's trailer loading, separation, or rebuilding confidence, and then how do you know that you're moving at a pace that the horse can actually absorb?
Mark Rashid (43:46)
I've just my training has always been slow. I've and the older I've gotten, it seems like the slower I've gotten. Because over the years what I have found is that the slower I've gone with horses, the more I learn about who they are. And the easier it is to see any changes that they might offer in either direction, either that they're understanding or they're not understanding.
And you just for me, you just get to know the horse better. And they get to know you, I think. And so going slow is is something I've I've always I shouldn't say I've always done it, but for many years that's what I've done and and like I said, I have a tendency to go a little slower now than I did even then. you just see more and you can there's a lot of subtle things that horses offer.
when either something isn't quite right or or it's it's getting better or you've you know, we kind of got there with them. And and the faster you go, the more the the easier to not see those things. And everything I have found that, especially when working, for instance, like a with a horse that is having trouble being caught, that everything, every movement
That you make in the pen with the horse means something to the horse. It doesn't matter how little the movement is. You can overdo something just by shifting your weight. And over time, having gone slow, those are the things that have helped me see those things and notice those things and be able to say to the horse, Yeah, yeah, that was me. I got it. That I I overdid it there. Or I think we got it that time. Or
That feels better. And that's in everything that you do with a horse. So in terms of being able to tell when when the horse is starting to to get there, to s is starting to feel better about things, again, just the more time you take, the easier it is to see those changes. And it's easier to see them let down all the little things, the speed at which they're blinking an eye, or the way that the lips
change. Are they going from being pursed to to being able to soften just a little bit? Yeah, we're getting there. I gotta it's important that I don't overstep my bounds at this point because I can see that we're starting to make some headway. Just those little things. And once once you see you can't unsee But you're not going to see if you're going too fast. You just won't.
Paula Curtis (46:04)
Slow down and enter that space of our horses, which is so slow. I mean, if you spend any time around horses out, you know, in it and you watch them in a field grazing, or you just sit out in a field and watch them graze, it's constant conversation going on with the entire environment. And like you were talking about, Mark, it's so subtle, it's so small. And the beautiful part is.
All those small little things are so soft and open and receptive. It's like they're just feeling out with their whole body into the environment. And if we can be that way around them, it opens up the door to all of these options and all of these possibilities. So that's such a great message. Slow down and observe. I think it's harder and harder for people to do because we're just.
We're busy. It's life is fast. There's so much. And we want to take in all the things and all the information. And and really, there's a invitation out there from the horse to all of us. And it's just what you were talking about, Mark. And yeah, thank you for that. What a great message. So, Steve, what do you have to say about these horses?
Dr. Steven Peters (47:14)
Yeah. You may have heard of the term or or the phrase, neurons that fire together wire together. And when they start to wire together, a fatty wrapping wraps around the neuron and makes it a little more permanent called myelin. So you can also wire the wrong things. So you want to be very precise. And the only way to be precise is to slow down.
like a Swiss watchmaker and make sure that you're making those precision connections before you start wiring them together because you're gonna be stuck with going back and changing those things. And you may be wiring things that you're not aware of that turns into a bad habit. And I say bad habit only because we don't like it. One of the ways to when we go slow, we allow the horse to consolidate the information as well.
So learning is two steps. The first one is making sure that the brain is engaged with us and just attuned to what we're asking or our communication. And so that starts the wiring. But we need to let their n sympathetic arousal, which you need for learning, drop back down and become and recover, become parasympathetic. And when that happens, then you consolidate the information. So it's just this little up and down, up and down.
The slow over time. But you're making sure that all those connections are made very precisely. And so that where Mark had said before, you end up if you go fast, you end up with horses having no idea of what you're asking. Cognitively, they can't understand what the task is all about. But if you go slow, you put that foundation in place and they become pretty comfortable with it because they can start to predict.
And that's really what you want them to do. Predict safety. Predict that this is going to be okay. That's where they can become curious. That's where they can become exploratory. The world is not a bad place. I can go out and actually be actively involved. But if we go fast, we're not going to be precise. And all that's going to do is create confusion with our horse. When they start to get confused and don't understand what we're asking, then sympathetic arousal goes way high.
Horses do not like it to be confused, to not understand something, to not feel like they can predict what's going to happen. And you'll just see them just get so hyper alert and feel like they need to protect themselves. Usually it's fight or flight. They start to determine that I need to get out of this situation. How do you know you went too fast? Well, if your horse is not able to recover, come back down, even if they did what you asked.
Then you went too fast. You need to see that their nervous system adapts and accepts and recalibrates.
Paula Curtis (49:57)
Excellent. And that goes back to like what Mark was saying, when we're slow and we're giving them the time, they can do that what you were talking about earlier, that pedulation and come back down. And so if probably if we take it up too high, we've got to wait that much longer and go that much slower so they can come back down and be in a nervous system state now where we can start having a conversation again.
Dr. Steven Peters (50:20)
You can get horses that that get stuck up there that have a lot of trouble coming back down because we've never allowed them to do it. We just stack more demand and more load on top of that. But by going slow and letting that process happen, you end up with a horse like Tuff that we started talking about long before that is just so comfortable with the world that he looks shut down to people, but he's just saying, I got it, man.
Paula Curtis (50:46)
Yeah. And those are the horses that you can put anybody on and go do parades with and all sorts of stuff, like what Chrissy was was doing with him. Now, what about positive reinforcement? How does that fold into this picture? And what is going on, first of all, in the horses, how do we phase out of positive reinforcement? Because we can't, of course, be giving them treats every time they're doing anything going down a trail or or whatnot. How do we work?
that into and or out of the equation and what's going on during that time. So Mark, I'd like you to lead us off with that one.
Mark Rashid (51:20)
You know, I would actually like s Steve to step in first on this one because there are certain things that happen in the brain when it comes to positive reinforcement. We can you know, there's a lot of opinions about positive reinforcement that are out there, both positive and not so positive about it. But I feel like if we have an overview of what's going on in the brain, then it's a little easier for us to to talk about it. If that's all right with you.
Paula Curtis (51:45)
Yeah, that works just fine. So Steve?
Dr. Steven Peters (51:47)
Mark just wants me to suffer the slings and arrows.
Mark Rashid (51:49)
Makes it a little easier on everybody.
Dr. Steven Peters (51:52)
Is
it is interesting because, you know, even even with the book, we I saw one of the reviews. Chrissy and I talked about it, and I said, They're not going to see that this story is about just broadly reinforcing everything. So the horse had no idea what it was getting rewarded for, other than I did something, where's my reward? That was just talking about the the use of timing and selectively rewarding.
Not that it was negative or positive. So in fact, like Mark said, there's positives and negatives to both, and I don't mean positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, that it and it can work in certain situations that sometimes work faster than if you just use negative reinforcement. So you could use treats. I don't even know if treats is the word a food reinforcer. And you almost have to divide it out between clicker training and
and just reward with food because you can be much quicker with your with your clicker than you can with reinforcing and making that association with food. It goes back to one being an intrinsic reward and one being an external source of reward. Both to some extent will create dopamine. I use the example of if you learn to read, maybe it's not the best example, if you learn to r to read
And you were getting excited reading stories and you wanted to read the next story because you wanted to find out what the author did with those characters, et cetera. Or
Paula Curtis (53:18)
Yeah.
Dr. Steven Peters (53:19)
if I paid you five dollars every time you read a chapter, what would happen if I ran out of money? Would your enthusiasm, would your learning still be the same? Maybe, maybe not. And the second part of your question was, okay, if I've had my horse being reinforced with food, how do I change that?
Well, the contract between you and your horse is you're going to get this for a reward. So probably not going cold turk. What you want to do is create other rewards and then intermingle the two, and then use less of the food and more of the new reward, more of the relief and release, more of whatever it is that that's rewarding to your horse, finding out what's rewarding to your horse and using that.
intermittently and gradually back off with the food would be the way to do it. But not to go cold turkey because that's likely to create behaviors that they you then try to correct. And you don't want to put yourself, I don't think, in a position where you're fighting with your horse and your horse is not looking to follow you in a conversation. They're looking for their food reward. So it can get messy. But I don't want people to say, well he's just so negative on positive reinforcement.
Done skillfully. And I think it comes down more to timing and your signal and being able to know that that's that you're being precise is not easy to do. So there's a lot of room for error. I think there's more room for error if you're just practicing your timing and signal communication with your horse by pressure and release, so to speak.
Paula Curtis (54:52)
Yeah. So getting them to have what we want, our goal, our end goal is for them to find purpose, joy, and get the dopamine from the actual work itself and doing things with us rather than the reward. And if we are using reward, we've got to be just so precise and clear that we are are signaling and rewarding the exact behaviors that we're looking for and then just gradually phasing it out.
So that now they're finding it in the work itself. So maybe it's a bridge to help us to get to where we want to go. So Mark, did you want to
Dr. Steven Peters (55:27)
and and just it may sound blasphemous, but you can do both. Maybe the two camps won't like to hear that, but you know, you certainly can give your horse release and then scratch on the withers. So they're getting positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.
Paula Curtis (55:41)
Yeah, great. Mark.
Mark Rashid (55:42)
well, I think the history of it, it was originally designed to train predators, so sea mammals in captivity. So that was kind of where it started. And because predators, so there's three with predators and with prey animals, there's kind of three strong three motivators that are kind of the strongest. And in predators, the three strongest motivators are food, fear, and pain.
And in prey animals, the three strongest motivators are fear, pain, and food. So it was pretty easy to to use positive reinforcement with predators because that's their strongest motivator. So, you know, they're they're hunters. Prey animals are hunted, so little less likely. So the thing about positive reinforcement is that that it doesn't work very well with a horse that is fearful. So that's one of the
I think one of the downsides to it is that even a horse that has been trained pretty well with positive reinforcement, if they are taken out of a familiar situation like we talked about earlier, and put into an unfamiliar situation where they become fearful, the positive reinforcement a lot of times won't work. And th so that can be a kind of a downside to it. Now, the same can be said with a horse that has been
trained sort of traditionally, if they haven't if they don't understand something or and you put them into a fearful situation, then you know the behavior that looked like it was gonna were working will will fall apart as well. But whereas when a horse really understands what they're what's being asked of them, and then you take them from one environment to another, even if they become fearful in and they but they understand how to respond, generally speaking, you can bring them back
quicker through traditional training, if they understand it, if they understand what's being asked of them before they got worried, you can bring them back quicker generally than you can with positive reinforcement. That isn't to say that you can't do it with positive reinforcement, but that's been my experience with both. So, you know, I don't see I've seen the good side of positive reinforcement and I've seen the negative side of
Positive reinforcement and had a had a gal in Arizona whose hat blew off. She was on a tall horse and she walked the horse over and the horse picked up her hat and gave it to her while she was on her back. When he while she was on the horse's back and she looked at me and said, positive reinforcement. You know? But it was a practical and she didn't reward the horse. He just picked it up and gave it to her because, you know, the the process had been completed. But I've also seen people where they were still doing treats.
two and three years into their training and the horse was not weaned off of and you were you mentioned earlier how they were giving the treats. You don't want to be giving the treats for walking down the trail or every time you get on the horse. And that's kind of what they were doing. And then there there people will say, well they didn't do it right. Well, yeah, I guess not, but they're still doing it. There's people out there that are doing that. There's upsides and and downsides and just like there is with anything else. So that's the reality of it. And
I I wouldn't say anything probably more or less than that. It's not something that we do on a regular basis. In fact, we don't do it very much at all. But I wouldn't discount it for sure. There are upsides to it, like Steve said. And you can you can get through to horses that that had trouble getting through to any in other ways. And I we've seen that too. So I don't want to discount it.
Paula Curtis (59:02)
Yeah. Chrissy, did you want to add anything?
Crissi McDonald (59:04)
Well, sure. I I wanna go back to what Steve said about a horse's fundamental sense of safety being portable. And I think that that is very important, whether around horses or not, that they know that they can be okay in many different situations. I feel the same about positive reinforcement. I think it can be used to benefit. And I've also seen it used where it's such a distraction that we're not sure if the horse is really learning.
Or just throwing out behavior to get the treat. So I don't I would when I was in my early 30s, I worked with a horse who had had some very unfortunate handling. She was an ex-endurance racehorse. She, if you were on the ground, it was like being in the paddock with a shark. She was extremely defensive. She had learned to fight with people instead of
My guess is is that flight had been taken away, so she learned to fight. Little Arab mare's 14 2. I mean, just she's very defensive. And I worked with her and her owner for close to a year. We made a little bit of progress. And I was at my wit's end. And so finally I said, look, let's try some positive reinforcement and see if we can make an inn. And within a month, I could walk up to the horse and halter her and groom her.
Because bridging that gap, food for whatever reason, made sense to her. And she was able to come out of the fight state and actually start listening to what we were trying to say, which is basically we want to help you feel better. But she was in such a fight state when people were around all the time that we couldn't find a way to say, We just would like to help you feel better. We don't we're not looking for anything.
Right. We she needed to be safe around people and positive reinforcement did it. It was and that is probably the only time I've used it in training. Because from that, then we had a jumping off point to help her in other ways. And the and the food kind of started to take back seat. So I know people who have had great success with it. And I would never say anything opposite because that's their experience in their horse. I've
As I've said, I've s and there's a story in the book, I've also seen it used to the point where it became a distraction instead of the horse's learning how to learn. So the horse learned how to get a treat, but I wasn't sure the horse was learning how to learn what the rider and the trainer were teaching.
Paula Curtis (1:01:20)
Yeah. It's interesting because we can talk about body and mind and nervous system state and all of these things, they're not independent of one another. So I wonder, often with positive reinforcement, if that just the mechanism of them chewing. You know, there's that story about I think it was Tom Dorrance, and I'm probably not gonna get this right, but where it was a trailer loading situation and
He built in time and he built in relaxation beforehand by just telling this person who had the horse to go graze them over on the side yard before loading in the trailer and then the horse got right in the trailer, no big deal. So horses, when they're relaxed, they're chewing, they're moving their mouth, they're moving their lips, they're moving their jaw, the tongue is working, and you know, the tongue's connected through all the way down to the base of their neck. So
Now they're going to relax there and with that's gonna shift their breathing. And so I wonder if in a situation like that we're seeing all of these changes happen because not only are they relaxing just because they're eating, but maybe they're the it's just the mechanism of chewing is helping create all of this. So Steve, would that be a part of this sort of thing where we've got a horse like Chrissy's talking to and now
It's chewing, is it going to cause these downstream effects?
Dr. Steven Peters (1:02:40)
Yeah. These are great questions. And I think they're questions that need to be answered, but I don't know that we've that science has been able to answer many of them. But if we just look at the glossopharyngeal nerve number nine, it's just parasympathetic fibers that go to the salivary gland. So if we're sympathetically aroused, too sympathetically aroused, our lips will crank clamp shut and our mouths will go dry.
And you see that in your horse, but if they're chewing, then they have to develop that saliva. And so they're they're somewhat parasympathetic, more there's a change, a change in state from sympathetic to parasympathetic. But I've often wondered if you got your horse onto a trailer with food and you closed up that trailer door.
Is that horse completely comfortable and feeling safe on its own? Or did I induce that with the food to get them on? And are they always going to be looking for food in order to downregulate themselves? Or can they downregulate themselves on their own? Which is different. And I think that as we start to use wearable technology with horses,
We're going to be able to differentiate those two things because perhaps that horse now becomes totally reliant on getting some food to help me relax, help me get parasympathetic, versus I've practiced pendulation and down regulation so much that I'm just cool getting on this trailer. And if I'm a little jazzed up,
I can come back down. And we're not sure where in the body we see this either. So we'd have to start looking at putting EEGs on horses and variable heart rate monitors and seeing all the changes that take place. And then we'd really be able to tell wow, am I artificially inducing something here? And I don't know the answer to that. and I don't know that science knows the answer to that. But you raise some great questions, and I th I'm hopeful.
that the future will allow us to to get some clarity.
Paula Curtis (1:04:38)
Yeah. It's almost like you've got somebody that's a smoker and they're getting a a down regulation just by smoking versus a person that has done some mindfulness and meditation and maybe breath work. And this is coming from inside and the things that we're doing inside. So now in any situation, regardless of what's going on, we've got these tools where we can pendulate our system without relying on something external.
To do it.
Dr. Steven Peters (1:05:04)
It's interesting that the definition for homeostasis is a self regulation of the nervous system. So that would be an internal self regulation to help you get to homeostasis. So you don't need an external crutch. Sometimes people want to be that crutch for their horse. I want my horse to feel comfortable with me, but they're really not doing the horse a favor because that person may not always be around. They may sell that horse and that horse in a
in a dangerous situation may decide, well, I need to be in your lap to be totally safe and a thousand pound creature that's probably not the best option.
Paula Curtis (1:05:41)
No pocket ponies. Well, this has been a great conversation. And I would like you all to maybe just touch on a bit how the the last phrase is that you you finished the book up. So Steve, since you just finished finished talking, you said the horse's welfare is our privilege. So I'd love you to just expand on that thought.
A little for our audience. Yeah, I guess just expand on it.
Dr. Steven Peters (1:06:05)
These are magnificent creatures, and they're sensory creatures, and they have such unique capabilities, and they have a nervous system, a mammalian nervous system, just like ours. And we have an opportunity to actually create environments where these animals can thrive, and not just in terms of performance, but in terms of health and in terms of of welfare. So
I would encourage everyone to try to see what I would like you to see. And that's the nervous system, because I understand that horses just want to get on in this world and figure out life and in the environments that they're in. And if we can replicate their natural habitats, if we can set it up so that they're social creatures that they're with.
other animals, if we can provide forage and opportunities to graze that they do naturally, then these horses can benefit tremendously and benefit us as well. So it's our privilege to be in a position where we can actually create this for our horses and with our horses.
Paula Curtis (1:07:10)
Yeah. Excellent. And Chrissy, you said a a kinder life for our horses.
Crissi McDonald (1:07:15)
I did. It seems to me that our horses have no choice about most of their lives. We control when they eat. We control if the water trough is clean. We control what kind of food they get. We take them out. We control the activity. And it seems to me that really offering them a life
That is in line with who they are is a fair price to pay. So can they be with other horses? Can they move? Can they eat frequently? And when we work with them, can we work with them in a way that shows we're listening? As opposed to just directive giving orders, you do this for me. They already do so much for us.
It seems to me that if we can offer something that is in line and kind with who they are as horses, it's a fair trade. Horses still giving us more than we perhaps give them, but it seems like we could do we could do better to keep these things in mind.
Paula Curtis (1:08:05)
beautiful. And Mark, you said no better, do better.
Mark Rashid (1:08:08)
That's something that I've kind of lived by in in my whole life, not just with horses, but the whole I think the whole what we should be doing throughout our life is learning as much as we can about everything. And horses are no exception. The the more we learn, the better we are. Not just the better we do, but the better we become. We become a
better part of of the whole picture. We become a we become part of the part of the whole thing, you know? I mean if we if we can get better at understanding horses, then we're going to get better at understanding ourselves. We can't not get better. And so the whole point of everything at the from the day we're born until the day we're gone, I think, is to just get better.
at the life that we are living. And if we can help others, whether it's horses or people or dogs or whatever, then we should do that. And we may not be able to to change the world, but we can change the world within three feet of ourselves, certainly. So it's yeah, it's a good endeavor, I think.
Paula Curtis (1:09:12)
Excellent. Well, I sure appreciate you all for being here. The the reason for the online horse fair and all that we do here at Because of the Horse is really because I believe that horsemanship's lifemanship and through it we become better people. That's why the slogan is better people equal better horses and that equals a better world. Because the lessons that our horses teach us, they lead out into every aspect of our being. And it's it's really a wonderful thing. So
Thank you all for sharing your wisdom, your stories, and being so generous in creating a better world for all beings. It's really a beautiful thing. So thanks for being here.
Crissi McDonald (1:09:50)
Thank you so much, Paula. It's been a pleasure.
