Healing Horses: The story of equine assisted learning and therapy

Dr. Ellen Rankin, of Tarleton University, and Dr. Kelsey John of the University of Colorado-Boulder, share how they incorporate horses into their professions of teaching and therapy.   Whether horses are helping youth to learn, allowing people of all abilities to ride, or helping to heal emotional trauma, horses are used to help humans in a variety of ways. 

Transcript

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Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horse's Tack Box Talk Series, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University, and today we're going to be talking about the various ways that horses can help to heal humans from two very different approaches.

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Kris Hiney: So, with us today is Dr. Ellen Rankin from Tarleton University, who is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Texan Therapeutic Writing Program. So, welcome, Dr. Rankin!

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Ellen Rankins: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

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Kris Hiney: And joining us as well is Dr. Kelsey John, who is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who is in the Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies. So welcome, Dr. John.

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Kelsey John: Hi, happy to be here.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, so the obvious question, Kelsey, is you are in the Department for Native American and Indigenous Studies, and I have you here, we're going to be talking about horses, so kind of tell us

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Kris Hiney: how you're linked in to our podcast today.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, definitely. So… Native and Indigenous Studies is my, area of focus, and our department is actually an ethnic studies department, so we have different, like, people who focus

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Kelsey John: In different geographic regions or with different populations. So, my work is with Indigenous peoples, and I am the NEH, and so I'm a citizen of the Navajo Nation.

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Kelsey John: And like a lot of other tribes in Native North America, we are a horse nation. And so horses are really, really significant to our culture and our creation stories.

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Kelsey John: And so most, well, a, a lot of Navajo people grow up very close to horses, just like I did. And so that's kind of my personal background with that. But it merged into my scholarly work, because my PhD is in education. And so I became really interested in how it is that humans learn with horses.

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Kelsey John: And specifically how that plays out in my own, culture, which is the Navajo culture. So, we know from the education world that different cultures and different tribes learn in unique ways that reflect their, like, worldviews.

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Kelsey John: And so, I'm really interested in where horses, and also I would say other non-human animals, come into that learning process.

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Kris Hiney: Well, that's fascinating. So, I think what we want to do before we get started is kind of help people with some definitions, because

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Kris Hiney: Dr. John, you're using what we would, I think, call equine-assisted learning, whereas, Dr. Rankin, you're doing equine-assisted therapy. Do I have all those terms right?

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Ellen Rankins: I actually work primarily in the adaptive horsemanship space, which is going to differ from utilizing horses in a therapy context, but I can talk about both because I've done research in both of those areas.

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Kris Hiney: So there's three types of things that maybe we should be very specific, and there's actually more than three types. I do know that, but they can get really mixed together in people understanding what they do. So maybe tell us what you would say is adaptive riding and then equine assisted therapy, and then we'll talk about.

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Kris Hiney: Equine assisted learning, it's all so many different things.

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Ellen Rankins: Yeah, happy to do that. So on the adaptive horsemanship side of things, when we think about adaptive horsemanship, we're really thinking about taking traditional horsemanship activities. So what most of our listeners might be familiar with, whether that's riding, whether that's grooming, whether that's some of those groundwork skills, like being able to lunge a horse, round pen with a horse, some of those types of things.

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Ellen Rankins: And adapting our teaching techniques, our equipment, and the environment in a way that makes it easy for all individuals to learn. So whether they come in with a physical disability, maybe some cognitive challenges, emotional background, taking all of those factors into account and in creating an environment where they can learn and be successful in what we're asking them to do with the horses. And so really at the end

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Ellen Rankins: the day, the focus is on those horsemanship skills, and making that accessible to a very wide population of people.

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Ellen Rankins: And then on the other side of things, we have therapists.

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Ellen Rankins: would integrate horses into their practice. So, for these practitioners, they're going to be working in the healthcare space. So, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, psychotherapist, right? It's a long list, all of those different credentials that you could have and be a professional in that space and then be able to integrate horses into that work and write all of those professionals are going to integrate horses

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Ellen Rankins: into their work for different reasons, right? For physical therapists, they're looking for maybe that movement that the horse is providing to help their clients achieve those therapeutic outcomes. Versus a psychotherapist, right, might be looking for some of those emotional regulation skills.

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Ellen Rankins: Or those types of aspects that they're going to integrate the horse in, so more from a relational aspect, a behavioral aspect, rather than the movement that the physical therapist is after.

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Kris Hiney: So, Kelsey, then, how does what you do fit into that? Because I think I'm a little muddy on…

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Kris Hiney: how that would differ, like, a psych… equine-assisted psychotherapy, or learning, like.

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Kris Hiney: How does your field use them or study their use?

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Kelsey John: Yeah, so the way that I think about it is I practice equine assisted learning. Some people call it equine facilitated learning too.

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Kelsey John: And basically it's all about your scope of practice. So as an educator, you are working with horses and you may be using similar activities like grooming or groundwork. You could even do riding as well, but it's for an educational purpose. And so you're really staying with helping your clients or whomever you're working with, like build a specific

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Kelsey John: skill that's in your scope of practice as an educator. So you're gonna stay away from, like.

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Kelsey John: Emotional regulation or the processing of trauma, that's the job of a therapist. As an educator, you're doing things that are more focused on helping people build communication skills or build relationships, build self-confidence, or even leadership skills, the kinds of skills that you would learn in an educational setting versus a therapeutic or therapy setting.

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Kelsey John: However, it can get a little murky because, of course, like, spending time with horses can feel very therapeutic, but there's a difference.

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Kelsey John: with of something feeling therapeutic versus it actually being the practice of therapy so a good example of this is you might go for a walk right and you're like oh that was therapeutic right I feel better it's good for me it's physical maybe I went with a friend we're chatting but it's not like the practice of therapy it's the same thing with spending time with horses it might make you feel like it was a really therapeutic experience but as the facilitator

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Kelsey John: You know, your job is to really keep it in your scope of practice. And so, you know, this can look like lots of different things. When I work with Native American clients and Native American youth, we talk a lot about culture in our practice. So it's a good way to help teach the younger kids about some of our beliefs about horses as we interact with them. And it's also a good way to

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Kelsey John: Help kids think about being observant and noticing their own self and their own body language. Those are all educational goals.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. Yep. Cleared.

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Kris Hiney: So… so, and I guess I had always… maybe I had drawn too straight of a line where…

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Kris Hiney: in some places, I always kind of thought of, like, the adaptive riding, like, yes, you're doing horsemanship skills, and like.

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Kris Hiney: How to do this, and in some of the other ones, there's not as much… Direct…

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Kris Hiney: interaction… well, maybe I should rephrase that. In some settings, like, it's more observational, or the horse is kind of allowed to do whatever. Is that not really how they separate at all from your description, though?

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Kelsey John: So, I think with an activity, you could go either way, because I know therapists who use, like, a herd observation.

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Kelsey John: And it's really about, like, the guided facilitation of the therapist, right? So if you have a client that's, like, has really big emotions coming up or trauma coming up through that observation, then as a therapist, right, you're going to be able to be trained to facilitate that. As an educator, you're going to direct your questions and your facilitation to something that isn't

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Kelsey John: that necessarily, right? You'll be like, okay, so we're gonna talk about, you know, whatever the goal is for why someone might be there doing that herd observation. So, it certainly takes a lot of skill, I think, with any

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Kelsey John: Facilitator or instructor, like, no matter what kind of,

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Kelsey John: practice you're doing, you're really trained to kind of keep it within your, like, scope of what you are trained to do professionally. So it's really, I think, you can… because you can easily go… slide into a therapy conversation, right? But as an educator, you're like, oh, that's not my territory, we're gonna…

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Kelsey John: Direct it back over here.

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Kris Hiney: So, Ellen, I mean, do you see with work that you do, do people stay in their zones pretty well, or is there a lot of…

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Kris Hiney: I mean, I could say I don't even know how I would keep that all separate, like, that people are really good, like, okay, well, we're working on this, but ignore any of the social aspect, or the learning, and just, like, hey, you have balance now. I don't know, so… it seems like it's so…

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Kris Hiney: Encompassing of so many different things that it would be hard to narrow… To, you know…

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Kris Hiney: I have blinders on, I guess.

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Ellen Rankins: It can be. And as Dr. John spoke to, I think some of it comes with experience and practice, right? You learn over time what are questions that facilitate the goals that you're looking for in that session and don't take you straying off into territory that you…

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Ellen Rankins: didn't mean to go into. And so I think, right, sometimes, as she said, these lines do get a little murky and there are sometimes some gray areas. And I think the other key thing here is having a really good support network, right? That you work with a team that has different skill sets that brings these different things to the table, right? Like right now, I work very closely with a counselor.

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Ellen Rankins: And so there are sometimes conversations where I'm like, this is a participant that I no longer am comfortable seeing or needs help outside of what I can provide within my scope of practice. And so I can relay some of that information, right? If we've had that conversation with that participant, have their permission to be like, hey, I want you to have this discussion with this other person that's going to be able to help you with

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Ellen Rankins: some of these other things that you're working on. And so I think that's where it really comes into play of having that team approach and having colleagues out there that have different skill sets, have different expertise, and allow you to rely on their expertise and refer out when you need to.

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Ellen Rankins: And say, hey, we've uncovered something here that is outside of my scope of practice, but still needs to be addressed, and I have the resources to help you find the people or the person that can help you address that then.

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Kris Hiney: And with all of these professions, because that's what we are talking about, professionals here that are dealing in the health.

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Kris Hiney: field, I guess. So… so, Kelsey, you had said something about a horse facilitator, so not all of these definitely require…

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Kris Hiney: you know, a high level of horsemanship, right? So if you're a psychotherapist, that doesn't mean that you're a horse specialist. You are a psychotherapist that

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Kris Hiney: may use that in part of your practice. Is that correct?

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Kelsey John: So I think it depends on how you practice. You can certainly have someone who is a professional educator or professional mental health professional that also has that professional horsemanship experience.

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Kelsey John: And it kind of depends, I think, on the model that you do your work in. But as Ellen was saying, like, I think it's good to have a team of people. So one really popular model is to have an equine person or an equine specialist and a mental health professional working together in a session so that there's somebody who's responsible for the horse handling.

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Kelsey John: And then the other person is responsible for the safety of the human. So you can kind of split those tasks a little bit in session. And it really just depends on like how you organize your session. Even as an equine assisted learning facilitator, you can certainly have an additional person there who is an equine, specialist in whatever way you, you'd like to do that.

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Kelsey John: would, like.

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Kelsey John: Say that that is right. There's different like certifications and stuff out there. There's also people who just have a ton of horsemanship experience or maybe they have a degree, right? And so it kind of depends on how you would organize your sessions and what the, the goal is and who your clients are and how many there are and where the space is and who the horses are. All those things kind of matter and how you would organize the session. But I would say it's really important to.

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Kelsey John: Assess the level of training that you have in every area, right? So, if you're a professional.

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Kelsey John: Therapist, you want to make sure that you're not just, like, moving into equine assisted therapy without enough horsemanship experience or without an additional person to draw on for that horsemanship experience, because that could be dangerous. And the same thing for educators.

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Kelsey John: And I think one area that I've seen also be kind of murky as somebody who has a PhD in education is there are professional educators too. So sometimes it's easier for the professionalization to happen in the therapy world because you have to actually be a licensed therapist in order to do the work, whereas you don't have to be a licensed

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Kelsey John: educator. And so sometimes that

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Kelsey John: can capture just anyone doing anything with horses. And that's where I get a little bit nervous because I'm like, wait, like educators are professionals, right? We've spent our undergrad, master's, PhD studying how it is that humans learn. And so that's an art in and of itself. So I think that's one area where having that

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Kelsey John: Making sure that you have that professional education is so, so, so, so important, both for the horse's safety, but also the human's safety, emotionally, and…

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Kelsey John: Physically.

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Kris Hiney: So I'm gonna have to ask, what is a professional educator?

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Kelsey John: Wait.

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Kris Hiney: Like, I.

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Kelsey John: True.

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Kris Hiney: I, okay, like, so am I a professional educator?

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Kelsey John: Yeah, your professor, right?

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Kelsey John: Yeah, so I mean, you put a ton of…

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Kelsey John: Yeah, we have a degree that allows us to teach, right? You can't just.

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Kris Hiney: Exactly.

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Kelsey John: Sign up to teach, right, at a university.

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Kris Hiney: Well, I don't know, that's called grad school.

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Kelsey John: That's true, that's true, that's true. But if you think about it, like it is your profession, right? Like you have many years of experience. You've probably had some training, whether it was through mentorship or whether it was through training programs, right? Like, and well, for me, I specialize in education, so it's a little bit different, but like.

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Kelsey John: you do have to have some professional experience educating, right? Like, it's kind of the idea that not everyone can just teach, you have to craft it as an art, as we do anything else.

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Kris Hiney: One would like to hope, but no, that's just kind of a funny aside because I did actually take some college teaching courses, but that was because I chose to do that. It wasn't part of the degree program. I don't know, Ellen, did you have the same experience? Did you take courses in teaching?

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Ellen Rankins: I did. Yes, that was a part of my graduate work was to take.

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Ellen Rankins: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: But I know a lot of people don't have that, and yet here we are.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, so…

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Kris Hiney: Let's talk about… there's two things that I maybe want to discuss. There's a lot of people that are interested in this area. I know for myself, a lot of undergraduates are interested in this.

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Kris Hiney: field, right? And they come in with, like, animal science, but… but that's not really… when you're talking about professions, right, in this sphere.

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Kris Hiney: those professions are in other areas or genres, right? Not necessarily animal science. Like you said, it's education or therapy, or what route does one go to become

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Kris Hiney: Someone who uses horses.

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Kris Hiney: as a tool.

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Ellen Rankins: I think there's multiple answers to that question. So for those that have that kind of really strong background, really strong interest in specifically the equine side of things.

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Ellen Rankins: I think that adaptive horsemanship, adaptive horseback riding is a really good route, right? Because they're going to bring that skill set of horsemanship skills. And then there's various certifying bodies or organizations in the US and in other countries throughout the world. But looking at finding a mentor, right? Finding a program that's going to help you.

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Ellen Rankins: build this skill set to be able to create that environment that allows all people to learn in it, right? And so they're hopefully going to have a lot of those horsemanship skills already coming in, or be in a degree program that's going to help them build those horsemanship skills that then they can teach to others.

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Ellen Rankins: If they're more interested, right, in either that education, that learning piece, or in the therapy piece, then yes, going to school, maybe thinking about a different degree as an undergraduate might be the better route, right? Especially if it's someone that has some horse experience, has some background knowledge, then at least they come to the table with that and they really need to build their skill set in

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Ellen Rankins: whatever healthcare profession or education profession that they really want to be able to pursue. Dr. John, I'll let you chime in with further thoughts on that if you'd like to.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, I think that's really helpful. There are different, kind of accredited bodies that.

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Kelsey John: in in a way, provide some regulation around who's certified. And sometimes those associations also partner with universities. And so that can be a really good space. I know that, like you can pursue certification through path international at like Colorado State University with their equine program. It's one of the routes that you can take.

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Kelsey John: So you may be getting the traditional equine science degree, but you're also adding on by the end of your time through the coursework, the credentialing to be a certified therapeutic riding instructor or an adaptive riding instructor. So some people take that route, but I definitely agree with you. I think if you have, and I think it depends on where you want to.

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Kelsey John: position yourself in the work. If you really like humans and working with humans and educating in that way, I would say that pursuing perhaps a degree in education or something in like the social sciences could be really helpful. And then building your horsemanship skills elsewhere, right? Or maybe you can do a minor. I have a PhD student actually who is doing more of a social science background.

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Kelsey John: and a project on canines and the kind of social-cultural, area of canines, but they also pursued a minor as a graduate in animal sciences to build that skill set. So, I think that's unique because we're not always

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Kelsey John: seeing that maybe that's something newer is like it's okay to go to a different college right and pursue a minor there too but I also agree with you too Ellen like finding a great barn or program that you can volunteer at and then maybe do an internship at to find that mentoring and really see how that how the practice works out in your community in a professional setting and

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Kelsey John: and to kind of get plugged in in that way, I think is helpful.

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Kelsey John: Most credentialing associations also require a lot of continuing education, and so that can be really helpful for people who maybe don't have the equine education to, like, pursue that as an addition or as a side.

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Kelsey John: To, you know, the degree that they might have in social work, or in education, or whatever.

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Kris Hiney: So… so now on the flip side, do… do people get referred, or… like, if you need therapy, do you… or want to pursue therapy yourself?

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Kris Hiney: do you, like, hey, I'm interested in equine, like, do you try to go find somebody that does that? I mean, does insurance cover this? Like, I have maybe questions on the provider, like, how does that happen? How do people get

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Kris Hiney: To access of equine assisted activities.

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Ellen Rankins: I think the short answer is it's all over the board, right? It can be that

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Ellen Rankins: But people just start Googling things and they find a center in their area and they're like, yep, this is where I'm going. They reach out with the contact. In some areas, there are going to be physicians or others in the community, right? Healthcare providers that might refer. I think especially as we get into some of the social work and some of those, sometimes we work with court systems, things like that, right? That they might assign this as like, this is

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Ellen Rankins: mandatory that you need to go do this, or highly encouraged in some cases, right? So I think it is somewhat all over the board.

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Ellen Rankins: And a variety on as far as payment, too. There's, right, some centers… the majority of centers out there are going to be non-profits, and since… so some of those set that up, but that is part of their mission. They're providing services free of charge to their communities.

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Ellen Rankins: And so that can be what it is in some cases. In some cases, participants or clients are paying out of pocket.

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Ellen Rankins: And there are some states that vary state by state on the insurance side of things. The therapy, so if you have a licensed therapist that's providing services, those are the most likely services to be covered by an insurance, because you're seeing an occupational therapist. They happen to integrate horses into their practice as one of the approaches to achieving therapeutic outcomes.

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Ellen Rankins: They're still working, they're still doing other things too. It's not like the horse is the only thing that they might integrate or use in their practice. And so the therapy side of things is the one that's most likely to be covered under insurance, but again, highly variable from state to state. But I think we're seeing more movement in that direction as we have more scientific research and more evidence that, hey, this is effective.

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Ellen Rankins: And it is safe, too, is another one of the big things, is that we can provide these types of services in a manner that's safe for the horses, for the humans involved, for everyone that's involved in it.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, definitely. As someone who's in the educational side of things and equine assisted learning, we are not billing out to insurance, right? Because we're not doing therapeutic work. And so I don't know if any of those areas get murky. We may get referrals from…

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Kelsey John: school psychologists about kids with IEPs, individualized education plans, and those can be crafted in equine assisted learning. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a therapeutic outcome because it's more of a learning skill set. So that can be where you might find a referral from a school system to a barn that uses equine assisted learning.

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Kelsey John: from the school, but…

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Kelsey John: we… I would say a lot of these programs, as Ellen said, are non-profit, so they're either free or very, very low cost for, those attending. But yeah, it's… this is… there's so much different variability across

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Kelsey John: what folks are doing and how it works out. And I would agree, too, that one of the big lifts for, you know, academics and folks who study this is to better understand any modality so that it can be

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Kelsey John: better documented the efficacy, right, of these services, whether it's through the therapeutic lens, right, and achieving those types of goals, or even through the educational lens. Being able to document the efficacy of that as well is really, really important.

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Kris Hiney: So just a side question off of curiosity, because you mentioned you have a student that's doing some work on the canine side. How much movement are you seeing? Obviously, adaptive horsemanship is only one zone, right? But how much movement are any of you seeing with integration of animals?

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Kris Hiney: Large into some of these other modalities or therapies.

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Kelsey John: Sorry, can you say that again? What was the question?

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Kris Hiney: So, I… so, I think we've traditionally thought about, like.

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Kris Hiney: always equine-assisted therapies, right? But you'd mentioned, dogs as part of it. Is that a growing, maybe, movement to not just consider the horse.

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Kris Hiney: As the primary tool, but other animal species into.

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Kris Hiney: therapeutic activities for people.

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Kelsey John: Yeah.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, the student that I know of, they don't do canine therapeutic work, but I do know some of my colleagues in the field who do study canine human interactions for both therapeutic and educational purposes too. So I would say I think…

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Kelsey John: Besides horses, canines are probably the second most popular animal that humans partner with for therapeutic outcomes.

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Kris Hiney: Are there others, though, to your awareness? I'm just curious, because, I mean, we clearly have a strongest bond, culturally, I think, with horses and dogs, but…

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Kris Hiney: There's other critters out there that are…

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Kelsey John: Yeah, you know…

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Kelsey John: I'm sure there's pockets of folks who do work. I know, like, different farm animals. Like, I feel like I've seen people working with, like, cows and,

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Kelsey John: Goats, maybe, even? Like, I don't know. Yeah, okay, Ellen's nodding her head. Yeah, I do think people work…

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Kelsey John: With other herd animals, which kind of makes sense, you know, canines are different, obviously they're predators, but I think herd animals, one of the big benefits of horses and then other herd animals is the kind of sensitivity and, like, awareness of everything happening around them. So I know I've seen, like, cattle.

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Kelsey John: I'm sure I've seen, like, goats, potentially even, like, alpacas or, like, llamas. Yeah, I'm… it's not my area beyond horses. I don't know, what do you think, Ellen?

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Ellen Rankins: Yes, I think there are certainly none of them as popular as dogs or horses, I don't think, but yes, I think certainly some of those other farm animals, and I think some other of what we would classify more as like companion animals, pets, so some interesting cats, right? Variable success, I think, from what I've seen, but I don't, again, not my area of expertise, but I think there is some literature out there. And then some

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Ellen Rankins: smaller animals like guinea pigs or rabbits or some things like that too, I think. There's been some interest in that.

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Kelsey John: I think that's.

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Ellen Rankins: Working with youth populations, especially young children, right? Some of those can be a little less intimidating than some of the larger animals.

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Kelsey John: Definitely, yeah.

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Kris Hiney: So what do you, since obviously both of you are fans of horses in this, what do you think?

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Kris Hiney: is the key or why? Why do we reach for the horse so often?

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Kris Hiney: as a tool, To access human health goals.

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Kelsey John: Go ahead, Ellen.

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Ellen Rankins: Okay, I was gonna let you take the lead on this one, but I can certainly jump in first.

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Ellen Rankins: I think it's a multifactorial, right? I think some of it is the fact that, and Dr. John can speak more to this, right? But culturally, right, across multitude of cultures across the world, that we have historically had a very strong relationship with horses in various roles. Horses have served us in various roles over the centuries, right? But that there is something about that.

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Ellen Rankins: I think there's also something in the fact that they are very large animals, right? And that when we have participants out there working with them and they've asked their horse, I don't know, say to cross the bridge, right? And this is something we've been working on, like takes time, it takes patience, it takes these good communication skills to get there. But then all of a sudden you have this moment and you're like, I succeeded, I did this thing, right? And this very large

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Ellen Rankins: right? Animal has listened to me in that. And there's this huge feeling of confidence that I don't think we get with a lot of other species that you see in those interactions.

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Ellen Rankins: pens with horses.

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Ellen Rankins: And I think there's also something to be said for just the presence of a horse, that we're starting to understand that there's a lot of similarities between the way that horses move, the way that humans move. And so when we think about, especially from a physical therapy perspective, integrating the horse into that type of work.

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Ellen Rankins: We're able to produce movement. We're able to produce motor function that is much more similar.

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Ellen Rankins: to what we would see in a human walking on their own, or some of these contexts. And so I think there… it's a very multifaceted answer, I think, is why we see us partnering with horses so often.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, definitely. I think,

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Kelsey John: I like what you said about culture, because I think across cultures, you know, horses have been so…

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Kelsey John: significant. And I think, you know, their size, but also they're just super like magnificent and just like beautiful. And so I think every culture has this like awe of horses. And so from the native perspective, you know, that reverence for the horse is really integrated into how we understand ourself as human.

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Kelsey John: And so for us to work with horses, kind of as we always have.

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Kelsey John: And I'm speaking like mostly from a Thanet perspective, but I know this is shared across different tribal nations too. We have these old stories and knowledges that describe the horse as a teacher or as a healer. So we've kind of always had the horse, you know, in this position of a being that we turn to, to learn from or to heal with.

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Kelsey John: You know, that can be described in our own way through our own, like, worldview and how we describe our history and our religion, if you want to call it that, our belief system. So it's, like, really deeply woven in there. So I think that's kind of the Indigenous perspective, but I do think it can be true for other peoples as well, right? That horse is just so deeply integrated into, like, the understanding of

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Kelsey John: what it even means to be human. So it kind of makes sense that we would, like, turn toward horses, right, to, understand ourselves more, either through the therapeutic work or through the educational work.

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Kelsey John: I think too, Ellen mentioned this, like, the more we learn about horses and the way that their brains work, it really makes sense that presence that they provide for us and the way that horses process the world around them is really through, like, a high sensitivity to

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Kelsey John: understanding the emotion that their environment causes them. And so they're really good, then, at helping us reflect on how we show up, even if it's in a way that we might not perceive ourselves. So, a horse can really pick up on

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Kelsey John: Your micro body movements and be able to understand like.

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Kelsey John: the kind of presence that you're bringing to that interaction, whether it's, like, joy, or frustration, or fear, or whatever. It's reflected in micro-body movements that we might not always catch as a human, and so when the horse is then responding to how we show up, it teaches us a lot about ourselves.

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Kelsey John: in how we show up, and then that can be leveraged for whatever skill, right? An emotional skill, or a professional skill, even.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and I think it's true. Cross-culturally, I think the horse has always had that unique piece where it is, like you said, this magnificent, beautiful horse.

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Kris Hiney: it has a different image to it, than some of our other species do, but it… but I always leave myself wondering, too, like you said, that horses are so good in microexpressions and movement.

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Kris Hiney: that I wonder, well, are the animals… other animals just as good, and we just don't bother to pay attention? That they also can read that, because we don't interact with them in the same way. So, I'm not gonna write the cow off for not being able to do that.

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Kris Hiney: They're just less beautiful galloping across the pasture.

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Kelsey John: I think other animals can, right? I think that people make these connections if you spend time with other species, right? I think what makes the horse maybe a…

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Kelsey John: a more ready partner is that there's such a long history of partnership that, like, if you think about, you know, there is a component to this work that requires

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Kelsey John: training of the horses, right? So if you're able to leverage all of the years that we have partnered with horses in training them, right, that is helpful, versus

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Kelsey John: going out and trying to do the same work with, like, deer, right? Like, that would be a lot harder. If you needed to halter a deer and take them somewhere else, you wouldn't really be able to do that very well. You wouldn't be able to leverage, right, that same history of, like, domestication, basically, so I think that's a practical

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Kelsey John: answer, but with.

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Kris Hiney: I will agree, it's practical, but I think, like, I always think it's important for people to, like, know the other animals also are really good at stuff, too, we just don't tend to pay attention to them as much.

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Kelsey John: Definitely.

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Ellen Rankins: Yep.

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Kris Hiney: Well, what else should people know? Hopefully we've kind of described the different routes that people can maybe go if they're thinking about it professionally or how one might seek that out. Is there other information that you guys would like to share about your professions with using horses to help humans?

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Kelsey John: I actually would love to just hear about some of the research that you're doing, Ellen.

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Ellen Rankins: Yeah, I'd be happy to share a little bit. So my training kind of background is very strongly in equine science, and so I'm very interested in the impact that we actually have on horses during these types of interactions.

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Ellen Rankins: What that means, I think there's a huge role for horses in these types of work, horses that maybe have retired from other careers, and instead of saying, oh, well, they just need to go out to pasture, they're kind of done, but they still have a role in life, in interactions with humans, and then this is a place that they can come, but in doing so that we still need to be

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Ellen Rankins: respectful of them, and thinking about how this work impacts them. And it's not always easy work that we are asking them to do.

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Ellen Rankins: And so right now, kind of very interested in how we train horses for this type of work, as you were speaking to, right? What training practices can set them up for success?

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Ellen Rankins: And so far in the research that I've done, we're finding that, generally speaking, this type of work is not more stressful than other types of work that we ask them to do, right? It's still work at the end of the day, but it's not more stressful than other types of roles that we ask them, to partake in.

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Ellen Rankins: And then I have also branched out in my postdoc work. We were looking, more specifically at the human outcomes, and so we're actually working with

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Ellen Rankins: autistic youth, and so found when we integrate horses into occupational therapy for those autistic youth, that they're actually much more motivated to show up to therapy and actually attend their sessions. And so that's a great thing, right? We can't get therapeutic outcomes from therapy if they're not showing up to their sessions. And so that's a huge win, I think. And I think that has application across

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Ellen Rankins: a lot of populations, right? That if we can reach these individuals.

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Ellen Rankins: that traditionally say, like, I don't want to just show up to therapy, like, this doesn't feel fun, this doesn't feel like something I can engage in and get something out of, if by integrating horses in, letting them come to a barn or arena instead of the office,

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Ellen Rankins: Then if that allows them to get those gains, that's huge. And so really excited about some of that work.

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Ellen Rankins: I'd also love to hear what direction your research is going in at the moment and where you're going with things.

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Kelsey John: Yeah, sure. Thank you. So we're really interested in the research team that I work with.

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Kelsey John: Where are, so my background is in education and specifically cultural foundations of education. So I'm really interested in like different cultures and what we call epistemologies or like ways of knowing that influence education systems.

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Kelsey John: So, we know that social structures

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Kelsey John: influence anything that we're doing, so I'm really interested in researching from a human perspective how our social systems and our cultures and our

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Kelsey John: ways of communicating influence the interactions with horses. I think a lot of times we think that when we work with animals, we're sort of stepping out of the human world and into this, like, litmus or this liminal space, but oftentimes we bring our social cultural norms with us.

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Kelsey John: And in many ways we project them onto horses, which can be really tricky because horses are obviously not humans. And this is actually what we do in equine assisted learning or therapy is we do a ton of what's called anthropomorphizing where we're sort of putting our own assumptions and things on the horse. And that can, as you've mentioned in your research.

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Kelsey John: potentially be, you know, something that…

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Kelsey John: maybe isn't the best for the horse, right? Or it could be something that maybe facilitates people having more empathy for horses, too. So I'm really interested in the kind of social side of things and how we bring that into the work.

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Kelsey John: And then I'm also interested in, for Native American folks, we have, it's kind of similar to what you were saying about youth, you know, being more…

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Kelsey John: willing to show up to their therapy sessions when there's a horse, right? So, for Native American folks, we don't have a positive history with American schooling systems.

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Kelsey John: So our, you know, people face the residential boarding schools and I don't know a Native American person who isn't impacted by that and hasn't had a family member or someone close to them attend residential schools. So with that historical and generational trauma, our relationship to education is really tricky. And so for me, horses are a really good, like, pathway because horses are

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Kelsey John: something that we know and have always partnered with like before, during, and after the residential schooling system. So it kind of helps native youth to have a different association that's more culturally grounded with education. When you can mix those things in there and make them more of a lived reality, a kind of in-person

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Kelsey John: like experiential type of education, that really works a lot better for us, especially if we're bringing in our culture as well. So those are kind of the two areas that I work on, but it all is related, you know, in the kind of equine world, if you think about it.

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Kris Hiney: Fantastic. That's all really cool stuff.

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Kris Hiney: Well, anything else? I really appreciate your time because I know that there's more and more uses of horses in different modalities and I know listeners are excited to hear what else may be involved on the horse therapy front.

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Kris Hiney: And then there's probably therapy for horses. They… the poor guys need their own, set of camps, right? So…

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Kris Hiney: I'm always trying to look out for the horses on the side of things too, so.

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Ellen Rankins: Sure.

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Ellen Rankins: -

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Kris Hiney: Well, I, again, certainly appreciate your time today. And if you have any resources or anything you want to share with listeners, you can send them to me and I can always throw them in the show notes if there's different associations they would like to learn more about. But again, this is a great talk about how horses are so important to our lives and our health.

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Kris Hiney: And this has been another episode of our, Tack Box Talk, Course Stories with a Purpose.

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Kris Hiney: Let me stop.