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What Sea Lions Taught Me About Training Horses with Jenifer Zeligs | Live Free Ride Free · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
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Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
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I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
0:06
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
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Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
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audience, for helping to make this happen.
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If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up,
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It really, really helps us to make the pro.
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To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries,
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books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com.
0:34
So now let's jump in.
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Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free.
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I've got author, animal behaviorist animal behavior guru dogs, wildlife,
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horses, exotics, everything youâ¦
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cetaceans.
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Anything you can think of.
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Also, the m- mentor, one of the mentors of the legendary horse trainer and liberty
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man, David Lichman, who you will find also having been interviewed on this show.
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Jennifer Zelig's, I should say Dr.
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General Reverend, Reverend Professor, â¦ Jennifer Zeligs, who is joining
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us from Oxford, even though she is a professor at Cal State Monterey
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Bay, and has been for some decades.
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And has lived a jolly interesting life, and has taught many, many horse people
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how to understand the whole deal better.
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But also just has a ton to say on animals, nature, and the mind.
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And I would probably assume the sort of general consciousness field.
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But weâ¦
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guess we'll find out about that.
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She's also got a cool line in hats, which she might show us later.
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So Jennifer, did I get that right?
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And thank you for coming on the show.
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And tell us who, who you are and whatâ¦
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how'd you get involved in this whole what animals do and helping
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people understand them business?
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Jenifer Zeligs: Thank you very much, Ru.
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And it it was right.
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I think the broad brush is correct.
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Maybe some of the superlatives felt heavy for me, but, you know, very nice.
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Very nice to hear.
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You don't feel you're a
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Rupert Isaacson: hat guru, you feel you're more of a hat-
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Jenifer Zeligs: I-
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â¦ Rupert Isaacson: consumer of hats.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
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I'm an amateur at hat.
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Okay.
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I mean, we had a whole hat conversation.
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We might have done.
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I'll just, you know, there we go.
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Newest hat.
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We put
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Rupert Isaacson: the hat on before we begin.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: Maybe we can't c- c- well, if you put the
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hat on, then we can establish immediately the professional-amateur
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nature of, of the hat.
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We can just settle that question.
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Jenifer Zeligs: This is not the hat that I would wear if I was
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going out horse training, though.
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I have a wonderful Australian hat.
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I'll make
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Rupert Isaacson: you a deal.
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I will wear that hat when I go horse training.
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Jenifer Zeligs: No you won't.
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I will.
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This is a hat that I value greatly, and I do not want horse-
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Rupert Isaacson: You don't-
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Jenifer Zeligs: dust and nibbling all over my hat.
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But we will stop the horse nibbling.
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I just got this hat at Downton
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Rupert Isaacson: Abbey.
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Pretty neat.
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Horse nibble- But it is a very, very, very, ooh, fetching hat.
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Now, when you put the brim up like that and it gives it a sort of
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1930s twist, we like this very much.
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Yeah.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yes, well- We approve
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my hair is not thrilled with it, and it is back.
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Rupert Isaacson: If I was a horse, I would immediately become
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cooperative if you were in that
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Jenifer Zeligs: hat.
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Or, or enraged.
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I think what you're saying is that you are feeling more
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cooperative with me in this hat.
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I, I think that's-
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Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, indeed, indeed.
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Pr- well, projection is, is part of the na- whole thing of nature and the mind.
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I'm sure that animals project their thing onto us, just as we do to them.
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It's interesting, actually, that you bring that up.
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People are always accusing each other of anthropomorphizing.
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It's like, well, what else are we supposed to do?
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That's the lens we see through, and I'm sure my dog dogthroporizizes
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me, and my horse probably equothroporizizes me or something.
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'Cause how can they not?
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But maybe we meet in the middle.
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Maybe that's the thing.
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But I mean, I'm just being flippant.
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You are an eminent authority in this field, and I know that you have worked
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with everything in ways that people find frankly miraculous, including
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large predators and things like this.
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Mm.
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But let's start with horses, because we're horse people, and we horse
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people need the word horse to be said a lot in order to feel- â¦ safe
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and secure, like sucking my thumb.
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So let's start with horses.
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What's your horse background?
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And then how does that inform the rest of it?
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And then we can go from there.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Okay, so I will use the word horse as
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much as possible in my answer.
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Rupert Isaacson: Very good.
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Jenifer Zeligs: And what's interesting is my story starts with horses.
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Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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Jenifer Zeligs: When I was eight or nine, we're not totally sure, but I
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started, you know, I loved animals.
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Probably a lot of you can relate to this viewpoint, and th- one of the most
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obvious animals to get really deeply involved with especially is horses.
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Young girls and horses, I mean, or young boys and horses too, right?
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But horses is a, is a real standard way of, of embracing the animal world.
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And so I started riding, and I was doing around the worlds and stuff like
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that, and I thought, you know, the, the instructor was, was v- very encouraging.
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So I thought I was gonna be the next Annie Oakley, you know?
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Like, this is my thing.
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Th- this isâ¦
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My mom had set this up.
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Well, my mom was a immunologist, which means she studied the immune system
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and its effects for good and for ill.
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And what happened was I developed a very small allergy to horses.
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Like, you know, a little bit of sneezing, a little bit of runny eyes.
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And she was concerned with the potential effect that that would
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have on my immune system development, making it hyperreactive whether
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or not that, you know, is a real problem or, or not, anyways, that's
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what she thought at the time.
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And so she didn't really want me to go bury my face in horses all the time.
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That was not, you know, she saw that as getting worse and worse.
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Maybe I had some other autoimmune elements that were making her a little bit worried.
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So we had a little bit of a fight over this, and she ended up finding
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for me, as a substitute, good mother, really this is a, a differential
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reinforcement strategy that she used.
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She found a substitute which was at the National Zoo in
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Washington, which is where I lived.
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There was this Friends of the National Zoo program, and they had a course.
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This was just when exotic animal training was starting.
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Wasn't really happening very much.
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This is a long time back.
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And this woman was bringing what the marine mammal industry knew about into the
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world of the zoo, and she was teaching a course on basically how to communicate,
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collaborate instead of force, instead of trick, instead of using anesthesia,
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using, you know, using terms and words and, and conditioned attractive,
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mutually beneficial experiences.
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So I took this course.
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My mother argued my way in.
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I was way too young.
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I was nine, let's say.
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Rupert Isaacson: I was gonna say, how, there must have been an, a, a
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sort of bit of a minimum age thing.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, it was 16, I think.
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I, it was for high school students.
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Yeah.
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High school and college students.
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Rupert Isaacson: And you were how old?
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Jenifer Zeligs: Nine.
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Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
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Your mom must have been a good talker.
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Jenifer Zeligs: She was.
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And the woman who w- the woman who taught it, Casey Cover, who was my
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first mentor, she was very kind-hearted.
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And I was also very precocial, you know?
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Mm-hmm.
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I was quite an independent, bright â¦ Well, I mean, that sounds weird
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to say, but I, I, you know, the, I was raised quite independently, so.
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Rupert Isaacson: You were the kind of kid who she looked at and thought,
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"Yeah, maybe this could work."
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Right.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And, and it did, because I volunteered for her for seven years after that-
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Okay â¦ at the zoo, working with all kinds of different species.
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And, and she tried to, â¦ I think she tried to work within the bounds of the
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system that there was set up at the zoo.
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You weren't supposed to have a little kid doing this.
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So she sat me down in front of different groups of animals and said, "Take
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scientific notes on what those animals are doing for periods of hours."
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So I would take two subways and two buses every weekend and spend,
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like, 10 hours a day or whatever.
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I don't know, maybe not that long, but seemingly long periods of time
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sitting in front of lions and tigers and bears and wolves and gazelles and, you
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know, everything that you can imagine.
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Beavers and taking notes.
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And what, what's happening in that critical, you know, that's
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still a critical learning period for language acquisition.
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It's not as, you know, obviously it's later than what we normally think
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of as a true language, I suppose.
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But behavioral, social animals like us are still picking up, I guess maybe language
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acquisition is not the right word,
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Rupert Isaacson: but- Think about yourself as a child at that point,
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that, that this is part of your language acquisition process 'cause you-
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, or maybe I, I think I've caught myself using the wrong term,
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'cause I realize the community you're in.
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So it, it's more like I'm picking up social cues-
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Rupert Isaacson: Got it
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â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: which are body language cues.
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Mm-hmm.
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You know?
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Rupert Isaacson: Behavioral stuff, yeah.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And, and the inferred implications of this between individuals.
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Rupert Isaacson: Emotional- So- â¦ development, emotional intelligence,
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all of the above sort of thing.
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Just, yeah.
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Yeah, I could see that.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
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So I was a, a bit of a sponge at that age, and I was getting data sets that were
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comparing all these different species.
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And I think it really opened up my mind to both being really
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interested in the different ways that individuals and species think about
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things- Mm â¦ and are interested.
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The range of interest, the range of expression of interest, where the,
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where the overlaps are, where, you know, the the big bell curve is.
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And something about listening, something about reading animals.
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Rupert Isaacson: So can you give us, I think any of us would be listening
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now would be very curious to know, when you did that initial course,
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there would've been like a s- on the structure of that course, Exotic Animal
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Behavior 101, what did she teach you?
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What were the, like, fundamental basics that you walked out
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of that initial contact with?
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Jenifer Zeligs: She really focused on a very primordial set of techniques about
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how to establish communication with animals so that, you know, it was, it
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was focused on positive reinforcement.
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It was focused on how to engage the animal's attractive, you know,
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interest, play interest, food interest.
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Interest, not avoidance systems.
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And then labeling things so that we had a mutual communication
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so we were reliable, clear.
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And the two primary techniques she was focusing on that are still fundamental
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to the, to the field is the technique of, of bridging or reward markers.
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You would probably know this as a clicker.
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Okay.
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The clicker is an example of this, but the principle was much more interesting.
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And targeting, which is teaching the animal to act out on its environment
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to specifically touch certainâ¦
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touch and hold and move with certain places.
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And you can label all kinds of different parts of their body, and
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then move them sequentially like a marionette or a game of Twister.
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So-
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Rupert Isaacson: And when you say move them, you m- move them with touches or
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move them with vocal cues, or both, orâ¦?
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Jenifer Zeligs: Both.
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I mean, the cue itself is secondary to the principle of understanding.
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Mm-hmm.
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So, you know, some animals might really respond well to visual cues.
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Some animals might really respond well to verbal cues, and we
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usually layer them together.
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Mm-hmm.
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More information is better.
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Mm-hmm.
11:55
And that way whoever the individual is has twice the chance
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of receiving the information.
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And the idea is you move the, you move the target and the animal moves to the target.
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So it's sort of the opposite of what you traditionally think of in the horse
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world where you put pressure, maybe even slight pressure, maybe it's even
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at a distance, the pressure, and the animal moves away from the pressure.
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In this case, it's all attractive, so the animal moves into.
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So the animal is operating on its environment volitionally, not
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receiving the environment, operating on it, and that felt difference
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activates a different system.
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It's a seeking system.
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Rupert Isaacson: A seeking system.
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Got it.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
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Rupert Isaacson: And so, you know, one could go into dopamine.
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One could go into anticipatory reward.
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One could go into serotonin.
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And I think a lot of people listening will already be thinking, "Oh, yeah,
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I can sort of see why that would be working in the brain and the nervous
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system of both the animal and the, and the, and the human involved."
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What would be really, I think, lovely is could you Take, give us a couple of
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snapshots from that early experience.
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Are there a couple of stories that really stand out for you where you're in an
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enclosure with an animal and you're trying these techniques in these early days?
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And maybe it's not the first time, but just in that sort of early formative
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period in a way that I think can help us to picture and understand how that
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looks and, and through, through the eyes of that younger self of yours.
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Jenifer Zeligs: Oh, gosh.
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What I remember the most was, Working with animals who never had
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any kind of foundation of let's say thoughtful and deliberate training.
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I would say all animals in a managed care or captive
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environment, they're being trained.
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They're just being trained in a maybe haphazard way.
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So the definition of training I'd be using is something like behavior change
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brought about by human interaction.
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So we are changing their behavior, but we may be doing it kind of thoughtlessly.
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So when you start opening up what is a more in- consistent and on purpose-
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Rupert Isaacson: Intentional, yeah
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â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: and gentle, exploratory, curious, positive,
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engaging type of experience.
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And we do this by g- so one of my memes is come bearing gifts.
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This wasn't from this timeframe, but we've used it at this timeframe, which is you
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start out the interaction to establish a mood of positivity and optimism, and you
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do this by non-contingent reinforcement.
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You do it by offering before you ask, connection before direction.
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So this would be the way of kind of gaining a certain
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level of trust and interest.
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And so we would go, you know, I can remember with some cheetahs and at
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least one mountain lion and, and some wolves also, we'd just go and show
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up, and we'd let a we'd let off a noise that meant we were gonna deliver
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something positive, and we just gave.
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And, and that is the process of conditioning the bridge.
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So it would be like, "Yes, give.
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Yes, give."
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And it doesn't matter what the animal is doing.
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The animal can spend the first several training sessions being suspicious.
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You know, they're used to being herded around, pushed or forced by like
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even fire hoses, stuff like that.
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You know, they how does somebody move them around?
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Of course, they also do follow the food, so that's, you know, that's also in there,
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but they may have like a, a push-pull relationship with people because Dr.
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Jekyll and Mr.
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Hyde, you know?
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So instead, we created context where we were always dependable, and we were
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dependable in a sense of bringing, bringing the mood up in terms of
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exploration and offering, and we conditioned this bridge stimulus.
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And then once we got regular engagement, once you saw that the mood of the
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animal was they saw us coming, they identified us as individuals, and they
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went, "Ooh," that's an optimistic mood, and they would come running, you know?
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They would just identify and come running.
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And then we would start going, "Ooh, if you look at that, then you get the yes."
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And that, you know, and we start by just look at and then
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go, go towards and then touch.
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And we could do all of this even through a barrier for safety.
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So both of us were in a safe scenario.
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No one's pushing on anyone else and no one is threatened.
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And we start to create situations where they can get what they want safely
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and through exploration, through play.
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They could try all kinds of different ways of, you know, certain animals
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would get very inventive, certain animals would get very aroused.
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But it would, it would bring up a, a whole different way of thinking about
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how they could interact with people.
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And what you saw was delight instead of just sort of the, the animal shut
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down, moving around the environment, maybe foraging and doing stuff
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like that, but not really looking at people as something positive.
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Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
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Jenifer Zeligs: So that's what I remember.
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Rupert Isaacson: And it, it's interesting, I'm, I'm glad you said
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this is behind, this is behind a barrier 'cause I was thinking, well, they're
17:27
taking a nine-year-old girl into a pack of wolves or with the cheetahs.
17:30
And like, well, they must be good, or they must be nuts.
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But I was assuming obviously that it would've been behind a barrier.
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And I think one of the things that I like about that imagery is that when
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I was taught my initial trick training by a guy, a very good guy who I keep
17:43
trying to get on this show, I hope he will come on one day, Alan Pogue in
17:48
the USA, who's a very, very, very good horse trick trainer and taught me a lot.
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We did all our initial stuff, despite the fact that I'm a lifelong horseman,
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on the other side of a, of a fence or a barrier because he said, "You know,
18:00
Rupert, one day you're gonna have to teach people how to do this, and I want you to
18:04
start as if you didn't know anything."
18:05
And it was such a great- Mm
18:08
beginning because it made me rethink and it made me reframe, and
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it, and it also prevented me from trying to do, because I couldn't
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actually physically reach the horse.
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I couldn't use my hands.
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I couldn't use the things I would normally have just automatically
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in my monkey way tried to use.
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And, Mm
18:26
it created more observation.
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And you were talking about observation there.
18:30
And I love the fact that also you talked about delight and that you used that
18:33
phrase come bearing gifts, because you know who uses that phrase now, he
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quotes you, is David Litchman, who is s- Oh â¦ he, he's one of the greats
18:43
in terms of liberty horse training.
18:45
And for listeners who don't know him go check him out.
18:48
We've, we did an interview with him a little while ago.
18:50
It's in the library.
18:51
And he absolutely credits you with a lot, Jennifer.
18:54
But he says, yes, this, this, this concept of come bearing gifts, because,
18:57
you know, he was talking about how he can train or display with liberty
19:02
horses, say, on an open beach.
19:04
Yeah.
19:05
Where they absolutely have the possibility of leaving, and he's
19:09
had the experience where they have.
19:10
But he said, no, it was Jennifer's come bearing gifts thing that sets up
19:14
the initial framework that makes the concept of doing this even possible.
19:19
So, you mentioned that these techniques had come from working with marine animals.
19:26
Is that correct?
19:28
Jenifer Zeligs: In a loose sense, yes.
19:29
Yeah.
19:29
I mean, I think the marine animal world, because it doesn't
19:32
have, you can't use any gear.
19:34
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
19:34
Jenifer Zeligs: The, the, you know, kind of what your, your mentor was
19:37
pointing to, you know, in horses, i- it's a, it's a convenient and forgiving
19:42
arrangement, and so you can kind of cut corners or something like that.
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But maybe that cuts out certain elements of-
19:52
The more ephemeral aspect of listening.
19:56
And so with, you know, what are you gonna do with a dolphin or a sea lion?
20:00
Mm.
20:01
They, you can'tâ¦
20:01
Gear is not, you're not gonna put anything on them and, you know- Not put a
20:05
Rupert Isaacson: culture on it.
20:05
No, no.
20:06
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
20:06
I mean, it is possible to teach them to wear harnesses and stuff like that, e-
20:11
elaborate and difficult and not something you can just go in and, and make happen.
20:16
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
20:16
Jenifer Zeligs: So we had to come at it from a much more collaborativeâ¦
20:20
Or we, I, you know.
20:21
The, the, the original people who were dealing with that process had to cl- come
20:26
at it from a different point of view.
20:28
And and that's, that is where some of this thinking came, came up.
20:34
Although I think there's a lot of cross-pollination.
20:37
Like, you know, what you said about David Lichman, first of all, for everybody,
20:41
he is absolutely amazing and he's still teaching all over the world, and I really
20:46
recommend, I recommend him so highly.
20:49
Yeah, him, yeah.
20:49
He's been such a wonderful partner for me.
20:52
Rupert Isaacson: And he's just also such a lovely bloke, too.
20:53
Jenifer Zeligs: He's an incredible guy.
20:56
Funny and musical, and he's, he really has an amazing teaching presence, too.
21:03
I, I think his his, his way with, with all beings is, is very lends him,
21:10
lends him very well to this world.
21:12
But yeah.
21:13
So that's my good- that's my important plug on David Lichman.
21:17
He's, he's a, an incredible guy.
21:20
But I think there is something about cross-pollination.
21:24
So, you know, taking, taking- Ideas- Mm â¦ from different fields and, and seeing
21:31
where they've got a kind of common thread-
21:34
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
21:34
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: it can really shake free new new ways of approaching things.
21:39
So I know Warwick, for example, is always talking about he had
21:43
this sort of- Warwick, yeah.
21:43
Yeah, Warwick Schiller, who's, that's how we met.
21:47
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
21:47
Jenifer Zeligs: And he's always talking about he had this sort of
21:49
seminal experience where he couldn't get through to this shut down animal.
21:53
It was sort of in a, we would say, probably learned
21:55
helplessness kind of stage.
21:57
Just, just don't wanna- And
21:59
Rupert Isaacson: this was
21:59
Jenifer Zeligs: a horse.
22:00
Yeah.
22:01
The horse, yeah.
22:01
This
22:01
Rupert Isaacson: horse.
22:02
You need to say that
22:02
Jenifer Zeligs: word.
22:02
Ah.
22:03
Sorry.
22:05
Rupert Isaacson: You need that safe word, horse.
22:05
Yeah.
22:07
Jenifer Zeligs: Horse, horse, horse.
22:07
Yes.
22:08
Horse,
22:08
Rupert Isaacson: horse, horse, horse, horse, horse.
22:08
I like it.
22:09
Jenifer Zeligs: He was he, he was having a an experience with a, with a
22:12
horse that was really shut down, and he was sort of, I don't know if he was
22:16
really at wit's end, but that's kind of how the, the story sounds to me.
22:19
And so he just pauses and gets curious about what's going on.
22:25
He allows a lot of space for this horse.
22:27
Mm.
22:28
Instead of operating on the horse, like you were saying.
22:31
He, he gets interested in what's motivating the horse, and that is some
22:37
kind of safety signal for that horse at that moment, and the horse relaxes.
22:41
Mm.
22:41
So, you know, safety signals are impor- It's, it's not just that you need to
22:47
have nothing frightening happening.
22:49
You actually need to have safety signals.
22:54
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
22:54
Jenifer Zeligs: Can you
22:54
Rupert Isaacson: be more specific?
22:56
Jenifer Zeligs: So, you know, of course, this is a great example of this be,
22:59
or a great place where this principle needs to, to get focus because horses
23:05
as a prey species have a lot more tendency to be on the frightened end
23:11
legitimately, evolutionarily on the c- compared to, you know, maybe a lion or
23:17
a bear or something that, you know, bite first and ask questions later, whereas
23:21
a horse's idea might be, it could be buck, but it's, it's usually run, right?
23:27
Buck and run, something like that.
23:29
So we've got our kind of inbuilt strategies, and if you're a horse, and
23:34
your kind of default mode is alert and fearful what are the safety signals that
23:41
will cause- that natural mood to shift.
23:47
You know this idea of a mood versus the emotion versus the behavioral outcome.
23:52
The mood is like the predisposing lens of cognitive biases that we come in.
23:59
It's a sort of a biochemical milieu that you're in that is it's slower to shift,
24:05
but it, it, it, it causes the filter that you're looking at everything through.
24:11
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
24:12
Jenifer Zeligs: And then the emotion might be the more direct, immediate experience
24:16
of of Rupert coming up and, you know, excitedly putting energy towards a horse,
24:23
or Warwick in this case doing that.
24:25
So how do we interpret that stimulus of an excited person with all
24:29
their energy coming forward at us?
24:31
We might interpret that, if we've had a long history of positive
24:34
experiences, we might interpret that excitedly and with interest.
24:39
And if we have a long history of negative experiences, or we're
24:42
predisposed to being like that because that's our species nature, and we
24:46
have a long history of someone, you know, attacking us or whatever,
24:51
our basic mood might be pessimism.
24:53
So as soon as you come forward with all your energy and intensity, the
24:57
negative arousal state gets activated.
25:01
So one of the ideas is that if you can create a safety environment, Come
25:08
Bearin' Gifts offers that because it, it suggests I'm go- I care about your needs.
25:15
And one of the gifts you can offer is your attention, your interest, instead
25:20
of your agenda and the obligation.
25:24
And this works across all species.
25:26
Mm.
25:26
This is interpersonal for human beings too.
25:29
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
25:31
So, two, two things spring to mind then.
25:34
One of them is a devil's advocate question, which- Okay â¦ I don't
25:38
believe this question, but I'm gonna pose it anyway because I
25:41
think it's, it's worth speaking to.
25:45
So one is, I think, although people might have been less intentional about
25:50
this type of thing in the past, I think that it was often built in to
25:54
people's relationships with animals because a lot of people lived on farms
25:59
where there were multiple species.
26:00
Mm-hmm.
26:01
You spent a lot of time hanging out, so animals could observe you and you
26:05
could observe them because, let's say, yes, you do have plow horses or you
26:08
do have riding horses, but right now we're working with the cows or the
26:11
sheep or the chickens or whatever.
26:13
Yeah.
26:13
So the horses are kind of just observing us from over there.
26:15
When, when we show up, it's not always to do something with them.
26:18
And if we go into their pasture, it might be to pick up the poo
26:23
or fix the fence or whatever.
26:25
It doesn't have to be â¦ Or we might even be working the sheep in the pasture
26:29
where they're, or the cows in the pasture where they are 'cause they're all sharing
26:31
the same pasture or whatever or whatever.
26:33
And so I think there was more of this, even if it wasn't structured and
26:38
intentional always- Mm-hmm â¦ built into people's ways of life,
26:41
which has- Yeah â¦ gone a bit.
26:42
People are sort of special- I am a horse person.
26:44
I, I have a horse, I have a job, I keep a horse in a barn.
26:47
When I show up with my horse, this is my hour with my horse.
26:50
Yeah.
26:50
So when I show up, I cannot not have an agenda because this
26:54
is my one hour with my horse.
26:55
It's a completely different thing to like Mongolian steppe horse culture
26:59
or an old British or American farm.
27:02
But what the devil's advocate question is so someone would say, "Well, but
27:08
I have to do a job with my horse."
27:10
Now, whether or not that's actually true, that might be the person's perception,
27:16
and the horse has to bah, bah, bah, bah, bah because bah, bah, bah, bah,
27:20
bah, and I need this cooperation.
27:23
Some people might even say compliance.
27:24
I would rather they didn't use that word.
27:26
I prefer cooperation, but hey.
27:28
But nonetheless, we know that this is a lens that people are coming for true,
27:31
and we have to, I think, understand it and be compassionate towards it because
27:35
people project, particularly with horses, but also with dogs a lot, a lot.
27:39
They, they project their hopes and
27:43
their dreams onto these animals, particularly.
27:45
Dogs it's more the emotional relationship.
27:48
Be my friend, be my true friend, the one who never lets me down.
27:51
Yeah.
27:51
Not like all those bad boyfriends I had, you know?
27:53
That's a, a lot to put on an animal.
27:55
And dog's like, "I don't know, man.
27:57
And I'm here."
27:58
And, and, and then the horse, which is, you know, my dreams of being
28:02
carried and my dreams of freedom and my dreams of sort of ac-
28:06
self-actualization- Yeah â¦ and so on.
28:08
And a, a lot of the metaphors that we use around horses have
28:12
to do with that kind of thing.
28:13
How do you help somebody to see the practical value when they m- they
28:20
feel a need to come with the agenda?
28:23
That we, we can't condemn it, we have to accept it, because that's
28:26
also part of human nature, and say, "All right, you have an agenda."
28:32
When you went into, when, when you go into a wildlife
28:34
enclosure, you do have an agenda.
28:36
It might be to check the teeth of that animal and, or to, to do a
28:41
veterinary process with that animal.
28:43
And so you're actually trying to serve that animal, but it's still an agenda.
28:47
How do we marry agenda with this kind of agenda with non-agenda?
28:54
How do we m- how do we, how do we meld attachment with non-attachment?
29:01
Jenifer Zeligs: Well, I guess, like anything, it starts with acknowledging
29:05
that that's the case, and I think it's, it's, It's important to feel the
29:10
texture of when that's stronger and more important, and when that can be
29:18
looser and more spacious, and realize that that's itself on a continuum.
29:26
It can't, it, you know, you can tell yourself a story, and just
29:29
be careful that you're not.
29:31
I think, I think that's, you know, keep inquiring to yourself, "Is it really,
29:36
or is, is that just a convenient excuse for me trying to get what I want?"
29:39
'Cause there's probably, it probably exists on a continuum.
29:42
There are some times where you really need to see the teeth, and there
29:45
are other times where, well, I wanna do this 'cause this is my one hour.
29:51
But maybe that's a ti- it's an opportunity where you could approach it more loosely.
29:56
I'm not saying that by approaching it more loosely, it has to be completely
30:01
loosey-goosey and all you ever do is sit around and wonder what the
30:04
horse is thinking and follow them.
30:07
That's not my suggestion.
30:08
So I think the extremes of the continuum are probably what
30:12
we, what we're not looking for.
30:14
What we're looking for is some kind of middle path.
30:17
And in general I make an argument that it's actually the needs of everybody in
30:22
the situation that need to be balanced.
30:25
That that the real agenda is that somehow we connect around
30:31
our, both of our needs being met.
30:34
And we have to acknowledge that the harder, you know, the, the less you're
30:38
really able to meet the need of the other and, and putting your own needs 100%
30:44
of the time above or your own agenda 100% of the time above, you're gonna
30:50
slowly wear away that relationship.
30:53
And in the context that you were describing, I think 100% I agree, these
30:57
sort of more fluid contacts where there's a lot of different kinds of interactions,
31:03
and those interactions don't carry a heavy weight of pressure associated with them
31:09
those feel more spacious, and they involve a lot more kind of inherent safety and
31:15
playful opportunity and desensitization.
31:19
I mean, if you're talking about it from a behavioral standpoint, that the animal
31:23
becomes â¦ It's not like your presence is just an immediate arousal scenario.
31:29
And so that in and of itself is an, is an element.
31:32
But I, I think this idea of trying to find a way to meet in the middle and
31:38
realize that probably what you want is that sense of connection that means
31:44
that both of your needs are being met.
31:47
I mean, probably that's actually what you deeply want.
31:51
Whether you're a dog or a horse person, you want to feel connected I mean,
31:56
I, I doubt that it's only that youâ¦
31:59
If you just wanna be carried, there's lots of ways to do that.
32:03
There are bicycles, motorcycles, ve- you know, vehicles.
32:08
This thing has a brain, that your horse is a being.
32:13
You wanna connect to a being.
32:16
Then the being-ness has to have a part of the space, and that part,
32:23
you have to account for that.
32:25
That's part of the magic.
32:28
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think there'sâ¦
32:28
Y- y- you put your wordâ¦
32:30
There were two words that s- stood out for me there.
32:32
One was erode, erosion, erosion of relationship, and
32:36
the other was magic, right?
32:37
So someone will say, "Well, I, I don't want a relationship with my horse.
32:40
I just want my horse to do the job and do it."
32:42
And, and then I would say, "Actually, no you do, because you want to be safe."
32:47
And if you have a good relationship with that animal, chances are it won't be
32:54
looking for reasons to solve a problem that it might have, which is you.
33:00
Not wanting to spend time with you or have you on its back or whatever, or
33:04
not be particularly tuned into you when you're locking in to go into a big fence,
33:09
or not particularly be tuned into you when it m- it might be more prone to s-
33:17
self-entertaining spooks that could put you on the ground when the horse isn't
33:21
really scared, but he just is gonna pretend to be because, hey, it's fun.
33:24
It makes the monkey make a funny noise, and it's quite fun to watch
33:26
the monkey hit the floor and run away.
33:29
All of those, I think, can happen through erosion of relationship.
33:33
So-
33:36
You know, when when I was younger and the sort of older generation of horsemen
33:41
were saying, "Well, why, why would I want to get in all that hippie bullshit?"
33:44
It's like, "Well, 'cause it might keep you alive," you know?
33:46
And I imagine for you when you're entering an enclosure with a large
33:52
predator, it really might keep you alive.
33:57
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
33:57
Rupert Isaacson: And then the, the other one is magic.
33:59
You know, I would also then turn to that-
34:04
professional s- skeptic or cynic and say, "Well, but the reason
34:08
you got involved in horses in the first place wasn't transportation,
34:11
because we don't live in the 1850s.
34:13
You got involved in it for fun and wonder and enjoyment, just like the rest of us.
34:19
And anything that erodes that is gonna be kind of shit.
34:24
And anything that enhances that is going to give you a sense
34:28
of euphoria and happiness, so why wouldn't you go for that?"
34:34
But it's interesting how defended people can get about this stuff.
34:37
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, that's what I was just thinking.
34:38
Rupert Isaacson: People saying, "Well, I'm not a hippie."
34:40
And I remember p- people say, "Well, why not?"
34:42
Like, I mean, the, the, the hippies make, had all the right ideas.
34:47
You know, we had this, this conversation just before we
34:49
began about the word Bohemian.
34:51
You know, all the people who wanna buy property in, like, Taos or Santa
34:54
Fe or, you know, some beautiful town that was originally col- colonized by
35:01
artists who made it all look very nice and had lots of lovely restaurants,
35:06
and had a little of this and that.
35:07
It was all very cheap.
35:08
And then of course, all the people with money moved in because the
35:10
hippies created the aesthetic.
35:11
So I think, and, and, you know, neuroaesthetics is a huge part
35:15
of our brain and our need.
35:16
We have a need for beauty, which is also I think why we're
35:19
attracted to things like horses.
35:21
So for all those reasons.
35:23
But okay, so you, you also said be the safe space more or less, right?
35:33
Be the point of safety.
35:37
How?
35:38
How do, how do you make yourself that?
35:42
Jenifer Zeligs: I think a lot comes from the, the sense of
35:47
respect of the other being.
35:48
So I, I can't quite relate to the idea that I don't want a relationship.
35:53
If I just wanted a transport mechanism, I would use a bicycle.
35:56
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
35:57
Jenifer Zeligs: So to me- But,
35:58
Rupert Isaacson: but prior to 1850 you might not have.
36:00
Prior to 1850 you might have gotten on the back of some animal regardless of whether
36:04
you felt a sense of kinship with it, because there was no other transportation.
36:08
But you also- True â¦ might have gotten from A to B better and faster
36:12
and more efficiently and arrived alive if you had a good relationship, right?
36:16
Jenifer Zeligs: That's right.
36:16
There are and I, I think your what's in it for me motivational
36:22
bl- assessment is correct.
36:24
There's, there's, there's more than just the, the commensal or a mutual
36:30
intersection motives that are operational.
36:33
Treating someone kindly and caring about their needs benefits both you and them.
36:40
And I'll tell you something else that's, that we haven't described, which is that
36:43
taking that position towards someone else, taking the position of respect,
36:48
taking the position of caring, taking the position of kindness and compassion, it
36:54
has a positive feedback loop on the giver.
36:58
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
36:58
Jenifer Zeligs: This is empirically true.
37:00
So if you're still just looking for selfish motives of why you
37:03
should be like this or why this is going to be beneficial, the, the
37:08
act of caring benefits the carer.
37:12
Yeah.
37:13
So that's a psychological phenomenon.
37:17
So there's someâ¦
37:17
I think because we're a social species.
37:19
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
37:20
Jenifer Zeligs: So, Exactly â¦ and, and the, so the, the wearing down,
37:23
going back to this erosion effect, it, it can affect your own mental state.
37:28
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
37:28
Jenifer Zeligs: Treating someone harshly, looking at others in a, in a commodified
37:33
way, the, the Scrooge kind of mentality of life- Yeah â¦ where everyone else
37:38
is just a, a, a, a piece in your puzzle.
37:42
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
37:42
Jenifer Zeligs: That doesn't turn out to be satisfying.
37:45
Rupert Isaacson: No.
37:45
Jenifer Zeligs: That is not a mechanism for happiness.
37:47
Mm.
37:47
So, there is a subtext within this.
37:50
And I, I agree with you, I don't think people necessarily always came atâ¦
37:54
You know, animals obviously in the past were much more important from a
37:58
practical standpoint than they are now.
38:00
But, you know, re- really I just wannaâ¦
38:02
We're talking to people today.
38:03
Yeah.
38:04
So here's where we are.
38:06
I can't remember what your original question was.
38:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
38:08
Well, the, the other question is, is to make yourself that safe space.
38:10
So I think, you know- Ah, yes.
38:11
Thank you â¦ I think a lot of people might say, "Well, intuitively, you know, I
38:13
give them cuddles, I give them food, I, I hang out with them, I give them scratches,
38:17
I- Mm â¦ I doctor their wounds.
38:19
You know, I look after their welfare and they know this."
38:21
So I think a lot of people feel that they're doing that.
38:24
But are there, are there more sort of direct and practical things that
38:28
everybody could do With whatever animal, but I think obviously these are horse
38:33
people who are listening, where you say, "Yes, all of those things are
38:35
true, Ru, but here are these things that actually will really, really enhance
38:39
it in a really sort of direct way."
38:42
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, and I, Iâ¦
38:45
Thanks for bringing the question back.
38:47
And I would say if you ask yourself what makes you feel safe what
38:54
properties someone else brings to the table that makes you feel safe you
38:59
will find some of the answers there.
39:01
S- so I can also describe it by what is unsafe?
39:05
Unsafe is unclear, unpredictable-
39:09
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm
39:09
Jenifer Zeligs: um, random intensity.
39:13
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
39:18
Jenifer Zeligs: Not caring about your needs.
39:21
Someone who's just seems to not even notice you, not, not even acknowledge you.
39:26
So some of the things a horse person could do make things a little
39:30
bit cleaner and more predictable.
39:33
One of the basic things that I encourage people to do, although it
39:36
does sometimes make them feel silly, is talk their way through things with
39:40
their animals by way of explanation.
39:43
"Hey, how are you doing today?
39:45
I want us to go over here.
39:48
Okay, ready?
39:48
Here we go."
39:49
So, so that you, you provide a kind of continuity of of intention,
39:56
a little way of explanation.
39:58
I mean, from a purely animal training standpoint, you would put a cue to that.
40:01
You would say, "Hey, we're gonna go do this."
40:04
Maybe that feels too formal for people.
40:06
I mean, that would be a very, very clean and clear way of doing this.
40:10
You, I would like you to come with me, rather than just you're
40:14
coming with me and I'm going.
40:16
Or just the way horse people do it, is they often grab the, the lead
40:20
rope, and then they just turn and go.
40:23
That's it.
40:24
Mm.
40:24
Instead of by way of invitation, which is like- Mm
40:27
"Hey, you, I acknowledge you, I see you, I'm thinking about your interests, and I'm
40:32
gonna explain to you what we're gonna do.
40:34
I'm not just gonna yank your nose and make you stay alert all the time
40:38
to watch every single thing I do.
40:40
Instead, I'm going to cooperate with wherever your mind might be, and I'm
40:45
gonna respect that mind by just asking."
40:48
I'm, just a little bit of additional information.
40:51
I'm not saying you should wait there for 10 minutes while they, you know, stop
40:55
munching or whatever, but I am saying give them, give s- give them some clear
41:00
warning of things that are happening.
41:02
"Oh, look, there's a, there's a there's a van that's about to come through.
41:08
You know?
41:08
You had your back turned.
41:09
I see that's about to happen.
41:11
Oh yeah, there's a van, and now we're continuing on."
41:14
You know, just something by way of, Mm â¦ collaborative scene setting So
41:21
welcoming, connect and then direct.
41:24
That's how Iâ¦
41:24
That's the meme that I put to this.
41:26
Connect and then direct, rather than just direct, come in straight.
41:31
Also, try to reduce your intensity.
41:34
Less intensity elements are noise, movement, operation towards the animal.
41:41
So one of the reasons that the signals in modern world are so strong associated
41:47
with people is, like you said, there's a one, one-hour window, and it's all
41:50
about what you're gonna do for me.
41:53
Whereas in the past, there was all this sort of diffuse moseying energy
41:57
that the people would put into the scenario, and the reason that that's
42:01
habituating or desensitizing is that it's not directed towards them.
42:07
So if it's not directed towards me, it has less salience.
42:12
It has less meaning.
42:13
Yeah.
42:14
And that means it's less frightening.
42:16
So if you're gonna direct your energy towards them, do so consciously,
42:21
thoughtfully, carefully, slowly.
42:24
Start at a distance.
42:25
Announce you're coming.
42:26
You know, s- explain what's about to happen.
42:28
Break it into slightly smaller steps.
42:30
I'm not saying, like, go to the, go to the town on every tiny detail, but
42:35
that process that I'm describing is called systematic desensitization.
42:39
The more aroused, the more frightened the animal is, the more the, the
42:43
smaller steps, the smaller respectful stimulus steps are helpful to them.
42:51
And the other thing it does is keep them in the right mood state, because the, the
42:55
worst thing that you can have happen is a sensitizing effect, where, you know, now
43:02
you've got an aroused neurologic state.
43:07
And now the glasses you're wearing are pessimistic.
43:11
They're frightened.
43:12
So if you come in with too much i- inconsiderate or thoughtless kind of
43:19
approach to someone who is not robust, then you can accidentally sensitize them
43:27
and create a whole agenda that you don't want, because the animal's now a little
43:32
bit on fire, a little bit suspicious.
43:35
Their heart rate is up.
43:37
Mm.
43:37
They're upset.
43:39
So those are some, those are some thoughts.
43:42
Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm
43:44
an autism dad and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping
43:51
people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field.
43:56
Are you a therapist?
43:57
Are you a caregiver?
43:59
Are you a parent?
44:01
Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
44:04
When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
44:09
I really didn't know what to do.
44:11
So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
44:16
autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
44:19
Temple Grandin.
44:20
And she told me what to do.
44:22
And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
44:26
That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
44:31
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45:31
Jenifer Zeligs: Those
45:31
Rupert Isaacson: are great, great answers.
45:32
Iâ¦
45:33
And I was thinking as you you know, a lot of examples and scenarios go running
45:37
through my mind, and of course, one of them is so I ended up in this problem.
45:41
When I moved to Germany I had to keep my horses in a stable for the
45:46
first time, not at my own place with my own fields and my own- Mm
45:50
because of, you know, this reason and that reason.
45:52
So, Up until that point, I had only seen the keeping of animals through the
45:59
lens of having complete control of the environment that my animals were in.
46:03
Because we didn't just like in, in Texas, we didn't just have horses.
46:07
At New Trails, our center where we were working with, particularly with autism,
46:11
we had tame deer, we had goats, we had wallabies, we had porcupines for a while.
46:17
We had- Mm â¦ these animals show up, you know?
46:19
We had cavies.
46:20
We had coati mundis.
46:21
We had- Ooh â¦ also, yeah, really, those are interesting.
46:24
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah,
46:24
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
46:25
You want to meet an intelligent animal.
46:26
And o- so we were constantly, you know, interacting in this
46:32
way, and so on and so on.
46:34
And the horses all lived out.
46:35
It's a relatively benign climate.
46:37
You know, we did, we had this big barn, but we never used it-
46:39
Mm â¦ unless there was, like, some extreme weather event or something.
46:43
And then I get to this place in Germany, and the horses,
46:45
like, have to live in stables.
46:48
Occasionally they go out a bit, but not really, and not like before.
46:52
And I'm like, "Okay, how am I gonna meet the needs of these animals?"
46:57
So we had to come up with all these, If you like agendas of no
47:01
agenda so for example, we came up with the idea of crazy time.
47:06
So we have quite fiery horses.
47:08
They need to move a lot.
47:09
Mm-hmm.
47:09
And particularly in the winter in here, they don't want muddy field, so they
47:12
don't let you put your horses on the field in the winter, so which means they
47:15
put them out in what they call a paddock.
47:16
It's not really a paddock.
47:17
It's just kind of like some muddy area where they stand around, and they
47:20
don't even really have a round bail.
47:21
I'm like, "Okay, this is not good.
47:23
I need to do something about this."
47:24
And if, if it's that or I'm working the horse or it's standing in the stable, no.
47:28
No, no, no.
47:29
So what do they need?
47:30
Okay, they need their friends, they need to move around, they need to play.
47:32
Horses are playful, as you say, seeking curious.
47:34
So we came up with this idea of crazy time, where we would just let
47:39
them loose in the arena, and we'd have all kinds of obstacles set up.
47:43
Yeah.
47:43
But very wide.
47:45
So they were hard to avoid, but you could avoid them, but you had
47:48
to be quite creative about it.
47:49
And we would let them play in a social group, depending on the size
47:52
of arena, between, say, two and five.
47:55
And provided you didn't let horses bunch up in a corner together, where they can
48:01
sometimes get a bit naughty with each other, or at least not until a certain
48:04
number of endorphins had kicked in.
48:07
And then if they bunch up, they'd be like, "Okay, well, here we are."
48:10
We realized that we could really engage their curiosity by giving them
48:15
a whole bunch of problems to solve.
48:17
I didn't care- Mm â¦ whether they jumped the jumps.
48:19
It was like I would just take them into a a playground, like taking a kid into
48:23
a playground, and saying, "I'm not gonna tell you how to go down the slide or
48:26
that you must go down the slide, and then go on the climbing frame, and you
48:29
must do your climbing frame like this."
48:31
No, no.
48:31
Interact.
48:33
You show me what you want.
48:34
But of course, they, they'd run around and have all sorts of fun.
48:36
And then about every two minutes, I'd change it.
48:39
So, and they would got to know this, and so they would see the pattern,
48:43
and they'd stop and look at me and go like, "That all you got?"
48:45
And then I'd be like, "No, actually."
48:47
And then I'd make them all zigzags.
48:48
Or I'd make them all wonky, or I'd put big teddy bears and yoga balls- â¦ in
48:52
the middle of the thing and chuck the yoga ball at them or whatâ¦
48:54
And then they, "Whey," off they go again.
48:56
And, and then after about 20 minutes usually, they'd sort of look at
48:59
me and go, "Right, we're done."
49:01
And, or if they wanted to, like, wander off and browse if it was the
49:05
outside arena, totally fine with that.
49:07
It was the inside arena if they just wanted to kind of take a break, have
49:10
a shit, have a roll, y- you know.
49:13
And we began to teach our clients this.
49:16
Mm.
49:16
And we watched the interactions with the clients.
49:20
We, we were teaching a lot of classical dressage.
49:21
We watched all their dressage get better because the relationship
49:26
between the monkeys and the ponies became more joyous, I suppose.
49:33
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
49:33
And the mood of the ponies was positive â¦ indeed.
49:36
Rupert Isaacson: And the mood of the people, because it is hard
49:38
not to take pleasure in watching a bunch of horses have fun, right?
49:43
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
49:44
Rupert Isaacson: However, we then still had the problem that, okay, Jennifer,
49:48
you've got a horse, and I'm your riding teacher, so, you know, we've
49:51
got a, an, a an appointment at 5:00.
49:53
We're gonna meet.
49:53
You've rushed back from work.
49:56
And I need to give you your money's worth.
49:58
I'm charging X per hour.
50:00
So I can't say, "Well, actually, Jennifer, we're not gonna do anything
50:03
today 'cause your, I think your horse just needs to, you know, run
50:05
about or, or just be scratched."
50:08
We have to do the thing.
50:10
So then I had to figure out, how do I make doing the thing feel like, or as
50:17
close as possible to, leisure time?
50:21
And what I realized, it was just all about taking tons of breaks.
50:26
Hmm.
50:26
If we were in a covered arena, say, at night after dark, you know, and it's
50:30
icy outside, and so we're in that arena.
50:33
What if we wanted to work on this dressage thing?
50:39
Then I might have, like, labyrinths and so on built up within the arena, and we
50:44
might do like three minutes of that thing, and then go and play in the labyrinth.
50:47
Mm-hmm.
50:48
And, or then, or hang.
50:50
And then we'd do three minutes of this thing, and then we'd hang.
50:54
And what we saw was that the actual development of the horse's dressage and
51:01
the rider's dressage actually accelerated.
51:04
Because what happened was it, tension didn't creep in.
51:07
You know?
51:07
Yeah.
51:07
If you, if you spend an hour, hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer
51:11
the horse and the human, you know, build tension and build tension, and
51:16
eventually it's just like a blur.
51:18
And sometimes it can even set the thing backwards.
51:21
So, but it was really interesting to have to solve these problems because it
51:24
was a, a really un-ideal environment.
51:27
You've worked in a lot of zoos, and, well, zoos are getting a lot better.
51:31
Now I'd say zoos, many zoos are sort of cutting edge conservation,
51:36
you know, organizations that, you know, involved in rewilding and
51:39
reintroduction and so on and so on.
51:41
Animal welfare is much, much better than it was when we were kids.
51:45
When you were first going into enclosures back in the National Zoo when you
51:53
were a kid, I'm sure that some of those enclosures were not optimal, and
51:57
I'm sure that some of the conditions on which the animals were kept were
52:01
not as optimal as perhaps today.
52:03
How did you, in those days, do the equivalent of what we were
52:07
having to do in that German stable?
52:09
How do you make the non-optimal as optimal as you can?
52:15
Jenifer Zeligs: Well, it's interesting because it so what I, what was coming
52:17
up for me as I'm listening to you is one of the mood setting sort of basicâ¦
52:23
There's sort of two primary interventions that you can do to shift mood.
52:29
Behavioral enrichment and environmental enrichment is the two, the, the
52:35
kind of terms that people use.
52:37
And behavioral enrichment would be specific training that involves
52:43
Attractive experiences.
52:45
And environmental enrichment involves engaging natural behaviors through
52:52
environmental arrangements and setting up the environment to feel stimulating
52:58
so that the needs are being met.
53:01
And environmental enrichment, I think, is way, way more well explored in
53:07
the zoo and aquarium industry than it is, I'm sorry, in the horse industry.
53:11
Oh, I'm sure.
53:11
Now partly- Sure â¦ the horse world you can put your animals out to pasture, but
53:15
how many animals are not out to pasture, and how much environmental enrichment?
53:19
I mean, what you described was kind of a perfect example of exactly
53:23
what I would suggest someone to do.
53:25
And in fact, if you had paused and said, I wish we had done this experiment.
53:28
If you had paused and said, "I ha- I have them in a, you know,
53:31
effectively a concrete box.
53:32
What do I do?"
53:34
I would say, we have to come up with environmental and behavioral enrichment
53:37
strategies that will provide the, the same kind of stimulation that they
53:44
were able to get free browsing, moving around in a dynamic wild environment.
53:49
Mm-hmm.
53:49
And things that people need to do are social interaction for social species
53:54
and and yeah, and ways of exploring challenges in the environment.
54:00
Safe feeling challenges, though.
54:03
You also need to know your individual and know what their history is
54:06
and don't bomb 'em with stuff.
54:08
Mm-hmm.
54:08
Mm-hmm.
54:08
But at the same time, the o- the sort of opportunity for free play.
54:13
The other thing that you mentioned was many small training sessions.
54:16
This is empirical in the behavioral sciences.
54:19
We know that this is the better learning system.
54:22
It is one of the things that's brought up with school children, and it's, it's well
54:27
documented in the animal training field.
54:29
And it is actually one of the things that drives me crazy when I work
54:32
in the horse world because it's the one field where people really don't
54:37
seem to get this, because they're used to going for very long rides.
54:41
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
54:41
Jenifer Zeligs: So it does feel like that's an important
54:44
message to bring out there.
54:46
You can get, you can get more accomplished.
54:49
More is not always more.
54:51
Mm.
54:51
And you know it's not for yourself, too.
54:54
D- a lot of times, you know, lots of small units of, of learning opportunity
55:00
and then digestion, integration from a neuroscience standpoint- Right
55:04
getting that information in.
55:06
Yeah.
55:06
How many times have you done a training session, the animal's left
55:08
in a certain place- But then the next time you come back, it's like
55:13
they've thought about it or something.
55:15
Yeah.
55:15
And now they're exhibiting that behavior all of a sudden at an even better level.
55:21
The horse is, is suddenly piaffing more perfectly, more consistently,
55:26
i- in a situat- you know, going to the left, going to the right,
55:29
where they didn't do it before.
55:31
Mm.
55:31
And you were at the threshold of that, but now weirdly it's here.
55:35
Mm.
55:35
And, you know, in the same way that we sleep and dream our way into integrative
55:41
understanding of stuff, so do animals.
55:43
Mm.
55:43
Mm.
55:44
So there is a really empirical element to that.
55:48
And then, and then what, the third thing you said was there are other
55:51
kinds of motivators out there.
55:53
So people tend to use rest as a motivator for horses, but there's, there's not,
55:57
that's- You know, the impli- White board.
56:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah
56:01
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: the implication of that is is not good in the long term.
56:06
Like, less of me is better, that's what you're saying there.
56:10
Less of us is better.
56:11
So what about instead of youâ¦
56:14
Instead what you did, was you recreated variable reinforcement, which by the
56:19
way is a very important strategy that we use in all sorts of other animals,
56:23
pretty much every one other than horses.
56:25
Which is, it's not, it's, it's not as fun to only get reinforced in one way.
56:31
It's more interesting to have variety.
56:33
Variety is the spice ofâ¦
56:36
So in motivation, you want variety.
56:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
56:39
Jenifer Zeligs: And in communication, you want consistency.
56:41
Those are two different things.
56:44
So you want some- you wanna be clearly understood and predictable in, in the
56:49
sense of communication, but you wanna be dynamic in the sense of what drives you.
56:54
And so what happens in these small sessions that you're doing, a small
56:58
session, take a break, have a play with this environmental enrichment, now you're
57:03
operating a different reinforcer forâ¦
57:06
And it applies to what you just did.
57:08
It's like, "We're gonna do this," and then you get an opportunity.
57:11
And everything that you do with your animals can be a reinforcing opportunity.
57:15
Anything they wanna engage in, placing that after the perfect pee off or whatever
57:22
it is that you're doing mobilizes the, the better pee off for, for the future.
57:28
You know, the very last thing you do is the best whatever
57:33
move, and then out to pasture.
57:36
You know, no break, just straight out to the thing you're looking forward to.
57:40
Use whatâ¦
57:41
Or the access to the, to the woman or the man or, or your, your daughter or whatever
57:46
the thing is that that animal's starting to get loaded and wanting to do, make that
57:51
accessible as a result of the successful small unit of behavior that you just did.
57:58
Not 10 minutes and then that, but immediately that.
58:01
Set that up as a, as a paradigm, as a contingency.
58:05
Because what you start to do then is, is you start to mobilize the things that
58:09
interest them as a, as a component of your cooperation, your mutual experience.
58:18
We do this, then you get your that.
58:21
You know, I, I know you, I know what you want.
58:23
You want this.
58:25
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
58:25
Mm-hmm.
58:26
Absolutely, and what you want, as you say, it, it's interesting you bring
58:29
up the idea of variety, and it's interesting that you bring up the
58:32
idea of people are used to long rides.
58:34
So of course, there's a huge difference between, say, a long trail ride.
58:37
You can trail ride all day.
58:39
Horse is extremely happy because they're exploring the landscape,
58:42
they're moving through the landscape.
58:43
They're curious, they're checking stuff out.
58:45
You know, they're, they're in their environment, and they're moving gently,
58:48
and it's, it's, it's all wonderful.
58:50
There's no pressure, really.
58:51
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, it's not too precise.
58:52
Rupert Isaacson: Right, and you canâ¦
58:53
And horses travel.
58:54
It's one of the things that they do.
58:56
Right.
58:56
They're nomadic animals.
58:57
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, fair enough
58:58
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: show me a horse that doesn't like a trail ride.
58:59
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, yeah.
59:00
Rupert Isaacson: The- Gotcha â¦ so you can, you can do that the whole day without
59:04
putting undue emotional stress on a horse, but you can put massive emotional
59:10
undue stress on a horse in 15 minutes of arena work- Yeah â¦ if it's not
59:17
done in the way that you're suggesting.
59:19
And then, you know, I was just thinking as you said, "Yeah, why do people
59:21
ham around the arena for an hour?"
59:23
And say, "Oh, well, yeah, of course, because they inherited
59:25
it from the military."
59:26
That was- Mm â¦ what military riding lessons looked like because, And most
59:31
people, most riding schools when I was a boy were run by ex-cavalry officers.
59:35
It's what they did when they retired.
59:37
It was the same in the US a lot of the time.
59:39
Mm â¦ or they were the families of people who'd been military.
59:41
And in the military, you drill people.
59:44
Do, do, do, do, do, and you drill horses.
59:45
Yeah.
59:46
But what was often forgotten- Mm â¦ about the military way of doing it is the
59:50
horses are actually only in barracks for a certain amount of time And then they would
59:55
go on maneuvers or on campaign frequently, and they would also go on fitness
1:00:01
marches, roads and tracks every day.
1:00:03
So they weren't actually, even if they were stabled, even if they were
1:00:06
stabled the entire time they were going out usually like, rather like
1:00:11
polo ponies, ride one, lead two, ride one, lead three- Mm â¦ out through
1:00:15
the local countryside, forest, town, by checking stuff out all together.
1:00:19
Not much pressure there.
1:00:20
Mm.
1:00:21
Then they would come in and maybe do their sessions with the raw
1:00:25
recruits, where everyone's yelling and falling off, okay, fine.
1:00:28
But then they also go out on maneuvers where they live out in the field tied
1:00:33
to picket lines all together, and they have to not kick the shit out of each
1:00:36
other, which means they have to actually be turned out together quite a lot.
1:00:40
And I picked up the old German HDB 12 military manual the other day to do a, a
1:00:46
review of it for one of our other YouTube channels, and I had trouble with the
1:00:50
book just because there was â¦ It had been, the last e- edition had been done
1:00:55
by someone who had fought in the German cavalry during World War II, and there
1:00:59
were all these pictures of blokes in Ge- German uniforms, like, and just imagining
1:01:04
my Jewish forebears seeing that come out.
1:01:07
You know, and it's like, yeah, yeah.
1:01:08
So I struggled with it a bit, but there, there was a lot of really
1:01:11
good horsemanship in there where they were saying things like, "When
1:01:13
you're training your horses, don't just do it in arenas that are flat.
1:01:17
Do it in arenas that are on a 10-degree slope."
1:01:19
Horses learn proprioception that way.
1:01:21
You're gonna need that in battle, by the way, and it's just more interesting.
1:01:25
Yeah.
1:01:25
And, and it's all of this stuff about turning them out and doing
1:01:28
all that fitness work and all of that social time and all of that
1:01:31
downtime as part of the work was actually all in that military manual.
1:01:35
Yeah.
1:01:35
And then the, the civilian riding school largely took only the arena bit And
1:01:43
let the kind of rest go because bums on seats, bums in saddles is going to pay
1:01:48
for your business and your livelihood.
1:01:51
And then suddenly we end up in the situations that we're talking about
1:01:55
now that are, as you say, not ideal.
1:01:57
Now when, a lot of this is also about managing human expectation, right?
1:02:02
I definitely lost clients because I said, "We're gonna work this
1:02:07
way, and are you okay with this?
1:02:10
Oh, and by the way, as soon as the weather is in any way clement, which
1:02:14
includes rain, we are going to work outside, and we're going to work in the
1:02:18
forest because horses like it there, and it's just better for everybody."
1:02:23
So I got people who said, "No, I'm not gonna do that."
1:02:26
And I got people who said, "No, y- there are too many of
1:02:28
these little breaks, Rupert.
1:02:29
I want to work on my," da, da, da, da, da, you know?
1:02:34
And, but, you know, more people certainly went for it because
1:02:38
they saw the practical benefits.
1:02:40
But it's very interesting how, how do you manage the expectations?
1:02:45
So, you know, particularly also for you, you're working, say,
1:02:47
in zoo environments as well.
1:02:50
I'm, I, I imagine that you do run into human expectations where people are very
1:02:58
much in a certain neural pathway, and they haven't really expanded outside of that.
1:03:04
And you have to try to work with the human because you're not gonna work at
1:03:08
that zoo 24/7 for the next 30 years.
1:03:10
You have to go in and show those pe- you have to show those people with that horse.
1:03:13
What are the tools that you use to help people to expand their monkey
1:03:19
comfort zone with this stuff, let alone the animals, so that they can
1:03:23
actually implement what you're saying?
1:03:26
Jenifer Zeligs: I struggle with that a lot.
1:03:28
I, I have to tell you.
1:03:29
I you know, so I immediately think, "Where's David?
1:03:32
David understands this better."
1:03:35
I, I have not spent a huge amount of my time in the private industry, you know,
1:03:44
the, the companion animal industry.
1:03:46
Working with professional trainers, they usually have a lot more field
1:03:51
of interest and flexibility of mind.
1:03:55
They're curi- you know, they're working on cutting-edge problems, and
1:04:00
they understand cutting-edge problems requires creative beginner's mind.
1:04:05
That's what we would say in Buddhism, you know?
1:04:07
In the expert's mind, the possibilities are limited.
1:04:11
In the beginner's mind, in the beginner's mind, they are unlimited.
1:04:17
Or Iâ¦
1:04:17
Let's see, what's the actual quote?
1:04:18
In the-
1:04:24
In the beginner's mind, the possibilities are unlimited, and
1:04:28
in the expert's mind, they are few.
1:04:31
And what we wanna do is keep a, and, and that is a ding on people whoâ¦
1:04:37
so I may have just kind of muddled this idea, but it's a ding on thinking,
1:04:40
you know, you're the professor and you know, and it's this one way, and I
1:04:44
have this agenda, and blah, blah, blah.
1:04:46
And the when you really get into the creative exploration, the science of
1:04:50
things, people who are trying to solve problems that nobody else really solved
1:04:54
very well before, you start bringing inâ¦
1:04:58
I mean, what you're doing, for example, is, is creatively looking
1:05:01
back at, like, well, in the past, they didn't have these problems.
1:05:05
So, you know, that's one of the things I hear you doing, is you're,
1:05:09
you're sort of reflecting on what was it about that scenario that's
1:05:12
different than this scenario?
1:05:13
And, and it's op- it opens your mind And I do that by going between disciplines.
1:05:20
I do that by going between species.
1:05:23
So how do you open someone's mind so that the possibilities are unlimited?
1:05:29
I think all all behavior is a study of one.
1:05:34
So it hugely depends on who you're talking to and what their agenda is.
1:05:39
Trying to do the same thing, understand what their needs are,
1:05:44
understand what's standing in their way, understand what their values
1:05:48
are, what do they value, and a lot of times you can find something in there.
1:05:54
I always did it as well, I had these incredible animals where I was literally
1:06:01
speaking to them using words, verbs, nouns, you know adjectives, and the animal
1:06:10
could, was interested and could follow me, and could go out into their natural
1:06:15
environment, into the open ocean, and do things like film whales, you know?
1:06:20
Not something a sea lion thinks to do.
1:06:22
You release them into their natural environment, you think they're
1:06:24
gonna just, you know, swim away.
1:06:27
This is where other sea lions live.
1:06:28
So when you start showing someone that, like, here's the realm of
1:06:32
what's really possible, so you have these incredible animals, so like
1:06:35
you said, David Lichman, or I'm sure yourself, you've got animals where
1:06:39
you can show, look, when you approach things in this way, this is my lived
1:06:44
experience, you get these better results.
1:06:47
So that's one, one method.
1:06:49
Another method is to model it for them.
1:06:52
Like, do to them what they're suggesting you do to the animal.
1:06:58
Make some kind of lived experience out of it so that they can develop
1:07:02
the empathy that they're notâ¦
1:07:03
This is a theory of mind issue to a certain extent.
1:07:06
It's like, why-
1:07:07
Rupert Isaacson: Can you explain what theory of mind is?
1:07:08
'Cause this is big for us in the autism world.
1:07:10
But I think it's, theory of mind is a much misunderstood concept.
1:07:14
Can you just quickly explain what you mean by theory of mind?
1:07:17
I think it'll help people understand what you're saying.
1:07:20
Jenifer Zeligs: Theory of mind is the ability to maintain an understanding
1:07:24
that what you know and think is different than what someone else knows and thinks
1:07:31
So that you don't accidentally ascribe to them your motives and understanding.
1:07:38
Most importantly, your understanding.
1:07:40
You know, because you understand something doesn't mean someone else understands it.
1:07:44
It may seem completely obvious to you, but theory of mind is to kind of grasp
1:07:49
and be curious about what the precursors of that other's experience is like.
1:07:54
What does their behavior indicate in terms of their comfort level,
1:08:00
their interest, their understanding?
1:08:02
So if that's a horse, where are they looking?
1:08:05
Where are their ears going?
1:08:07
What are they smelling?
1:08:08
What, what is their kind of general approach to the circumstance?
1:08:11
Because you understand that's just a plastic bag.
1:08:15
Do they understand that?
1:08:16
You know, are they, like, suddenly looking askance at the plastic bag?
1:08:19
Do, you knowâ¦
1:08:21
They have a different level of understanding.
1:08:23
An animal has inherently a lot less understanding and a, a, you
1:08:27
know, interprets the things that are happening in a different way.
1:08:30
And so somehow you have to mobilize the ability to kind of keep your
1:08:35
understanding and their understanding as two subsets of what's happening.
1:08:39
Like, you have a model in your head.
1:08:41
You have your own understanding, and you have the understanding of the other.
1:08:45
And what you're trying to do is create an overlapping Venn diagram
1:08:49
of those two things so that you can interact effectively Did that help?
1:08:53
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that was beautifully put.
1:08:55
Okay, so now I'd like you to tell us the story, please, of how you used
1:08:59
these verbs and adjectives to train a sea lion to go and film whales-
1:09:05
with no direct intervention from you.
1:09:06
And then when you've done that- Ah.
1:09:08
Jenifer Zeligs: Oh, well
1:09:09
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I'm then gonna ask if we can bring that back to horses
1:09:11
and say, "Well, what can we learn?
1:09:12
How can we apply some of those things?"
1:09:15
Okay, so tell us the story.
1:09:17
How did you, how did you do that?
1:09:19
Jenifer Zeligs: Man, that's a longâ¦
1:09:21
There, there's a lot of issues associated with- It's
1:09:23
Rupert Isaacson: a long format podcast.
1:09:24
Please, tell us.
1:09:25
Jenifer Zeligs: Well, there's a lot of issues associated with
1:09:27
going out and filming whales.
1:09:29
There, and, and one of the fundamental kind of ways of sort of breaking this
1:09:33
into buckets is when you have any task that you have, you can break that
1:09:37
down into, does the animal want to do it, does the horse want to do it, and
1:09:42
can I, how do I explain it to them?
1:09:45
So that's, I call that communication and motivation.
1:09:49
And you can break your tools down that way.
1:09:51
So an adjective, a verb a noun, those would all be communication tools.
1:09:55
They're descriptive tools.
1:09:57
Language is a way of explaining to someone an idea.
1:10:02
It's not a perfect way, though, by the way.
1:10:04
There is no perfect way.
1:10:05
But the, the, the, the game is won and lost in the motivational side of things.
1:10:10
Do they, do they want what you have to offer?
1:10:13
Do they care?
1:10:14
Are they interested and willing?
1:10:17
And then, what are the competing motivators?
1:10:20
Because that's often the screen, you know, this kind of mood-based situation.
1:10:25
"I'd love to help you out there, Jen.
1:10:27
I'd really like to go out and do this perfect sequence of dressage moves
1:10:32
for you, but you don't understand.
1:10:34
There is a radical bad smell or a a wild-looking something in the
1:10:40
environment, and that has more what we would call salience to me."
1:10:44
It's more important.
1:10:46
It suggests, oh, death, or I don't know what.
1:10:49
Or maybe mating is on, you know.
1:10:51
I- you can, you can get either side of this.
1:10:54
Yeah.
1:10:54
So you get these masking motivators.
1:10:56
In the case of going out to s- to film whales the an- the sea
1:11:00
lions were naturally actually very afraid of the ocean.
1:11:04
We had to spend an enormous amount of time encouraging them, "No, no, no.
1:11:08
It's fine."
1:11:09
They're like, "No, Jen, we were out here before.
1:11:12
It sucked.
1:11:12
We were starving.
1:11:14
There were killer whales.
1:11:15
There were sharks.
1:11:17
It's deep.
1:11:18
It's dark.
1:11:19
I like, I like where we live.
1:11:21
It's nicer."
1:11:22
But, but to this wild- "I get to try things all the time.
1:11:24
I feel safe."
1:11:24
Yeah, but with- "I don't feel safe" â¦ with the
1:11:25
Rupert Isaacson: wild sea lions, not- captive-bred ones.
1:11:29
These were ones who had experienced the world.
1:11:32
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, they were all stranders.
1:11:34
So they had come in for because of health reasons, they couldn't-
1:11:37
Okay â¦ survive in the wild.
1:11:38
So they all had a bad experience with the- And
1:11:40
Rupert Isaacson: they decided they liked it at Uncle Jen's house.
1:11:42
Jenifer Zeligs: Well, I worked hard to make that the case.
1:11:45
They all, they usually- But did, did you want to do that?
1:11:48
â¦ came in going, "Oh, Jesus, I don't know about this."
1:11:48
And then they went, "You know what?
1:11:49
This is actually working out.
1:11:51
I'm feeling good about this."
1:11:53
Rupert Isaacson: Was this in Monterey?
1:11:54
Jenifer Zeligs: Sorry?
1:11:54
In Monterey.
1:11:54
This was in Monterey.
1:11:55
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:11:56
Which, again, for listeners who, who don't know the coast of California,
1:11:59
Monterey is south of San Francisco, and it's a massive kelp forest off the coast.
1:12:05
And it's known for massive biodiversity.
1:12:08
There's a huge the, the aquarium there, and lots of studies get done
1:12:12
there, and there's all sorts of marine life there because there's
1:12:14
so much food sort of in that ocean.
1:12:17
Okay, so you're there in Monterey.
1:12:18
These, these s- sea lions have been stranded.
1:12:22
They're saying, "It sucked out there," and you want me to go
1:12:24
out there again into scary land.
1:12:28
And you say, "Well, yeah, I do, actually, and I want you to do this thing," which
1:12:31
is an entirely monkey agenda, which is to- Yes â¦ swim with the whales-
1:12:35
Yes â¦ and swim close to them for- â¦ unspecified reasons so that this thing
1:12:38
that I strap to your body can film these large animals while you're worried about
1:12:45
great white sharks, which exist a lot on that coast, and things like that.
1:12:49
So okay.
1:12:50
So how do you begin?
1:12:52
Jenifer Zeligs: So we, what we did was the actual explanation of
1:12:56
the behavior involved us teaching the animals to wear harnesses
1:13:01
which is like getting in a saddle.
1:13:04
And on the, the harness we would put a video camera, and this was back in a
1:13:08
day when initially there were no digital cameras, so these cameras were huge.
1:13:12
And then we, we used the first Sony digital video cameras that ever existed.
1:13:17
Sony sent them to us.
1:13:18
But it, it â¦ Unfortunately, we never got to that GoPro stage
1:13:21
'cause it was, it â¦ You know.
1:13:22
But anyways, National Geographic, it was a really amazing experience.
1:13:27
But the cameras were pretty large.
1:13:28
So they had to wear these giant cameras on their backs, and then
1:13:31
they just had to orient towards the, and just follow the whales.
1:13:36
That was their job.
1:13:37
And what we did was we broke the experience of, of first
1:13:42
the, the behavior of follow.
1:13:45
If you think of, like, a dog heeling we, we sort of, we, we sort of trained
1:13:49
that without the, without the leash.
1:13:52
So we trained it as- With you
1:13:53
Rupert Isaacson: in a boat, and them following the boat?
1:13:55
Jenifer Zeligs: We started with follow a human walking around.
1:13:58
Then we, we went to follow a, a captive dolphin swimming around the pool.
1:14:05
Then we built a model whale.
1:14:08
Rupert Isaacson: I was gonna ask if you did that.
1:14:09
Jenifer Zeligs: And we dragged the model whale behind a boat
1:14:15
And we taught them to go next to the whale.
1:14:18
Okay.
1:14:18
And then we transferred this to w- the same behavior.
1:14:22
So we generalized the behavior.
1:14:25
We took it to to different scenarios.
1:14:27
We said, "Oh, here's that behavior like this, here's that behavior like
1:14:30
this, here's that behavior like this."
1:14:32
Same behavior, now applied to that giant thing.
1:14:36
And you know, it took lots of trials.
1:14:39
And, and certainly they they didn't feel as good about getting close to the whales.
1:14:43
And the whales also were like hmm, I think maybe we'll, we'll bug out of here."
1:14:48
So it was actually a twofer problem.
1:14:50
Like, it wasn't like the, the whales were sort of just like,
1:14:53
"Oh yeah, we'll hang around."
1:14:54
The one time that whales really did hang around and we got a, like a big group of
1:14:59
them, there were three humpback whales that surrounded the boat within like
1:15:03
a, I don't know, a 10-foot distance.
1:15:05
I mean, it was intimidating.
1:15:06
These are like 50, 60-foot-long animals.
1:15:09
And the sea lions went like, "Jen, I don't know.
1:15:13
They've got us surrounded.
1:15:15
I think I just wanna sit in my cage.
1:15:17
I wanna go home."
1:15:19
And, and we kept going, "No, come on.
1:15:22
Go on.
1:15:23
This is the moment.
1:15:24
Go swim with those whales."
1:15:25
And they're like, "They have us surrounded, Jen.
1:15:27
I don't know."
1:15:28
And so they bugged out, and they swam 20 miles home to the, to their pen on
1:15:34
the ocean, which is where they lived.
1:15:36
And then it turned out that the reason the whales were surrounding the boat
1:15:40
was killer whales were coming in
1:15:44
Killer whales eat whales.
1:15:46
They also eat sea lions.
1:15:48
So it was, the sea lion, like, really tried.
1:15:51
He really, he was like, "Gah, this is not working for me.
1:15:55
You don't understand.
1:15:56
This is just not right."
1:15:58
And we were not listening.
1:15:59
We were not listening because we were having, like, a euphoric whale
1:16:02
experience, and it was a good example of having too strong an agenda.
1:16:07
You know, literally sea lion could have been eaten in that scenario.
1:16:11
But anyways, we lost the sea lion for an entire day while he had
1:16:14
to swim 20 miles to get home.
1:16:16
It was traumatic for everyone.
1:16:18
He was exhausted.
1:16:19
When he finally found us again, he jumped into my boat.
1:16:22
We found him 'cause we had an underwater speaker and were calling.
1:16:24
And he jumped, he came out of nowhere, jumped into the boat, and,
1:16:28
like, passed out from exhaustion.
1:16:30
Broke my foot jumping into the boat when suddenly just,
1:16:34
like, landed on top of my foot.
1:16:37
Anyways I don't know if I answered the question, but it's a good
1:16:39
Rupert Isaacson: anecdote.
1:16:40
You did, you did.
1:16:40
And, and it brings, so a couple of other questions came up.
1:16:43
In that scenario with the humpback whales surrounding the boat so
1:16:46
close, they c- they clustered like that around your boat because they
1:16:50
were protecting you and your boat?
1:16:52
Or you and your boat just happened to be in the middle of
1:16:54
their cluster, that they were-
1:16:56
Jenifer Zeligs: I think they they thought the boat would be a good placeâ¦
1:16:59
I mean, I don'tâ¦
1:16:59
We didn't- Like, what, what was it about the
1:17:00
Rupert Isaacson: boat that made the whales corral the boat?
1:17:00
Jenifer Zeligs: We, we did not have interspecies
1:17:04
Rupert Isaacson: communication.
1:17:04
Sorry?
1:17:05
Jenifer Zeligs: Sorry.
1:17:06
I can't speak for the whales.
1:17:07
I'll tell you what my theory is.
1:17:09
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:17:10
As you may know, if you've been following my work, we are also horsey folk here.
1:17:15
And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
1:17:20
the old classical dressage masters.
1:17:23
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
1:17:27
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
1:17:32
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1:17:37
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1:17:42
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1:17:45
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1:17:50
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1:17:55
And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
1:18:00
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com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
1:18:06
Jenifer Zeligs: My theory is that they they, they felt that this would be a, a
1:18:11
reasonable place to to hide for safety.
1:18:13
That the boat itself was a very large object that might kinda present enough
1:18:20
of a breakup or a strange element in the environment that the whales,
1:18:25
the killer whales might not choose to go for them in that scenario.
1:18:29
A big, hard, you know, what did you say?
1:18:31
It's like a tank.
1:18:32
Yeah.
1:18:32
It's an ocean tank.
1:18:34
Rupert Isaacson: So a little bit like clustering around a big rock or something,
1:18:36
Jenifer Zeligs: where you- Yeah.
1:18:37
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:18:37
Okay, okay, interesting.
1:18:39
And the killer whales would've been after their young?
1:18:42
Would've been after them, the large ones?
1:18:45
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, both.
1:18:46
Both-
1:18:46
Rupert Isaacson: Yes â¦ both of the above.
1:18:47
The orcas can-
1:18:48
Jenifer Zeligs: Both of the above
1:18:49
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: orcas can take down an adult humpback?
1:18:52
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:18:53
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:18:54
Wow.
1:18:55
Jenifer Zeligs: I mean, I don't think it's their first go-to choice, but
1:18:58
yeah, it must have been that, that at least one of these animals was younger.
1:19:02
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:19:03
Jenifer Zeligs: I don't know.
1:19:04
The behavior of the humpbacks was strange.
1:19:06
We all thought it, and it coincided with incoming orcas.
1:19:12
And I don't know.
1:19:13
I do not think that the, that theâ¦
1:19:15
I doubt that the motive of the whales was, "Oh, we'll
1:19:18
protect you from these killers."
1:19:20
That, that would be a bit of a stretch for me.
1:19:23
It, it's, it's the kind of thing that people like to romanticize as far as the
1:19:26
Rupert Isaacson: story, but- Well, indeed, and that's why I have to ask,
1:19:27
I have to v- vocalize the question.
1:19:30
But In, in the course of sort of debunking that, it's interesting to sort of go
1:19:35
to, "Well then, in that case, why?
1:19:36
Why, why choose that?
1:19:38
Why choose the boat?"
1:19:39
But I could see maybe they saw it perhaps as some sort of defensive structure.
1:19:43
Yeah, maybe as you suggest.
1:19:45
Interesting.
1:19:46
All right.
1:19:46
So all these variables.
1:19:48
You, you got the sea lion going out there and he's saying, "You know, Mum,
1:19:52
there's not just killer whales out there, there's great white sharks."
1:19:55
We know that the California coast has a lot of those.
1:19:58
Not to mention all sorts of other things.
1:20:01
How did you use â¦ You talked about verbs and adjectives- â¦ and complex language.
1:20:06
How did that come into the whole process?
1:20:09
Jenifer Zeligs: Sorry, yeah.
1:20:09
Thank you for, for coming back to that.
1:20:11
So they would have had a verb that said, "Go follow."
1:20:16
They would have had an identifier, like, "Go follow," noun.
1:20:23
Or, "Go follow that."
1:20:24
Which would have been based on this idea of targeting, like orient towards object.
1:20:31
So they had an understanding of this concept of targeting.
1:20:34
Mm.
1:20:34
To target.
1:20:36
But they â¦ It â¦ A target is both a verb and a noun.
1:20:39
It is an object and an action.
1:20:41
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:20:42
Jenifer Zeligs: So they would have â¦ We would have had language around that.
1:20:44
We would have had language around "That's correct," "Speed up," "You're
1:20:50
done," "Stay there," "Continue."
1:20:55
Sounds a lot
1:20:55
Rupert Isaacson: like training border collies to work with sheep.
1:20:56
Jenifer Zeligs: What's that?
1:20:57
Rupert Isaacson: Sounds a lot like training border collies-
1:20:58
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah
1:20:59
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: to work with sheep.
1:21:00
Yeah.
1:21:00
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:21:00
And this particular example is extremely border collie-esque, in a sense.
1:21:05
Except â¦ Yeah, I mean, it is.
1:21:07
It is really.
1:21:08
Yeah.
1:21:09
It is really.
1:21:10
We had to give them- Like in that data measurement company
1:21:12
more autonomy for the job because- Right â¦ we couldn't see what
1:21:15
they were doing all the time.
1:21:16
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:21:16
In the same way that, you know, you might have to â¦ And with hunting hounds, you
1:21:19
know, you, you might have to send them off into dense thickets two kilometers
1:21:24
away from you, where they can't see you.
1:21:26
You've got the horn, you've got your voice, you've got a whip crack,
1:21:29
you've got some ways of communicating over distance, but there's also got
1:21:32
to be a kind of a consistency to
1:21:34
If we say, "Go over there and try and do this thing," that they're
1:21:37
not going to just run to Kansas.
1:21:39
Yeah, yeah.
1:21:40
Or run after the wrong game or eat somebody's cat.
1:21:43
Yes.
1:21:44
I â¦ It, it's interesting.
1:21:45
It starts to put the pieces into my mind, and it's â¦ it takes me
1:21:49
back to this idea of, well, in, in olden days, you know, I was lucky.
1:21:53
I grew up, say, for example, with hunting hounds and having to â¦ And then you,
1:21:58
you learned that there was, like, this type of hound- Was very, very independent
1:22:02
and you would use that in a mountain scenario where you would automatically
1:22:05
lose contact with your hounds.
1:22:07
But then there's other types of hound that you might use if you, like, around
1:22:10
roads, which are more, we'd say biddable which are more looking to you, Mm
1:22:15
for direction.
1:22:15
They're not gonna just go off on something that even when
1:22:17
the, the scent is really strong.
1:22:19
Like a bloodhound would do that.
1:22:21
And suddenly what you suggested about doing this with these sea lions
1:22:29
suddenly made an intuitive sense where I could say, "Oh, I seeâ¦
1:22:32
I, I sort of see how that could be possible."
1:22:35
You'd need to know a lot more, but I can see how it could be possible.
1:22:40
All right.
1:22:41
Now, if you were to take that scenario the sea lions into the ocean to film the
1:22:46
whales, the use of the verbal language in a border collie-ish sort of a way to, and
1:22:52
say, how does that apply, say, to horses?
1:22:55
What could you take from that?
1:22:57
Because of course, of course they think in a very different way, right?
1:22:59
They don't have the same cogni- cognitive universe that a sea lion or a dog does.
1:23:05
Which I think those animals think a little bit more like us.
1:23:08
A lot of people can sort of somewhat intuitively train a dog because dogs
1:23:12
and humans aren't so far apart in the way that they int- interpret the world.
1:23:18
But horses really are.
1:23:20
If you were to, if you were giving a, an animal behavior clinic workshop right
1:23:26
now, and you had all these horse people, and they say, "Well, how does that st-
1:23:28
that's a wonderful story, Jennifer.
1:23:30
We really respect that you could do that, but how, how does that apply to us?"
1:23:36
Jenifer Zeligs: I guess the first thing is it just tells you the the
1:23:40
expanding l- limits of poten- you know, the expanding unlimited potential.
1:23:45
Because your examples with dogs are on target except the one thing
1:23:49
is that you're relying on a kind of natural history link to it.
1:23:52
Yeah.
1:23:53
Right?
1:23:53
That that's an animal who's got a kind of an ethological inclination
1:23:58
in this direction that you're operationalizing, which I'm not saying
1:24:01
there's anything wrong with that.
1:24:02
That's great.
1:24:03
That's a smart use of you know, some natural motivators and inclinations.
1:24:09
But what I'm saying is I took someone who had no inclination whatsoever.
1:24:14
Mm-hmm.
1:24:14
I created language and motive And, and broke it down and explained it
1:24:21
over time, and they were willing to collaborate on this crazyâ¦
1:24:25
I mean, we didn't just do this.
1:24:27
We also did underwater archeology.
1:24:29
You know, we had them running transect lines.
1:24:31
Simple behaviors, okay?
1:24:33
They're not that complicated when you actually think of what the behavior is.
1:24:36
Go t- go follow that.
1:24:39
And, and, you know, it might be the same,
1:24:43
so cutting horses,
1:24:45
Rupert Isaacson: Mm, mm, mm, mm.
1:24:47
Yeah, it's all questions
1:24:47
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: stay with,
1:24:48
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:24:49
Okay.
1:24:49
Yeah.
1:24:49
Yeah
1:24:49
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: you know.
1:24:50
So what, what it is is- Other times.
1:24:52
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
1:24:52
Yeah
1:24:53
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: you're breaking the behavior down into its unit pieces, and
1:24:57
then coming up with both an incentive-
1:25:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:25:01
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: to care and be interested and be dynamic.
1:25:03
The more interested the animal is in collaborating, cooperating, the bigger
1:25:07
you can make the potential behavior.
1:25:11
The more sexy, the more crazy.
1:25:13
And, and like, David has taken this, this kind of framework
1:25:18
to- towards liberty, you know?
1:25:19
Because you, you rely so much on gear in the horse world, which is, you know,
1:25:24
kind of an, an imposed constraint.
1:25:25
But what's possible to do when you don't have any mechanism to force them?
1:25:32
Mm.
1:25:32
So how do you use your mind to connect with their mind and still
1:25:37
have this incredibly dynamic potential between the two of you?
1:25:43
That, that, that doesn't mean you can't do.
1:25:46
It means you could actually do more because it's, it's
1:25:50
we're both on board for this.
1:25:52
But, but you have to change the framework where you're interested in
1:25:57
in really explaining it to them and breaking it down, and that's where
1:26:01
it starts to feel very collaborative.
1:26:03
Gets addictive because both parties are getting quite a lot
1:26:06
out of the playfulness of this.
1:26:08
Yeah.
1:26:09
The animals have a lot of joy in getting to do these things.
1:26:13
They, they, they show up and wonder what the next thing is gonna be, just like when
1:26:17
you were altering their environment, like they started to get your, your number.
1:26:21
It's like, ooh, there's gonna be something spontane- you
1:26:24
know, something unusual here.
1:26:26
The chance to do something new, to, to, to stretch, to be challenged,
1:26:30
that's quite interesting.
1:26:33
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's interesting.
1:26:33
It seems that all mammals need this whether they're prey species or,
1:26:37
or predator species, that- There's no mammal I can think of that
1:26:42
doesn't get sort of depressed if they don't have a sense of growth.
1:26:48
And I guess that must be because the wild just demands that of you, right?
1:26:52
In a, in a normal- Yeah â¦ planet Earth environment, which is not Monkey
1:26:58
World monkeys might be involved, but not designing the whole thing.
1:27:03
It's a constant set of developmental challenges, isn't it?
1:27:06
That, so that it must be built in to us, all of us mammalian organisms,
1:27:12
to seek that to some degree.
1:27:14
And if we lack that, to feel the lack no matter how- Yeah â¦ comfortable
1:27:20
our lives might be, the sedentary human that we can- We can choose
1:27:26
not to move now if we want to.
1:27:27
We can just have our entertainment brought to us.
1:27:29
We can have our food brought to us.
1:27:30
Like, this chair that I'm sitting in, if it had a hole in the bottom
1:27:34
connected to plumbing, I just wouldn't have to move, you know?
1:27:37
But except internally.
1:27:38
Jenifer Zeligs: Oh,
1:27:38
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
1:27:39
That's the first time in human history that's, that's
1:27:41
actually been a possibility.
1:27:43
I don't think it's good for us.
1:27:44
We know this.
1:27:45
Why would it be good for other animals?
1:27:46
Why wouldn't it be good for, for them, just like us, to
1:27:51
stretch and grow and develop?
1:27:53
I think we do observe this.
1:27:55
You talked aboutâ¦
1:27:57
Okay, you've talked about-
1:27:57
Jenifer Zeligs: Wait,
1:27:58
Rupert Isaacson: wait.
1:27:58
Yes.
1:27:59
Jenifer Zeligs: Wait.
1:27:59
I have a term for that.
1:28:00
It's called- Okay â¦ contra freeloading.
1:28:02
Rupert Isaacson: One more time.
1:28:03
Jenifer Zeligs: Contra freeloading.
1:28:05
Rupert Isaacson: What does that mean?
1:28:06
Jenifer Zeligs: It means that organisms are animals, horses, dogs, humans,
1:28:12
were were evolved t- exactly f- for survival reasons, exactly like you
1:28:18
describe, were evolved not toâ¦
1:28:21
So freeloading would just be all other things being equal, the animal would
1:28:26
prefer the f- the food just comes in and they don't have to do anything.
1:28:30
But actually, that's not true.
1:28:32
A lot of science demonstrates that the animal that gets a opportunity
1:28:38
to use their species-appropriate adaptations to get the food is
1:28:45
critical to their wellbeing.
1:28:47
We're es- we're established around that paradigm because
1:28:50
it would have caused us to die.
1:28:52
We wouldn't have survived.
1:28:53
If we, if we had a basic desire to just sit around and do nothing,
1:28:57
that wouldn't work in the wild.
1:28:59
So we're, we're built for contra freeloading, the opposite of freeloading.
1:29:03
Rupert Isaacson: Is contra freeloading a, a Jennifer Zelig's term, or is that like-
1:29:07
Jenifer Zeligs: No, no, no
1:29:07
it's
1:29:07
Rupert Isaacson: it's
1:29:08
Jenifer Zeligs: something- Biologic ethological term.
1:29:10
Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
1:29:11
You also used another term, and some people know what it means and some don't.
1:29:15
You used ethology.
1:29:16
What, what is ethology?
1:29:18
Jenifer Zeligs: It's the study of animal behavior, but i- it usually applies, like,
1:29:22
ecological settings, so wild type behavior as opposed to behavior that you wanna
1:29:28
modify or psychological applications.
1:29:32
So sort of in its own, in its own state animal behavior.
1:29:36
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:29:37
And,
1:29:37
Jenifer Zeligs: Sorry, I interrupted you, but that was such a good-
1:29:39
No, no, you, you I have a- â¦ no, it's okay â¦ I had an animal that
1:29:41
Rupert Isaacson: was- I'm, I'm, I'm sort of going, I'm, I'm feeling my way
1:29:44
towards, 'cause there's just so many interesting places to go with this.
1:29:48
We're gonna have to have a second and a third conversation, I can tell.
1:29:51
'Cause I can also see how, for example, le- let's say it's horses or dogs or
1:29:56
even sea lions, that you've got, like, these different species of sea lion.
1:29:58
You've got these different types of dog.
1:30:00
You've got these different breeds of horse.
1:30:02
And so a lot of things are s- like fairly specific to one lot might
1:30:06
not â¦ There are some things that will carry over to another lot, but
1:30:09
maybe not as much as one thinks.
1:30:12
So for example, we find, say, with the Portuguese horses, which we have
1:30:16
a lot of who have been selectively bred for bullfighting, they have
1:30:20
this desire for fire and mischief and
1:30:26
Y- I can't say it on YouTube, but it, it, it's-
1:30:28
Jenifer Zeligs: Arousal
1:30:29
Rupert Isaacson: it's M-U-T-H-A-F-U-C-K-E-R-Y.
1:30:35
Oh.
1:30:37
Yes.
1:30:37
They, they have this desire for this, and they, they have
1:30:39
this kind of a ha ha in them.
1:30:41
And then you have, like, the German horses, who are much more
1:30:43
of a, a sort of bit anxious and they want to get everything right.
1:30:45
But they can be a bit overreactive, but they can be quite br- they
1:30:47
kind of reflect the Germans.
1:30:49
And then you have, you know, the Arabians might be, like, up here looking for
1:30:53
threats across the desert, and the Anglo-Arabs perhaps a little bit more,
1:30:56
and then you get the Thoroughbreds who, like, really, really wanna run, but also,
1:30:59
like, really like to chill and hang.
1:31:01
And you, you realize that, oh, I see.
1:31:04
And then the cold bloods that are coming out of this thing of I come from the snowy
1:31:10
north where when the wi- when the wolves chase us, we do not run through the drifts
1:31:15
because then the wolves will get us.
1:31:16
We pack up, we stand, we put the head down, we, you know.
1:31:20
And you can end up in that situation with them.
1:31:23
And knowing and sort of delighting in all these different personality
1:31:26
types mean that one has to, of course, endlessly tweak what one does.
1:31:32
So let's say we have a rule of thumb in the horse training that we do.
1:31:35
We are basically the French-Portuguese system.
1:31:37
That's kind of what we do, because we found that that is the most versatile
1:31:43
in terms of its universal application.
1:31:45
But it still has to be tweaked endlessly, individually horse to
1:31:48
horse, and type, breed, you know.
1:31:52
And I guess this is exactly the same for people.
1:31:54
It's exactly the same for dogs.
1:31:55
But it's, it's something that has to be borne in mind, because when
1:31:59
people are â¦ Let's say someone is doing what we're doing where they're
1:32:02
d- working with equine therapy.
1:32:03
They're gonna get a variety of horses come through.
1:32:06
And learning that, well, the Quarter Horses seem to kind of like this
1:32:10
and the Thoroughbreds kind of seem to like that, is useful because we
1:32:15
want them to feel seen, understood, take pleasure in the work and that we
1:32:21
can meet their needs so that we can then meet the needs of the client.
1:32:26
When you are working with- Mm â¦ say, large predators.
1:32:34
Let's say you're working with big cats.
1:32:37
What can you take from sea lions and dogs and cetaceans over to, or wolves, over
1:32:48
to big cats who are very, very different?
1:32:51
And then what w- could we take from the big cats back over to the horses?
1:33:00
Jenifer Zeligs: I was noticing as you were proposing this, and I was glad
1:33:03
you did, you know, you, you had a real ethological view, or another word for
1:33:10
that might be speciesist view with a slightly more negative connotation.
1:33:14
Like putting, you know, a circle around a group of-
1:33:20
Rupert Isaacson: I don't mean
1:33:22
Jenifer Zeligs: to be speciesist, Alex.
1:33:22
Sorry.
1:33:22
Say it again?
1:33:23
Rupert Isaacson: I don't mean to be speciesist, Alex.
1:33:24
Jenifer Zeligs: Yes.
1:33:25
I, I, I said that just to tick you off.
1:33:28
Yeah.
1:33:28
But also to kind of bring up, there, there's a strength and
1:33:32
a weakness to that position.
1:33:33
Yeah.
1:33:34
And I, I bet you it's populating-
1:33:36
Rupert Isaacson: Talk us through.
1:33:36
Yeah, talk us through it
1:33:37
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: it's populating in your mind.
1:33:39
Mm.
1:33:39
It's great to be a, an, a subject matter expert.
1:33:43
You know all there is to know about what was it?
1:33:47
Portuguese horses, let's say.
1:33:48
You're a Portuguese horseâ¦
1:33:49
okay, I'm not trying to claim that.
1:33:51
I, I didn't, I didn't claim that.
1:33:51
Let's just- But let's say I, I hang out with them â¦ just
1:33:53
work with it, just work with it.
1:33:55
Okay.
1:33:55
So you're an expert in Portuguese horses.
1:33:58
So you think of Portuguese horses as this type, right?
1:34:04
Or we couldâ¦
1:34:05
I, I'm a psychologist.
1:34:06
I could, I could be an expert in humans.
1:34:09
Now, now immediately that should start to cause flags for you.
1:34:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:34:14
Jenifer Zeligs: Whoa.
1:34:15
You know, maybe I could be a- an expert in Californian humans.
1:34:20
That would at least be a subset, 'cause there's a cultural element,
1:34:24
you know, that might be kind of like breed or something like that.
1:34:27
But there, there's a problem, isn't there?
1:34:30
Because even any given individual Jennifer is not the same in the morning
1:34:34
and the evening, and depending on whether she's just been to a holiday-
1:34:39
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed, but I don't think any, I don't think anyone who's lookingâ¦
1:34:40
Just devil's advocate for that, sure.
1:34:42
But I don't think anyone who's fairly serious to say horse training, let's
1:34:46
say it was Portuguese horses, then you would say, "Well, look, there's
1:34:48
all these breeding lines that are quite different from each other."
1:34:52
And so within the Portuguese, yes, you've got all these different
1:34:55
personality types which show up in this breeding line, this breeding line, this
1:34:59
breeding line, and this breeding line.
1:35:00
If you cross them, you might get some of that, you might get some of that.
1:35:03
And within that, you still have, as you say, the absolute individual variables,
1:35:08
and you have the continuum variables about they could be different on
1:35:11
Tuesday to the way they are on Thursday.
1:35:14
Yet, at the same time, you can also observe some patterns.
1:35:17
It's both.
1:35:18
Jenifer Zeligs: It's both.
1:35:19
Yeah.
1:35:19
Yeah.
1:35:19
And I mean, empirically, what the science tends to show us is that
1:35:24
there's a lot more individual variation than there is even between species.
1:35:28
That may kind of shock you.
1:35:29
Fair,
1:35:30
Rupert Isaacson: fair enough.
1:35:30
Fair enough,
1:35:30
Jenifer Zeligs: yeah.
1:35:30
But it, it, that's me.
1:35:32
So I'm p- why am I pointing this out?
1:35:34
I'm pointing it out because- You can take the value of understanding
1:35:39
the different kinds of reinforcers.
1:35:41
So your question was something like, what does a big cat have
1:35:45
to offer to a horse world?
1:35:47
Well, when I think of big cats, I think of animals who are very
1:35:51
much more operated on smells.
1:35:54
Okay.
1:35:55
And you know, actually, that is quite important in the horse world.
1:35:57
We often underplay, because hu- why?
1:36:01
Because human beings have a shit sense of smell.
1:36:04
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:36:04
Jenifer Zeligs: That's about the one thing humans â¦ we know this about
1:36:06
dogs- Yeah â¦ but we don't tend to give it, you know, what's the
1:36:10
problem with a big wind coming up?
1:36:12
Mm.
1:36:12
It's more than just the sound and the things that are moving.
1:36:15
It's that.
1:36:16
Mm.
1:36:16
It's also that.
1:36:18
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:36:19
Jenifer Zeligs: But it's, it's what's being carried on the wind.
1:36:21
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:36:22
Jenifer Zeligs: And you're really bad at knowing that.
1:36:24
So I think realizing that, but also realizing that smells can be a reinforcer.
1:36:29
So we would use smells in the environment of cats to, like rabbit pee smells.
1:36:36
What, what, what can tri-
1:36:38
Rupert Isaacson: What about dogs?
1:36:38
Because dogs are also obviously scent.
1:36:39
Yeah.
1:36:39
What's the difference between cat, cat scent thing and dog scent thing?
1:36:47
Jenifer Zeligs: There is a lot more sort of fixed action pattern stuff.
1:36:50
Cats hunt alone, almost all species, everything except,
1:36:54
Rupert Isaacson: Except lions
1:36:54
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: lions.
1:36:55
They're all solitary.
1:36:57
So, and dogs are much more super social.
1:37:00
They collaborate towards their tasks which is why humans and dogs have
1:37:05
this kind of natural interplay that we've bred for and enhanced because
1:37:10
the, the collaboration is a, is
1:37:13
Rupert Isaacson: a- We're strategic social predators.
1:37:14
We get each other.
1:37:15
Yeah.
1:37:16
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:37:16
Yeah.
1:37:17
Rupert Isaacson: But-
1:37:17
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah
1:37:18
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: but the way in which the, the dog uses its scent to target
1:37:21
and hunt and interpret its world, how is that different to way, the
1:37:24
way the big cat does, or, or any cat?
1:37:28
Jenifer Zeligs: I- Do you think- You have reached the edge of
1:37:30
my knowledge on that subject.
1:37:31
I do not know.
1:37:32
Okay.
1:37:32
That is an ethological question that I do not know the answer
1:37:36
Rupert Isaacson: to.
1:37:37
You observe, though.
1:37:37
What, you know, speculate.
1:37:38
I mean, you're in a good position to speculate.
1:37:40
You work with all these animals.
1:37:46
Jenifer Zeligs: What it feels like when you're speaking to a dog versus
1:37:48
when you're speaking to a cat is that there's a lot of automated
1:37:51
routines with cats where the trigger happens and now it's triggered.
1:37:56
Whereas the dog has got a lot more cognitive overlay where there's a
1:38:00
lot more types of information that's coming in to mediate that reaction.
1:38:07
They seem to have a lot more of a plastic
1:38:12
moldable, variable attack sequence probably because of the social
1:38:17
interface, because there's, you know, you go left, I go right, we're
1:38:22
gonna kind of slowly work this out.
1:38:24
Whereas a cat tends to do a few things.
1:38:27
They, they identify with great n- you know, object permanence and, and they,
1:38:34
they will sit for, you know, completely stable for prolonged periods of time.
1:38:39
That's not really the, the hunting strategy of a dog as much.
1:38:43
There might be moments for that, you know, pointing.
1:38:46
Rupert Isaacson: They don't ambush much, it's true, yeah.
1:38:46
Jenifer Zeligs: But, yeah.
1:38:47
But usually it's a little bit more like surround and, you know, and
1:38:51
grab and, you know, there, there's a lot more that's going on there.
1:38:55
Whereas a cat is sort of a sit and wait predator.
1:38:57
And it, the whole system is just really, it feels really fixed.
1:39:03
Like, like the cat can't quite get themselves out of the scenario easily.
1:39:08
It's not like there's a cognitive overlay.
1:39:10
There's, there's, it's a much more sort of fixed action pattern kind of neurologic
1:39:16
wiring with, with less flexibility.
1:39:18
So getting in there and, and modulating that and interrupting that is a lot harder
1:39:25
when you're, when you're talking to cats.
1:39:27
So actually the game with cats is, is probably to not trigger the fixed
1:39:32
action pattern as much and use it only only where it's really useful
1:39:38
to you and it can run on its own.
1:39:40
Whereas with a dog you're, you're not as muchâ¦
1:39:43
So for example, if you're working with big cats, especially if you're
1:39:45
working with big cats in free contact, you're gliding the edge at any moment.
1:39:51
Any arousal at all needs to be attended to immediately.
1:39:56
How are you- Because you can go from You know, we're both having a great time,
1:40:00
you're purring and rubbing all over me, to you've taken me down by the jugular.
1:40:05
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:40:05
We even see that with house cats.
1:40:06
You, you're playing with them and then suddenly they nail you.
1:40:10
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:40:11
Rupert Isaacson: How, how do you deal with that arousal?
1:40:14
You see how g- you d- how am I g- if you're a lion, how
1:40:17
am I gonna deal with that?
1:40:18
Jenifer Zeligs: You, you watch very carefully for the indicating, the
1:40:23
pre- so there's precursor elements to these behaviors, the the,
1:40:28
the, the causes of the arousal.
1:40:30
And you wanna be alert to what the environment is doing and how, how
1:40:34
the animal's behavioral indicators are showing that setting up.
1:40:39
As soon as you see an arousal that you're not, you know, that isn't
1:40:42
something strategic for you, you need to redirect away from that arousal.
1:40:46
So you need a strong draw in another direction, or you need
1:40:50
to get into protected contact.
1:40:52
You need to, you know, you need to interrupt the cycle.
1:40:56
Most of the game is won and lost, and actually this is true
1:40:59
just behaviorally z- zoomed out.
1:41:02
Don't get into a crash and then try to fix it.
1:41:05
Don't get into the crash.
1:41:07
That's the, that's the job.
1:41:09
But
1:41:09
Rupert Isaacson: how do you stop a lion from becoming aroused?
1:41:11
I mean, once he's ar- i- so I could see-
1:41:14
Jenifer Zeligs: No, I'm- I could see him- I'm, I'm stopping
1:41:15
before we get to aroused.
1:41:17
I see the arousal coming.
1:41:18
I know what causes arousal.
1:41:20
I, I selectively in detox the arousal features that I don't want.
1:41:26
I don't want you to be afraid of that.
1:41:28
I don't want that to come a- as a, as a surprise to you.
1:41:32
So I'm going to do all those respectful things.
1:41:34
I'm gonna explain that this is about to happen.
1:41:36
I'm gonna teach it to you at a great distance.
1:41:38
I'm gonna break it into small pieces.
1:41:40
When I see it starting to get out of my out of my hands, I'm gonna have a
1:41:43
whole set of behaviors that I send you towards so that you don't get into that.
1:41:48
I mean, this can be taken from a, from a horse standpoint as well.
1:41:51
It's ex- Right.
1:41:51
No, you're giving- It's exactly the same
1:41:53
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: you're giving me lots of insights.
1:41:54
So for example I've worked a lot with stallions and, and young
1:41:57
stallions, and they can becomeâ¦
1:41:59
Y- you talked about the scent, right?
1:42:01
So scent of pheromones of mares coming in on the wind.
1:42:04
So you could, from a kilometer away, you've got no idea.
1:42:08
You're hanging out with your stallion, it's wonderful, and then he w- suddenly
1:42:12
wants to do not so wonderful things.
1:42:14
Paying attention to what, does he seem distracted by something over there-
1:42:19
Yeah â¦ that, that I can't see.
1:42:20
That has definitely been something I've learned.
1:42:23
And then might I try to redirect, or might I, at that stage, want to break
1:42:31
the session and say, "You know what?
1:42:34
I'll come back when you're receptive."
1:42:36
Yeah.
1:42:37
And then what to do if I find myself in the crash.
1:42:40
It's only happened a couple of times.
1:42:43
It- it's a weird one.
1:42:44
You have to stand your ground, and that's a really difficult
1:42:46
thing to learn with, with horses.
1:42:48
It might only happen to you twice in your life or something, where
1:42:51
there's a specific protocol for that, that I learned from old guys of- Mm
1:42:55
of how to not get injured.
1:42:57
Or if you have to break up a fight between stallions.
1:42:59
That's happened to me before, when they've actually taken it to the floor.
1:43:02
And, you know, even if they don't go for you with their teeth, there's hooves
1:43:05
flying and it's, it's, it's not easy.
1:43:07
But again, how often is that gonna happen?
1:43:09
But so often if you looked at that situation afterwards, you
1:43:12
say, "Yeah, I probably could have headed that one off, actually."
1:43:15
But-
1:43:15
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:43:16
If I would say one skill that is associated with the advanced
1:43:19
trainers I know, the most advanced skill is prevention.
1:43:23
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:43:24
Jenifer Zeligs: Prevention of disaster scenarios is much better than trying
1:43:29
to train out of it when you've got a rehearsal history or you're in a crash.
1:43:32
Like, I know that sounds boring, but that's- Mm â¦ that's really
1:43:36
what top professionals do.
1:43:38
They don't get into the crash.
1:43:40
Rupert Isaacson: And learning what those things are and, and, and how, what
1:43:43
is the redirect, how do you redirect?
1:43:45
In- You know, you're so, it's, I'm so glad you brought up scent because
1:43:50
it's a growing field within horses that the horse is a search and rescue
1:43:55
animal with scent targeting, and there's now certifications for this.
1:44:00
Mm.
1:44:00
It's now being used by mountain rescue and that sort of thing.
1:44:04
And therefore, how useful that would be in training, which we
1:44:07
don't consider because it's just not part of what was handed down to us.
1:44:11
Could we be using essential oils and scents and things that horses find
1:44:15
pleasurable, or things that horse want to go towards, and making the arena, Yes
1:44:20
a targetable place this way, and then turning those behaviors
1:44:23
into the training behaviors?
1:44:25
You know, th- well, they don't teach us that in pony club.
1:44:28
But people like you, I think, can draw our attention to this.
1:44:31
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:44:32
So you've, you've brought it together perfectly.
1:44:34
It's like here's where other animals are teaching us, or other systems that
1:44:39
you have to work with, open up and expand our kind of toolbox, and thinking
1:44:44
about, "Wait a minute, I could do that."
1:44:46
Like, you had this whole environmental enrichment thing with
1:44:48
your indoor and outdoor arenas.
1:44:51
Mm.
1:44:51
And if you added a scent to that s- Mm â¦ or several scents, different
1:44:56
interesting scents to that you could associate scents with certain things too.
1:45:01
B- particularly des- find the this scent, go find this.
1:45:06
You know, just like, "Go find the red ball."
1:45:08
You know, whatever it is.
1:45:09
Like, any, any of that kind of like, woo.
1:45:12
And that's gonna lead to the most delicious I don't know, peppermint,
1:45:16
d- treat or, you know, apple or what- you know, pick your poison,
1:45:19
pick your cocaine, whatever it is.
1:45:21
Mm.
1:45:24
Yeah.
1:45:25
And I think w- in terms of the prevention side, how do we know that
1:45:30
someone is starting into arousal?
1:45:31
We see a lot of scent, I mean, around scent.
1:45:33
You see, literally you see the nostrils going.
1:45:36
Yeah.
1:45:36
Right?
1:45:37
You, you notice- Yeah â¦ the nostrils are going.
1:45:39
You see deep inhales.
1:45:42
You see higher upper body.
1:45:45
You know, you see the alert posture.
1:45:47
Mm.
1:45:47
You, you know, and then the ear is g- is telling you, like, do I think it's
1:45:50
coming from, is it from over there?
1:45:52
Where is it?
1:45:52
Whoa, what's going on?
1:45:54
Mm.
1:45:54
And then it starts into all these other you know, running
1:45:56
around kind of behaviors.
1:45:58
And yeah, and I think being ready to make a, a smart decision in that
1:46:03
case, and taking the information in, which is part of your job as
1:46:07
as a part of the communication side of this, is that you also listen.
1:46:11
Communication is not just impart information to someone
1:46:14
else about what you want.
1:46:16
Think about what it is to be a good boss.
1:46:18
It's like you also have to listen to how the effect of that is
1:46:21
happening- Yeah â¦ to those who, you know, you're instructing.
1:46:26
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:46:26
And y- you know, one can immediately see how this would, could go into
1:46:29
things like trailer loading or- Yes
1:46:32
you know, notoriously difficult areas around horsemanship like that
1:46:36
where people often do get hurt.
1:46:37
And then I could see how, oh, yeah, in a zoo context, if I need to clean
1:46:40
that animal's teeth and I don't want to anesthetize it yes, I could see how
1:46:45
using these things could â¦ well, the, the animal does have to get its teeth
1:46:49
done but the an- it might have a weak heart, the anesthetic might kill it.
1:46:52
All right, what are we gonna do?
1:46:53
We're gonna call in Uncle Jennifer, and she's gonna take us through protocols.
1:46:58
Which leads me to a s- a couple of sort of towards the conclusion questions.
1:47:02
But don't worry listeners, because this has been so interesting,
1:47:05
for sure, if she agrees to, we're gonna get Jennifer back on.
1:47:09
It's, although it's been quite difficult to nail her down.
1:47:11
So, Oi â¦ you know, you have to h- you have to hunt her down.
1:47:13
We have to be adaptive in our hunting techniques- â¦ in,
1:47:16
Jenifer Zeligs: Aw
1:47:16
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: in how we get Jennifer.
1:47:17
But okay, so now you live in Oxford.
1:47:20
You're not living in Monterey Bay anymore.
1:47:22
Mm.
1:47:23
And you're not going to zoos every day as far as I know.
1:47:27
You had a horse for quite a long time.
1:47:29
As, as far as I know, you're not a horse owner at the moment.
1:47:31
And, you know, Oxford is surrounded by nice nature.
1:47:33
But nonetheless, you're leading a different sort of a life now.
1:47:38
Do you not miss it, or do you actually, are you going out on safari
1:47:43
into the woods of Oxfordshire and- Working with fallow deer in, in,
1:47:47
in, in the forests of Woodstock.
1:47:50
Or, you know, describe your life now because th- it's been so animal focused.
1:47:57
And I know you're an author and you're an academic as well.
1:48:00
But I'm a bit intrigued because, you know, horse people tend
1:48:03
to be horse people, right?
1:48:03
They'll always have ponies.
1:48:05
Or even if they're not owning a pony, they'll be going to a place where
1:48:08
there's a pony or, that would be me.
1:48:11
It, t- talk us through your life now and, and, and, and why do you live the
1:48:15
way you do now and what, what, what are you, is that permanent or is this a, is
1:48:21
it a little hiatus or, or what or what?
1:48:24
Jenifer Zeligs: What's the name of the podcast again?
1:48:25
Live Free, Ride Free?
1:48:26
Yes.
1:48:27
Is that-
1:48:27
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:48:27
Mm-hmm
1:48:27
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
1:48:28
There we go.
1:48:29
The, I don't know what you mean by that, but what so I guess the
1:48:34
other piece of Jennifer is that she's a practicing Buddhist.
1:48:38
And a lot about Buddhism has to do- I love to hear that â¦ yeah, a lot about
1:48:42
it is, Understanding the full lived experience of life in a way that makes
1:48:50
you able to be contented with less.
1:48:55
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
1:48:56
Jenifer Zeligs: With things as they occur.
1:48:59
And I didn't choose to lose my animal sanctuary.
1:49:02
I â¦ It â¦ That happened as a result of COVID.
1:49:04
It happened effectively against my will.
1:49:08
But the freedom that I'm now experiencing â¦ So I started working
1:49:13
with animals at nine years old.
1:49:15
I worked at a, as a vet tech.
1:49:17
I was at professional conferences at age 14 years old.
1:49:21
Wow.
1:49:21
I went to my first professional conference.
1:49:23
At age 16, I gave my first presentation at a professional
1:49:27
marine animal trainers meeting.
1:49:29
I had a giant organization that I ran for 30 years or something like that.
1:49:35
So I had, I've had a long career that started really early.
1:49:42
And the,
1:49:44
Rupert Isaacson: And you've been responsible for a lot of animals.
1:49:46
As you say, you had an animal rescue.
1:49:48
You had y- like, there'd be animals with â¦ If Jennifer took her eye off
1:49:52
the ball, not good for the animals.
1:49:55
So yeah, you, you've experienced that kind of heavy weight for decades, also
1:49:59
being responsible for â¦ Even so-
1:50:01
Jenifer Zeligs: I know.
1:50:02
I'm getting there â¦ Oxford.
1:50:02
I'm getting there.
1:50:03
Yeah, Oxford.
1:50:03
I â¦ So what was offered to me was an unexpected break.
1:50:09
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:50:10
Jenifer Zeligs: And what we say in Buddhism is you just take everything
1:50:12
to the path and let it wake you up.
1:50:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:50:15
Jenifer Zeligs: Mm.
1:50:15
So rather than immediately go and fill it, the truth is, is because I
1:50:22
work with so many different species and because I am not a speciesist, I
1:50:27
I delight in human beings, and I'll tell you, in Oxford, there are some of
1:50:31
the most absolutely â¦ Like yourself.
1:50:33
I mean, look at you.
1:50:34
You're, you're this curious encyclopedia of history and technique and animals,
1:50:40
and the number of things that you know about, and the conversations
1:50:44
with you are so rich and deep.
1:50:46
You fit perfectly in my environment.
1:50:48
And I run into all kinds of stimulating beings here.
1:50:53
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
1:50:54
But in Monterey you would do the same.
1:50:55
In San Francisco you
1:50:56
Jenifer Zeligs: would do the same.
1:50:56
No.
1:50:57
Rupert Isaacson: No?
1:50:57
Jenifer Zeligs: No.
1:50:58
Not at this level.
1:50:59
Okay.
1:50:59
I mean- A little bit â¦ sure, yes, occasionally, but at this level-
1:51:02
Rupert Isaacson: Marine
1:51:02
Jenifer Zeligs: bio- I mean, the conversations I have-
1:51:05
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:51:06
Jenifer Zeligs: blow my mind.
1:51:07
They stretch me.
1:51:08
So I love this place.
1:51:10
I, I love the richness of the people, and, and I'm also in a
1:51:15
sort of, I'm in a retreat phase.
1:51:17
Mm.
1:51:17
I'm getting to know who I am without all the, the kind of identity trappings
1:51:23
that, that I had spent my whole life in.
1:51:27
Mm.
1:51:27
It's, it's probably the only moment this is gonna happen, so I'm just
1:51:31
I'm not seeking to immediately fill it.
1:51:34
I'm actually exploring what it's like to be in this
1:51:40
I'm not myself.
1:51:41
I'm not all the things that I was before.
1:51:45
What does that look like?
1:51:46
How is it to, to abide in that situation?
1:51:50
Well, for- It's not that I don't delight in animals.
1:51:51
I st- I- you can see animals everywhere.
1:51:53
I'm going to Africa next year, too, so I am living a dream
1:51:57
that I had never lived before.
1:51:59
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting to me y- what you said is very telling,
1:52:02
is that you say you're not speciesist.
1:52:04
So one hears this so often from animal people, and this is, this is a statement
1:52:10
that always makes me super, like I just wanna run the other direction.
1:52:15
It's when someone says-
1:52:18
Jenifer Zeligs: I know what you're gonna say
1:52:18
â¦ " Rupert Isaacson: I love dogs"-
1:52:19
" Jenifer Zeligs: But I hate people"
1:52:20
â¦ " Rupert Isaacson: slaughter horses, but I hate people."
1:52:22
I'm like-
1:52:22
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah
1:52:24
â¦ " Rupert Isaacson: I'm a human.
1:52:25
Okay, bye."
1:52:26
You know, it just means y- y- you're gonna take a swing at me sometime.
1:52:31
And, Wow â¦ and, and, and the diffic- That's basically what it means.
1:52:35
And the i- it negates the fact that, A, humans are animals.
1:52:42
It negates the fact that we conne- we're social animals who actually desperately
1:52:46
need connection with each other.
1:52:48
And, Yeah â¦ that's ecologically just so wired into us that- Yeah â¦ it's true
1:52:53
that some people are a bit more loners and some people would be a little more at
1:52:56
the periphery of the tribe than others, but everyone is still part of the tribe.
1:52:59
And it's not a road to happiness.
1:53:03
You know, it's, it's a bitter thing to say, really.
1:53:06
And it, It's aversion â¦ it makes me think, well, if that's really
1:53:09
true, that is for sure gonna carry on to one's relationship with animals.
1:53:14
It's a bit like when you re- meet really harsh riding instructors and they say,
1:53:18
"Well, I love, I love the horses."
1:53:20
And they say, "No, you don't, because if you really loved the
1:53:23
horses, you wouldn't stress the monkey that's sitting on the horse."
1:53:25
'Cause the horse for sure is getting stressed because the monkey is stressed.
1:53:29
If you really cared about the horse, you'd, you'd modify what you do just
1:53:33
'cause you didn't wanna stress the horse.
1:53:35
So I, I get that you're in this stage taking the opportunity to
1:53:44
explore the human environment.
1:53:45
And I think that's- Well, and
1:53:47
Jenifer Zeligs: myself
1:53:47
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: commendable.
1:53:48
Right.
1:53:49
There, there's â¦ I know what I often crave and need is so I, I go and
1:53:54
spend large amounts of time in nature.
1:53:57
And it doesn't matter whether it's this nature or that nature.
1:54:00
So I know Oxfordshire, where you live, quite well, because my best mate,
1:54:04
John Mitchinson lives in a village called Great Tew which is if you
1:54:09
like whimsical, there's been no new building in that village since 1620.
1:54:13
It looks like Hobbiton, and it's surrounded by a giant estate- A
1:54:18
feudal estate, effectively, but you can walk all over it, that's
1:54:21
just stuffed with wildlife.
1:54:22
So, it's just a really rich ecological environment.
1:54:25
So I love when I'm in Oxfordshire just going and walking and sitting around
1:54:29
in the various environments on the Great Tew Estate 'cause I'm gonna run
1:54:32
into six species of deer, I'm gonna run into all these interesting trees, I'm
1:54:35
gonna run into all these interesting birds, I'm gonna run into all these
1:54:38
interesting insects and, and then there's all this mythology that is my ancestral
1:54:43
mythology that runs through, you know, e- there as well, and blah, blah, blah.
1:54:47
So I find it veryâ¦
1:54:47
You know.
1:54:48
So I, wherever I am, I'm gonna seek that out, you know.
1:54:53
Are you-
1:54:55
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah
1:54:56
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:54:57
D- d- describe your relationship with, with the British countryside now because
1:55:01
y- y- you had you know, you've described being out in the ocean, you know-
1:55:07
Yeah â¦ off California, you've described, you know, certain other environments
1:55:13
Jenifer Zeligs: I live on the Thames, and the Thames is a very long path that
1:55:17
you can walk to just about anywhere.
1:55:20
And on either side of the Thames there are all these small green spaces.
1:55:25
In O- in Oxford, because the universities and all the colleges each have their
1:55:30
own Central Park kind of thing.
1:55:34
Yeah.
1:55:34
They each have their own, Set of
1:55:36
Rupert Isaacson: green meadows
1:55:37
Jenifer Zeligs: fronting the river.
1:55:38
Yeah.
1:55:38
There's a deer park at Magdalen College.
1:55:41
You know, Christchurch Meadows has a big cow pasture in the center of it.
1:55:45
There, there's a lot of, I would say relative to any city of this
1:55:50
size that I've ever been in- It's a great community â¦ I've never seen
1:55:52
more green spaces where you- Mm.
1:55:55
I can be in the center of Oxford, which is this incredible place of intellectual
1:56:00
and cultural advancement, and incredible buildings, and I can be in the, in the
1:56:06
middle and be completely alone in nature.
1:56:11
Mm.
1:56:11
Over and over.
1:56:12
It's not like one place.
1:56:14
Mm.
1:56:14
There's probably 30 parks I can think of where you can go and, you know, find a,
1:56:21
a place to be and nobody else is there.
1:56:24
It's sort of shocking to me that, that this combination of features I've
1:56:29
never seen in any place where you've got the cultural, this incredible
1:56:33
cultural experience, and there's all these free museums and, and delightful
1:56:38
philosophy and music, and all this kind of, you know, human-based stuff.
1:56:41
Human endeavor stuff, yeah.
1:56:43
And then all around it and everywhere as far as you can walk-
1:56:48
Yeah â¦ there is green spaces.
1:56:49
I never get bored.
1:56:51
I'm constantly finding new parks within two miles of where I live.
1:56:55
I mean, it's shocking.
1:56:57
It's like shocking.
1:56:58
Yeah.
1:56:58
Maybe, maybe three miles, but you know, I mean, a walkable distance
1:57:02
I'm discovering new green spaces
1:57:05
Rupert Isaacson: constantly.
1:57:05
And each
1:57:05
Jenifer Zeligs: one is exquisite.
1:57:06
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:57:07
Yeah.
1:57:07
As you say, some of them have deer, some of them have â¦ Yeah.
1:57:10
It's, it's- Often when I'm going around and doing trainings, people say, "Oh,
1:57:18
Rupert, you have this African background, and you lived in Texas, and da, da, da."
1:57:21
And you know, I'm doing 6:00 AM, doing a training in the Netherlands.
1:57:24
I'll be there next week.
1:57:25
They say, "Oh, we don't have nature."
1:57:26
I'm like, "What?"
1:57:28
You know, it's, it's all around you.
1:57:31
Yeah.
1:57:31
It's all around you all the time.
1:57:32
And I have a great friend Craig Foster.
1:57:34
I don't know if you ever saw that film My Octopus Teacher.
1:57:39
Jenifer Zeligs: Oh, yeah.
1:57:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah â¦ yeah, he's an old mate, right?
1:57:41
And w- we worked together in, in, on, ca- the Kalahari with indigenous rights there.
1:57:49
He made an amazing film about three Bushmen hunters, and those
1:57:53
were the same people I was working with, and he's a wonderful dude.
1:57:56
He finds it very hard to be in cities, and but when he's in
1:57:59
cities, he has this strategy.
1:58:01
He goes and hunts nature in, and tracks, 'cause that's what the human does.
1:58:06
We're tracking animals.
1:58:07
And as the Bushmen would say, "When you track, you're dancing with God."
1:58:10
That's what they say.
1:58:12
Jenifer Zeligs: Ooh, beautiful
1:58:12
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: because it, we, we, we read the signs, read the signs.
1:58:15
Jenifer Zeligs: Mm-hmm.
1:58:15
Rupert Isaacson: And,
1:58:16
Jenifer Zeligs: Mm
1:58:16
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: he will go and look for slimy slug trails on paving stones, and
1:58:24
then see, track them to algae- â¦ on paving stones, and then track the
1:58:31
little tooth marks that you can see where the slugs and the snails were
1:58:34
eating the algae, and he sort of points out how you can actually see this.
1:58:38
And then he said, "And then you'll notice that there's this predator bird
1:58:41
that comes in and takes the snail and the slug if you hang out and you watch.
1:58:44
And then you'll notice that there's actually fox tracks and feral house
1:58:48
cat tracks and stuff like that which are preying on these birds.
1:58:51
And then, and then you notice that there's actually these berries growing
1:58:53
out of the wall, which is also what's attracting the birds, and da, da, da, da."
1:58:56
And, and suddenly within this very small area of an urban environment,
1:59:00
you've got, you know, what the human mind needs which is nature.
1:59:07
So I love how you describe that, and w- the reason I wanted to ask you
1:59:10
that was I think many people feel-
1:59:16
p- p- p- starved of nature or, or perhaps their eyes untrained
1:59:20
or they don't know how to look.
1:59:21
And I think sometimes talking to somebody like you or somebody
1:59:24
like Craig can help people to open their eyes and find more joy.
1:59:29
Let's say it's horse people again.
1:59:31
You know, you get to your yard where you keep your horse, or your barn
1:59:35
if it's in America, and you're like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, out of my car.
1:59:39
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, to the tack room.
1:59:40
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, to the store.
1:59:41
No, no, no, no, no."
1:59:42
Yeah, but what little herbs are growing in the cracks of where you parked your car,
1:59:48
and what birds are circling overhead, and what, what's the weather system doing?
1:59:55
You might actually want to know 'cause it might depe- you know, make the
1:59:58
difference whether you trail ride or not.
2:00:00
What's going on with the trees?
2:00:02
Is there some cheeky little oak that's coming up where it shouldn't?
2:00:05
And, you know, this sort of thing, we can be damn sure the horses are noticing.
2:00:09
Yeah.
2:00:10
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
2:00:11
Look with appreciation.
2:00:12
Look with delight.
2:00:13
Look with interest.
2:00:14
Mm-hmm.
2:00:14
Look with curiosity.
2:00:16
That, that is also a mood setter, you know?
2:00:19
Mm-hmm.
2:00:19
The problem of having this, like, "Ah, mm, nah, nah, nah"-
2:00:22
Yeah â¦ is you're missing life.
2:00:23
This is all there is.
2:00:25
This is all there is.
2:00:26
So, you might as well take it in and make it as beautiful as possible,
2:00:29
and the way you make it beautiful is you notice the beauty all around you.
2:00:34
And it is really possible to do that.
2:00:37
People have a sense that, "Oh, I'm that kind," or, "They're that kind of person.
2:00:41
I can only be happy in this situation."
2:00:43
Mm.
2:00:43
As a person who shifts animals' thoughts and motives and moods for a living in
2:00:50
order to get things accomplished, I am in enormous position to encourage you to
2:00:56
believe that that story you're telling yourself, it's true, but it's true
2:01:01
because you're telling yourself the story.
2:01:03
Yeah.
2:01:03
It's not true because it's some fact of the universe.
2:01:09
Everything is moving through time.
2:01:11
We're all subject to causes and conditions, and everything is
2:01:15
impermanent, and everything is shiftable.
2:01:18
And that's for good and for ill, right?
2:01:21
What do I say to to, to lift me out of despair when I'm in despair?
2:01:26
"This too shall pass."
2:01:28
What do I say to take me down from hyper-euphoria when I'm,
2:01:32
you know, imagining things are, are greater than they are?
2:01:36
"This too shall pass."
2:01:38
So things are shiftable.
2:01:40
The impermanence element of life is a, a kind of important thing to embrace at
2:01:46
a central level to realize that you can shift how you interact with the universe.
2:01:51
And-
2:01:52
Rupert Isaacson: Including your animal, including your horse, right.
2:01:55
Jenifer Zeligs: Exactly, including your horse.
2:01:56
Rupert Isaacson: You can see, you can see greater possibility.
2:01:57
Noticing more too, like noticing, when is a horse really making a try?
2:02:02
One might-
2:02:03
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah
2:02:04
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: be more prone to notice that if one's
2:02:07
noticing a lot of other things.
2:02:09
Jenifer Zeligs: Yes, that's a good point.
2:02:11
Rupert Isaacson: You, the last thing I want to ask you so you
2:02:14
mentioned Buddhism a couple of times.
2:02:16
I know you're a Buddhist.
2:02:17
Buddhism can mean many things in terms of there are many branches of Buddhism.
2:02:20
It's a bit like saying, "I'm Christian."
2:02:22
You know, say, "Well, which Christian are you?"
2:02:23
There's Christianities, you know.
2:02:25
Mm-hmm.
2:02:25
Are you, are you, a, an ancient Greek Gnostic, or are you a, you know,
2:02:29
a, a Russian Orthodox, or are, what are, you know, are you a kind of
2:02:32
Jenifer Zeligs: back to- Especially true for Rupert, right, folks.
2:02:35
That's, that's a Rupert answer right there.
2:02:38
Rupert Isaacson: But having, having been exposed to a fair amount of Buddhism
2:02:42
myself and I definitely think that outside of the hunting and gathering
2:02:47
spiritual out, spiritual outlook, well, it basically is there's not much difference.
2:02:51
It's, it's a way of life, it's a way of thinking, but there are many different
2:02:53
strains to it, so it can present itself in a rather different look.
2:02:57
So Tibetan Buddhism can look like the sort of high Roman Catholic version with,
2:03:01
you know, lots of gold and lots of bells and smells and- Mm-hmm â¦ and ritual.
2:03:06
And you know, other things can be just more about the, the,
2:03:12
the, the personal relationship with divine- Like Zen Buddhism
2:03:13
and so on and so on, and all points in between.
2:03:16
How did you come to Buddhism?
2:03:17
What do you think Buddhism gives to you in your practice with animals,
2:03:21
and what can those people who are not Buddhists take from it?
2:03:25
'Cause one of the things I like about Buddhists is they don't evangelize.
2:03:27
They don't try and make other people into Buddhists.
2:03:29
But nonetheless, there are some, there are some real benefits, I
2:03:31
think, to that, to that outlook.
2:03:33
So how, yeah, how did you come to it?
2:03:36
How did, how has it helped you with animals, and what can
2:03:39
the rest of us learn from it?
2:03:43
Jenifer Zeligs: I think, I, well, to answer the direct question how
2:03:46
I came t- to it is pretty easy.
2:03:49
I'm a psychologist, and meditation and mindfulness about maybe 30 years
2:03:56
ago or something like that, it, it, it â¦ Mindfulness is the new black.
2:04:00
That's like one of my friends who's a psychiatrist.
2:04:02
It, it â¦ Mindfulness has so much value to mental health.
2:04:07
Mindfulness and meditation have as much value to mental health
2:04:11
in human beings empirically- Mm
2:04:14
as exercise does to physical health- Right â¦ in human beings.
2:04:18
Yeah,
2:04:18
Rupert Isaacson: and it's well-studied.
2:04:19
Jenifer Zeligs: And- It's well-studied.
2:04:21
Yeah.
2:04:21
And so I got interested- It's the theory and stuff, yeah â¦ 'cause
2:04:24
I wanted to be happier.
2:04:26
I wanted to understand my mental states.
2:04:28
I wanted to understand this through mindful psychology.
2:04:31
Rupert Isaacson: Were you coming not just out of the curiosity as a psychologist?
2:04:34
Were you also dealing with a kind of despair and unhappiness?
2:04:42
Jenifer Zeligs: It is, it is the classic story that, that as a way of dealing with
2:04:47
suffering and the unsatisfactoriness of life that, that people seek out Buddhism.
2:04:51
That is, like, the classic story.
2:04:53
So I, I think it must be, but I don't think that's the
2:04:56
story I was telling myself.
2:04:58
I, I, you know, I don't remember â¦ Well, I wasn't depressed.
2:05:01
But I, you know, I think I, I always thought th- there was more.
2:05:06
I could do better.
2:05:07
I wanted to understand, and I must-- I, I wanna understand
2:05:11
both myself and others, you know?
2:05:13
So it was, it was a p- a twofer.
2:05:15
And so I, I came at it from that direction, and I tried it out in
2:05:20
the laboratory of my own experience.
2:05:22
That is, I practiced.
2:05:24
And I- And what did you notice?
2:05:24
â¦ I waited to see what happened, and what I noticed was, oh my God, this
2:05:29
was a revelation about understanding myself, understanding others, making
2:05:35
different choices, small choices.
2:05:37
Just understanding where my narrative was setting s- me up for certain kinds
2:05:42
of problems, or I wasn't pausing enough to see what was really happening.
2:05:46
I wasn't-- I didn't have a clean picture.
2:05:49
There's a lot of self-compassion exercises that come up.
2:05:52
So there's a lot of different kinds of meditation, but self-compassion
2:05:56
is a really important skill set that came to the fore.
2:06:01
And then that's how I became kind of Buddhist curious.
2:06:05
And then I married them together in, in a book.
2:06:09
I you know, the, the original saying was that was taught to me was the
2:06:13
Buddhist was the first psychologist.
2:06:15
He taught the origins of suffering and its alleviation And that is basic psychology.
2:06:21
Like, how do we create welfare?
2:06:23
How do we change behavior?
2:06:26
And I started to map what he said and what he was suggesting about how to change your
2:06:33
mood, how to how to engage with less fear.
2:06:36
Fearlessness, which is so central, you know, how to, how do we provide a
2:06:41
fearlessness experience for horses, for example, is one of the most common issues.
2:06:46
Because you may ne- not even be thinking of it that way, but the, the, the fact
2:06:50
that the horse can be afraid can cause all kinds of other catastrophes, right?
2:06:54
So you, you, you may not have articulated it this way, but you
2:06:58
want fearlessness or you want to create at least a, enough comfort.
2:07:02
Maybe fearlessness is the wrong word, but enough comfort with stimulus in
2:07:06
the environment that the animal can or that your horse can, Not escalate
2:07:10
Rupert Isaacson: into crazy shit.
2:07:11
Yes.
2:07:12
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah â¦ yeah, can, can, and wants to go in different
2:07:14
places and, and everything else.
2:07:15
And so that was one of his one of the Buddha's main, main teachings, had to do
2:07:21
with how to cultivate yeah, robustness and an understanding and a fearlessness.
2:07:27
And, and that was taught through a, a armor of love,
2:07:31
an undefended, curious nature.
2:07:34
Changing, changing your internal monologue about things instead of
2:07:39
trying to change the whole environment.
2:07:41
But understanding how the environment was causing this.
2:07:44
So it just, it opened up a lot for me and I, I I brought it into a veryâ¦
2:07:49
Th- this book, Mindful Partners, which is why I was on Warwick Schiller's
2:07:53
podcast, and that's why you and I met-
2:07:56
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
2:07:56
Jenifer Zeligs: Was my way of trying to reflect for a a, just a, a person who was
2:08:00
curious about deeper learning or, orâ¦
2:08:04
And it's not just Buddhism.
2:08:05
This, I've got Judaism and Christianity and, and it, it's
2:08:08
not, it's not about religion.
2:08:10
The, it's more about wisdom, and how wisdom and compassion and sort of,
2:08:15
deep openness or spirituality can can sort of break free some some different
2:08:22
ways of thinking about behavior.
2:08:24
So for example, teaching animals to be mindful is one
2:08:28
of the things that I suggest.
2:08:30
Mm.
2:08:30
Because having an animal who is distracted and, you know, a horse
2:08:34
that's looking around, looking around, you know, it can't stand still,
2:08:37
you know, that kind of s- it's very hard to connect to that individual.
2:08:41
Mm.
2:08:41
So how do we, how do we engage them?
2:08:45
And it turns out you can actually teach them to be mindful.
2:08:49
You can teach them- How do you do that?
2:08:50
â¦ calm defaults.
2:08:51
How do you teach animals to be mindful?
2:08:52
You can teach them to in small steps, have, well, first you have to take away
2:08:57
some of the value of, of stimulating influences and be alert to the stimulating
2:09:01
influences that we've talked about.
2:09:03
So that's one side of it.
2:09:05
But the other side is actually to teach the behavior of calmness,
2:09:10
a behavior of calm default.
2:09:12
So with my horse, I mostly used a head-down posture for this.
2:09:17
I taught, "If you don't know what to do, put your head down, and I'm gonna attend.
2:09:24
I'm gonna attend you in that in that posture."
2:09:28
And what does that do right away?
2:09:29
It makes me more safe, 'cause the horse is not able to buck and paw and do all
2:09:34
kinds of crazy stuff as much let's say.
2:09:39
As, as much.
2:09:39
It quiets their nervous system down, as I n- Down, yeah.
2:09:43
Yeah.
2:09:43
Yeah.
2:09:43
Yeah.
2:09:44
Yeah.
2:09:44
It puts them in a different physiological state.
2:09:47
It starts substituting it gives them something to do.
2:09:51
And that feedback loop, by the way, neurologically works for them, too.
2:09:55
Like, they notice it's a more positive state.
2:09:57
My horse became addicted to that posture.
2:10:00
And when I met him, David got this horse for me because the woman who
2:10:04
had the horse couldn't handle his aggressive behavior towards her.
2:10:08
It was just out of control.
2:10:10
David Litchman got you this horse?
2:10:12
He connected me with the horse.
2:10:13
Yeah.
2:10:14
And proposed that I should get the horse.
2:10:16
And he, he auditioned the horse for me first.
2:10:18
And he said "You know, Jennifer, I have never seen a horse back up this
2:10:23
fast to buck someone in my life.
2:10:25
This horse has, it, it is, is faster to back up and buck than
2:10:32
any horse I've ever worked with.
2:10:33
I think you should take it on."
2:10:35
Rupert Isaacson: And you said, "Absolutely, that's
2:10:36
the horse for me," yeah.
2:10:39
Jenifer Zeligs: Really?
2:10:39
That's the one?
2:10:40
That's the one you picked?
2:10:41
Yeah.
2:10:42
And I did exactly what your instructor, by the way, d- suggested to you.
2:10:46
I started in protected contact.
2:10:48
I'm like, "Okay, well, we better start with some, some foundational
2:10:52
scenarios in which we both feel safe," and I created the language.
2:10:56
Mm.
2:10:56
Like, when, what to do describing behavior that I requested instead of implemented.
2:11:03
And, and this is good, and this is when good things are gonna happen.
2:11:07
And I waited until I sawâ¦
2:11:09
I mean, of course we also did go inside with this horse, but I, I you know-
2:11:13
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
2:11:13
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: I did a lot of the preliminary training through
2:11:16
a completely different paradigm.
2:11:17
And that paradigm shift worked for both of us.
2:11:20
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:11:21
Jenifer Zeligs: And so David, when he first came back after
2:11:23
a few months or something like that, he said, "This is the horse?
2:11:27
I don't even recognize this horse.
2:11:28
This horse doesn't seem the same."
2:11:29
And what had happened was a complete mood shift, so that no longer was that
2:11:34
go-to behavior the predominant one.
2:11:36
So it wasn't that I actually had to substitute for that behavior, I just kind
2:11:40
of created an entirely different Paradigm of interaction that freed the horse to
2:11:46
become more relaxed and less aroused
2:11:51
Rupert Isaacson: I think you just answered the question of what can we learn as
2:11:53
horse people from the Buddhist approach, because I think what you just described
2:11:57
there was an idea of saying, "Well, here is a question I don't have an answer to,
2:12:06
therefore I need to become comfortable with that and comfortable with the
2:12:12
question and curious about the question," unattached necessarily to outcome to the
2:12:20
degree of, "Well, when David comes back, I want to prove to him that I can, you
2:12:25
know, ride this horse in all these ways."
2:12:27
Just much more, "Well, how can I use what I already know about making animals
2:12:34
feel safe to make this horse, who doesn't seem to feel very safe, feel safer?
2:12:39
And then if I can establish that, can I, can I do other things?
2:12:44
And that might even mean I'm not putting my hands on the horse and I'm working on
2:12:48
the other side of a fence for a while."
2:12:49
For a lot of people brought up in standard horsemanship, you know,
2:12:53
something like that wouldn't necessarily be seen as an option because it
2:12:56
h- would never have been suggested to them in the past as an option.
2:12:59
Yet it's so interesting that almost every really good horse trainer I know, rather
2:13:03
like the story you told with Warwick, has encountered a horse or two where
2:13:09
all of the other options were stripped away and it only left you with, "Well,
2:13:17
everything I've done is not working, so whatever is the thing that is going
2:13:22
to work, I don't know what it is, but the only way I can find that out is
2:13:27
to build some relationship and see."
2:13:29
Jenifer Zeligs: Curiosity, interest
2:13:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, curiosity.
2:13:32
And I think Buddhism- Change the paradigm â¦ i- it's an inhe- it's
2:13:35
an in- in- it's an inherently curious way of engaging with the world.
2:13:41
It says, "I don't have the answers, but I'm sort of interested in what
2:13:46
they might be, but I'm also sort of interested in the problems.
2:13:49
I'm interested in it all," as you said.
2:13:51
And I think riding or being around horses actually does, in a default way, bring
2:13:56
people into the present moment in a way where you don't actually have to be.
2:13:59
Mm.
2:13:59
I think it's actually true with most animals.
2:14:00
Mm-hmm.
2:14:01
But particularly with horses- Mm-hmm â¦ because of all the
2:14:04
variables that go into horses.
2:14:05
But everyone who is around horses always reports this- Yeah
2:14:09
absence of time effect.
2:14:11
You know?
2:14:12
Yeah.
2:14:12
You lose track of time when you're with horses.
2:14:14
It's one of the, the most healing things for us because
2:14:17
we're in that present moment.
2:14:18
It's interesting, while you were talking too, I was wanting to point out also
2:14:22
to listeners that the Buddha, Prince Siddhartha, was in fact a horseman.
2:14:27
And the those, late Bronze Age, early Iron Age cultures along the foothills
2:14:36
of the Himalayas were then, and still are, very active horse cultures.
2:14:42
If you've ever heard of the Rajputs or if you've ever heard of the Marwari
2:14:46
horse, which is those ones with those ears that go like that, or I've spent
2:14:49
quite a lot of time in the, some bits of India, and there's very, very, very
2:14:54
long established horse cultures that go back at least 4,000 years there.
2:14:57
Anyway, Siddhartha of course rode out into the forest on his horse
2:15:01
apparently, who, I was just looking it up, so what was his name again?
2:15:05
And it's Kantaka.
2:15:06
Kanta- Kantaka.
2:15:07
K-A-N-T-A-K-A.
2:15:10
Played a crucial role, according to ChatGPT, when Prince Siddhartha left
2:15:15
his palace in the middle of the night- Yeah â¦ to begin his spiritual journey.
2:15:18
He w- didn't take Shanks his pony, he took his horse, 'cause
2:15:21
he was a prince, and princes ride.
2:15:23
Until they don't.
2:15:24
The journey, ridden by the prince and accompanied by the charioteer Channa,
2:15:28
Kantaka leapt across the river Anoma, so he's a jumping horse too- â¦ to
2:15:34
help Siddhartha escape his royal life.
2:15:37
Fateful ending.
2:15:39
According to Buddhist legend, don't know which Buddhist legend, but according to
2:15:43
Buddhi- according to Buddhist legend, after Siddhartha dismounted, cut his
2:15:48
hair, and sent the horse back, Kantaka died of a broken heart from grief.
2:15:55
Mm.
2:15:56
Rebirth.
2:16:00
Buddhist texts state that the loyal horse was subsequently
2:16:03
reborn- â¦ in the Tushita Heaven, whatever the Tushita Heaven is.
2:16:08
What's the Tushita Heaven?
2:16:10
Okay, we've gotta find that out.
2:16:11
It's
2:16:12
Jenifer Zeligs: gonna be a pure land.
2:16:13
Rupert Isaacson: Say what?
2:16:14
Jenifer Zeligs: They have this idea of pure lands higher,
2:16:17
higher states, pure lands.
2:16:20
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
2:16:20
I'm just gonna- Good,
2:16:21
Jenifer Zeligs: good birth.
2:16:22
That's a good birth.
2:16:23
We want that
2:16:25
Rupert Isaacson: Tushita Heaven.
2:16:26
So anyway, it just makes it, if, if you're a horse person and you're
2:16:30
a bit skeptical of this Buddhism malarkey, well, the Buddhist, the
2:16:33
Buddha himself was a horseman, so that makes it a bit safer for you.
2:16:37
The r- the Tushita Heaven, the realm of joy- The name Tushita translates
2:16:44
from Sanskrit to satisfied or joyful.
2:16:48
Home of future Buddhas apparently.
2:16:51
The next Buddha of our world, Maitreya, currently lives in Tushita.
2:16:56
Maybe he's hanging out with Kantaka.
2:16:59
Jenifer Zeligs: Hmm.
2:17:00
Rupert Isaacson: And apparently Siddhartha was, came from there too.
2:17:04
Interesting.
2:17:06
But expanding- You're fascinating â¦ the expanding of comfort zones, curiosity this
2:17:12
has been â¦ You talked about enrichment.
2:17:14
This has been a very enriching conversation.
2:17:16
I remember when I first met you, which was two years ago in Birmingham for
2:17:20
the journey on Warwick Schiller's conference, I â¦ and I had an initial
2:17:24
conversation with you and I was like, "That was a rich conversation.
2:17:29
That's p- p- Knows a lot about a lot."
2:17:31
No
2:17:31
Jenifer Zeligs: I felt exactly the same.
2:17:34
I felt exactly the â¦ Sorry, keep going.
2:17:36
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yeah.
2:17:37
So listen, with your â¦ I think we, we've reached, we've probably
2:17:40
exceeded the two-hour mark here.
2:17:41
Couple of things.
2:17:42
I need you to do your plugs, like, you know, your books, how people can engage
2:17:46
your services if they want consultations with you, where they can find out
2:17:49
information, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
2:17:51
If you offer retreats, what do you do?
2:17:52
And then I also want to make a request please, which is that we carry this
2:17:57
conversation on where we can actually look at more specific things within the
2:18:02
conversation that we touched on, 'cause a lot of this was also your journey.
2:18:06
And to go a bit more up our own bottoms and down rabbit holes and things,
2:18:11
which is more or less the same thing.
2:18:13
By the way, down the rabbit hole, you know where that comes from, don't you?
2:18:16
It's an Oxford thing.
2:18:18
Jenifer Zeligs: Oh, well, I assume it's Alice in Wonderland, which is-
2:18:20
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, but do you know- â¦ written here â¦ specifically where?
2:18:22
Jenifer Zeligs: Yes.
2:18:23
It was written here.
2:18:25
It's-
2:18:25
Rupert Isaacson: Lewis Carroll used to row with Alice â¦ Was it Lutyens was, was
2:18:30
Jenifer Zeligs: her name?
2:18:30
Liddell.
2:18:30
And
2:18:31
Rupert Isaacson: her what was it?
2:18:31
The Alice Liddell.
2:18:33
Was it Liddell, Liddell?
2:18:36
Anyway, would row out with her and a friend of hers to have regular picnics
2:18:40
on an island in the Thames where sits an old abbey which coincidentally was the
2:18:46
home for a while of the mistress of Henry II, Fair Rosamund, who was a, a feature
2:18:52
of English folklore in the 12th century.
2:18:54
But anyway on the meadow of that island where they used to
2:18:58
is an ancient rabbit warren.
2:19:01
Rabbit warrens are inherited generation to generation, like badger setts.
2:19:05
They go over hundreds of years.
2:19:07
And he was having, they were having tea on the picnic there observing the
2:19:13
rabbits, and watched one of them in a hurry, who I believe had a light, slightly
2:19:18
lighter coat, go very fast down the hole.
2:19:21
And that's where the rabbit hole thing came from was that.
2:19:27
And I went and had a picnic on that spot with my friend John Mitchinson, who I told
2:19:32
you about, who's a publisher who told me that story while we were having a picnic.
2:19:34
And lo and behold, a rabbit came along and in front of us went down a hole.
2:19:38
So there's your synchronicity for you.
2:19:40
Jenifer Zeligs: Wow.
2:19:41
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:19:41
So.
2:19:41
Jenifer Zeligs: Wow.
2:19:42
We're all just dumbfounded by that, aren't we?
2:19:45
I'm just speaking for the audience.
2:19:46
I â¦ Wow.
2:19:49
There you go.
2:19:50
It's- That's why you come to
2:19:50
Rupert Isaacson: Oxford â¦ well, I guess it just shows that all human endeavor
2:19:53
comes from observation and experience, right, of animals and the natural world,
2:19:58
because Lewis Carroll was observing rabbits and came up with that thing,
2:20:02
and now we all use that expression.
2:20:04
But you can go there any time and observe the same thing.
2:20:09
In the same rabbit warren, you know, with the descendants of that rabbit.
2:20:13
All right.
2:20:14
So Jennifer, please the plugs.
2:20:17
Hold up your book again.
2:20:19
Jenifer Zeligs: Oh, oh.
2:20:21
Yeah, I mean, I, I'm not here to sell much, or- Yes,
2:20:24
Rupert Isaacson: you are.
2:20:24
What's, what are the books called?
2:20:25
I, th-
2:20:25
Jenifer Zeligs: Animal Training 101 and Mindful Partners, and the Mindful
2:20:29
Partners is the one I'm sort of recommending, I think, to your community.
2:20:32
Okay.
2:20:33
It does have a lot of horse stuff in here.
2:20:34
Animal
2:20:34
Rupert Isaacson: Training 101 as well, then.
2:20:36
Jenifer Zeligs: This one is the Animal Training 101 is the first one
2:20:38
I wrote, and it's a very technical, nerdy dive into the grand unification
2:20:44
theory of all behavior management.
2:20:46
So any technique is, has been explained in here through the science and through its
2:20:52
application of whether it's motivational or communication or desensitization.
2:20:56
So this one would only be for the extremely nerdy among you.
2:21:00
Mm.
2:21:01
This one is the marriage of the kind of more philosophical spiritual side.
2:21:07
It has techniques.
2:21:08
They're more hand-selected.
2:21:09
It's not fil- so filled with terminology.
2:21:13
It's called The Zen Art and Science of Working with Animals.
2:21:16
So
2:21:16
Rupert Isaacson: Mindful Partners, The Zen Art of Working with-
2:21:22
Jenifer Zeligs: Animals
2:21:23
Rupert Isaacson: animals.
2:21:23
And Animal Training 101?
2:21:26
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, that one is called The Complete and Practical Guide to the
2:21:30
Art and Science of Behavior Modification.
2:21:31
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
2:21:32
So we can go on, we can go on Amazon and find those?
2:21:34
Jenifer Zeligs: That's what you would do.
2:21:35
Yeah.
2:21:36
And if you're really curious and you wanna see this in video form what is my website?
2:21:41
Animaltraining.us.
2:21:43
Okay Animaltraining.us.
2:21:45
Animaltraining.us.
2:21:45
There are online courses that are mostlyâ¦
2:21:48
Yeah, they're videos of maybe 40 or 50 different species, and it, it kind of lays
2:21:54
out animal training 101 in a video, So can
2:21:57
Rupert Isaacson: I go- â¦ course â¦ and sign up and do a
2:21:59
Jenifer Zeligs: course on that?
2:22:00
Yeah
2:22:00
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: animaltraining.us.
2:22:01
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah.
2:22:01
And you can do it in small parts.
2:22:03
You can concentrate on communication, or you could just be interested in
2:22:07
the six basic operant techniques.
2:22:09
Or you could do the full thing, where you, you get the motivational side and
2:22:14
all of that breakdown as well as the practical, kinda pull it all together.
2:22:18
Right So it's a very big class.
2:22:20
It's, I don't know, it's f- 40 or 50 hours of, of stuff with lots and lots of videos.
2:22:26
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
2:22:27
And if people wantâ¦
2:22:28
Can people also email you?
2:22:29
Can they engage your services?
2:22:31
Are you available as a speaker?
2:22:32
Can, you know, c- can, do you consult?
2:22:35
Like, what are, what are the-
2:22:37
Jenifer Zeligs: You're so kind.
2:22:38
I suck at all of this because I, you know, I used to have a team
2:22:41
of people and I'm, I'm not a-
2:22:43
Rupert Isaacson: But is the answer yes, they can contact you?
2:22:45
Jenifer Zeligs: They can, yeah.
2:22:46
Okay So on, from my site you can get in contact with me, or On animaltraining.us
2:22:50
â¦ my name @gmail.com
2:22:52
will do it, too.
2:22:53
What@gmail.com?
2:22:55
My name, jenniferzaleks@gmail.com.
2:22:58
That's- We'll put that in the show notes â¦ the not professional one.
2:23:00
But, If you don't mind â¦ yeah.
2:23:00
Yeah.
2:23:01
That's, that's myâ¦
2:23:02
You have that email.
2:23:04
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I do.
2:23:04
But I will make sure that it, all of that is in the show notes.
2:23:08
And, and people, you know, lads who are- That's fine â¦ listening to this
2:23:11
and watching this, it's pretty obvious that there's an awful lot to learn here.
2:23:16
So, I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend that you pick up her books and get on
2:23:21
her website and sign up for her shit.
2:23:23
That's- And do her stuff- Thank you â¦ because you're gonna benefit.
2:23:27
And any, any parting words?
2:23:32
Any burning desires or last thoughts, insights that you'd like
2:23:37
to leave the watchers and listeners
2:23:39
Jenifer Zeligs: with?
2:23:40
Yeah.
2:23:40
I think this life is short, so really-
2:23:47
Do your best to, to live, live it the way that you'll be happy with
2:23:55
how you ha- not what happened, but how you how you, you try to approach
2:24:00
what happened i- in, in the end.
2:24:02
That, that kind of felt experience that I left it on the field, or I left it in
2:24:07
the pa- you know, I left it all out there.
2:24:10
Y- I think you're a great model for this.
2:24:12
Or maybe a simpler way is, is to kind of, think about making lemonade
2:24:16
or, you know, one of those kind of sayings, but- I would say sod
2:24:19
Rupert Isaacson: that, make margaritas, man.
2:24:20
I mean,
2:24:20
Jenifer Zeligs: brilliant.
2:24:21
Okay.
2:24:21
Yeah, but t- t- take, take everything that happens-
2:24:24
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
2:24:25
â¦ Jenifer Zeligs: and use it as an opportunity to wake up just a little
2:24:28
bit closer towards your best self.
2:24:31
That's what I would say.
2:24:32
And that, that will bring you happiness.
2:24:34
It'll bring those around you happiness.
2:24:36
It has a knock-on effect.
2:24:38
That's what I would suggest.
2:24:40
Rupert Isaacson: And for your animals and your ponies as well, naturally.
2:24:42
Jenifer Zeligs: Yeah, that's what I mean.
2:24:43
Yeah.
2:24:43
It'll, it'll have a knock-on effect for everyone in your radius.
2:24:47
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
2:24:48
All right.
2:24:48
Jenifer Zeligs: Thank you.
2:24:49
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
2:24:50
This has been brilliant.
2:24:51
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2:24:55
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