Latest / The Touch of a Mustang / Why Veterans and Mustangs Need Each Other with Dave and Kathleen | Episode 47

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Why Veterans and Mustangs Need Each Other with Dave and Kathleen | Episode 47 · The Touch of a Mustang

• 0:00
  Like one of the guys said, that has stayed with us in the past.
• 0:03
  If you're your true authentic self, it doesn't matter what you
• 0:06
  are, whether you're angry, whether you're upset, sad, you
• 0:10
  know, whatever it happens to be, as long as you're your true
• 0:13
  authentic self with the Mustang, Oh yeah, they'll respond to you.
• 0:17
  As far as they're concerned, from the herd perspective, they
• 0:19
  don't want you in the herd if you're if you're not sure about
• 0:22
  how you are using for them. There are healers on this planet
• 0:27
  with the power to soften the suffering of mankind if they
• 0:30
  have remained in the recesses of the world, abused, discarded and
• 0:34
  labeled as trash. This is the touch of a Mustang.
• 0:38
  I am your host, Shalise Clough, and I'm here to tell the story
• 0:42
  of wild horses, Mustangs, and the humans who are discovering
• 0:46
  and sharing their gifts while working to protect their
• 0:49
  well-being and preserve their spirit so this divine power
• 0:53
  won't be lost. Join us on this quest with the
• 0:56
  Wild Mustang. Welcome.
• 1:04
  Thanks for being here. Why don't you guys start off
• 1:06
  with a little introduction of kind of what you do in the realm
• 1:10
  of horses? Sure.
• 1:11
  So I'm Kathleen. I've been a horse person since I
• 1:14
  was a little kid, since I first knew what a horse was.
• 1:17
  I fell in love with them and never really thought that we'd
• 1:20
  be doing what we're doing today. But it's come around full circle
• 1:23
  for me. And what we do now at Sampson's
• 1:26
  Strength Sustainable Veterans Project is we do equine
• 1:29
  empowered therapy and equine empowered training.
• 1:32
  So it's EET, which is based out of a program in California.
• 1:36
  And they graciously, and I'm gonna let Dave will explain a
• 1:39
  little bit more because he's gone more in depth with them,
• 1:42
  but they graciously provided us training in their program and
• 1:45
  are excited that we're doing it here in Alabama.
• 1:47
  So it's all groundwork what we do with the horses.
• 1:51
  Like we had an open house this past weekend and we brought, we
• 1:54
  have Mustangs, we have Belgian draft horses and donkeys and we
• 1:57
  brought Mustangs in and we introduced people that came to
• 2:01
  visit our open house to the Mustangs, to equine empowered
• 2:05
  therapy to the Masterson method and kind of gave an explanation
• 2:09
  of why we do that and why we don't ride, why we just do
• 2:13
  groundwork with our horses. We firmly believe I didn't
• 2:16
  mention this but I'm a mental health professional so I've been
• 2:19
  in community mental health since 91.
• 2:22
  A long time, yeah. You've seen a lot.
• 2:24
  And all the time, I've always worked in trauma.
• 2:27
  So I've worked first with child trauma, child abuse and neglect,
• 2:31
  with adult sexual trauma, domestic violence.
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  And then I worked solely with the military, law enforcement,
• 2:37
  first responders, veterans. And I also work in substance use
• 2:40
  disorder programs. And so we firmly believe that
• 2:44
  horses have the ability to heal humans.
• 2:46
  I know I do. I know that me as a therapist, I
• 2:50
  can be doing this for a long time and have a lot of skills
• 2:52
  and work with a client for six months to a year.
• 2:55
  But if I bring a horse into this whole situation, into the
• 2:59
  dynamic, that year long work goes into one session, it's
• 3:02
  amazing. Really.
• 3:04
  Yeah, because that's a. Big gap.
• 3:06
  Big gap, but, and I don't have a problem admitting that.
• 3:09
  And I think I'm pretty good some days at the whole therapy thing,
• 3:12
  right? Yeah.
• 3:13
  The horses facilitate in a non threatening manner and we could
• 3:17
  talk more about that. Yeah, and let's absolutely dig
• 3:20
  in at some point, yes? And it just provides me an
• 3:23
  opening to be able to, the person becomes more vulnerable
• 3:27
  and it's easier for me to be able to help them facilitate
• 3:30
  that change and that awareness about themselves.
• 3:33
  So it is, we talk a lot about awareness and what we do.
• 3:36
  So that's what we do. We work with the horses, we work
• 3:39
  with veterans, military, first responders, law enforcement.
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  Another thing for me that's really near and dear to my heart
• 3:45
  are providers like myself, right?
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  Because very often it's overlooked all that we've
• 3:51
  experienced. Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:54
  Yeah. So that's a little bit about me.
• 3:56
  I've talked a bit, but let Dave go and all right.
• 3:59
  Yeah, let's hear from Dave. I'm Dave, Co founder of Samson's
• 4:04
  Frank with Kathleen and I started out in the military
• 4:08
  after going to high school. Two years in college was pre
• 4:11
  Med. Reagan got the budget.
• 4:13
  I ended up going into the Navy. I couldn't even get it, couldn't
• 4:17
  get a student loan back then in the early 80s.
• 4:19
  So I spent the next almost 32 years in the military, 10 years
• 4:22
  active Navy. I recommissioned the USS
• 4:25
  Missouri, decommissioned the USS Fulton, worked at the sub base
• 4:28
  in Groton at three years in the reserves out of Groton, and then
• 4:32
  joined the Connecticut Army National Guard and was in there
• 4:35
  for 19 plus years. I didn't quite make 20.
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  I was medically retired in 2014. December 7th was my first day as
• 4:42
  a civilian in this 2014 day in infamy.
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  Yeah. Got out of the military and
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  things weren't real pretty for me at that point.
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  Wasn't sure what to do. You know, like Kathy said in the
• 4:53
  past, my identity was really attached to the military and I
• 4:56
  hadn't planned on getting out for another 10 years.
• 4:59
  Yeah. So, you know, I was sort of
• 5:02
  stuck. Yeah, and it sounds like a
• 5:03
  really quick sudden change. Yes and no.
• 5:07
  Yeah. The change started when I came
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  back from deployment in 2013, continued and then I had a
• 5:14
  suicide suicide attempt in 2014 after three major surgeries and
• 5:20
  I was on Wellbutrin for a while, which didn't work for me.
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  Yeah. So, you know, I got lucky.
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  Kathy came home early that day. As we said in 2015, I've gone
• 5:32
  through about 500 different properties online.
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  I heard it down to 37 that we physically went to look at.
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  That's how we ended up down here with the property down here,
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  because I looked at Florida, California, Florida, North and
• 5:46
  South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
• 5:49
  We were looking for a farm. I wanted a veteran village and
• 5:53
  she liked the idea. Yeah, I mean, no horse girl's
• 5:55
  going to turn down the idea of a farm place to have horses there.
• 5:59
  Yeah, well, with that being said, I grew up in Center City,
• 6:02
  Philadelphia, PA. I lived a block from the
• 6:04
  reservoir and across the reservoir was Captain Kangaroo
• 6:07
  Studio. Those of those of you who are
• 6:09
  old enough to remember. Captain Kang, you have to Google
• 6:13
  it now. Yeah.
• 6:16
  I never saw a horse and probably I didn't see one of the scouts.
• 6:20
  I probably didn't see a horse up close until probably 2010 when
• 6:24
  Kathy took me for a ride. We rented some horses in
• 6:27
  Pennsylvania when we're down there visiting and went for a
• 6:29
  ride for two hours. That was my first ride.
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  Wow. I tell people I've had three
• 6:35
  major rides in my life. A major ride is anything over 5
• 6:37
  minutes. Yeah.
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  I started playing with the horses 2013.
• 6:44
  I went through the Equus effect, which is doing very similar to
• 6:48
  what we're going to be doing here.
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  They do all groundwork and it was neat because I learned about
• 6:53
  horses and putting my hands on a horse, learning to calm down,
• 6:58
  you know, made a big difference. So here we move forward.
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  We moved down here in 2015 to Alabama from Connecticut.
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  I was happy to leave and then we moved down here in 2015 and we
• 7:11
  started with a farm. We had chickens, we were
• 7:13
  growing, we were growing garlic and some other stuff, different
• 7:17
  vegetables. We're actually selling
• 7:18
  vegetables at the Farmers market. 17.
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  We had a veteran that came to live with us.
• 7:23
  He was here for a year and a half or building the 1st house.
• 7:26
  He stayed in our RV. He's moved on.
• 7:29
  He's gotten a house. He's, he lives in Georgia now
• 7:31
  with his daughter handicap. So that works out well.
• 7:35
  But 2019 was when or 2018 was when we built the 1st house here
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  on the farm right next to our pond.
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  And it was built specifically for Jim, but he'd chosen to
• 7:47
  leave just before we finished it.
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  And that was a, it was what it was.
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  We've used it since then. We've we've had 14 different
• 7:54
  veterans, actually now 17 different veterans that have
• 7:57
  stayed here on the farm at different times, some of them
• 8:00
  for a couple of days, some of them for 13 to 15 months.
• 8:04
  So it was needed regardless. Yeah, and that's it.
• 8:07
  It was needed regardless. We built the first one there.
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  The next one we built was in 2019.
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  Oh, that year my dad had passed away and my dad was a World War
• 8:16
  2 veteran. You might have seen some of that
• 8:18
  information on our Facebook page.
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  And so I came home from his service and I was driving home
• 8:23
  and it was about a mile away from our house.
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  On the right hand side there was a piece of property and it said
• 8:29
  you know for sale and it was 16 acres and it was all fenced in
• 8:33
  pasture and trees and all of that.
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  And I just pulled over there and I started crying.
• 8:39
  I miss are crying now, but I felt like daddy was saying this
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  is where you need to build these houses, right?
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  Because we built the houses and had planned to put the houses on
• 8:49
  our physical property on our land right behind our house,
• 8:53
  right? Although we knew that that could
• 8:56
  be some issues, we were really OK with it.
• 8:58
  But I think it was just him kind of saying no it you need to have
• 9:02
  it separate, right? You need to have your space as
• 9:04
  well as their space. Right.
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  And so I went home and I I drove home and Dave was there and I
• 9:09
  said, hey, did you see that land for sale?
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  And he goes, yeah. And I said, I think daddy says
• 9:13
  we should buy it. And what happened was the exact
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  amount that that money was was my portion of my inheritance.
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  What a beautiful legacy. Within like 1000.
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  Dollars within 1000 dollars. I said no, that's for sure, him
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  telling us that. So that's what we did.
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  And so the first house, when it's finished, we'll have a
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  shadow box with my daddy's military Navy uniform.
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  He was in World War 2. And it'll have a little story
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  like that about what happened so that people will understand
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  where that house with that first one originated.
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  So we started that first house 2019, we had a Home Depot day.
• 9:50
  They came out, did a Home Depot day.
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  We've built a lot of the house. My general contractor, Meadows,
• 9:56
  he's done wonders for us. He's built all of foundations on
• 9:59
  the 1st house we built over at the farm.
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  He ran that completely. That second house that we built,
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  the first one at the site, he built that one completely.
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  And then I basically picked it up because I was doing the
• 10:10
  finish work. And so we started I started
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  doing that. The second house is basically
• 10:14
  built by myself and a volunteer from Talladega and.
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  I helped a little. Bit lol I've got mean.
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  We were the ones. Yeah.
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  I mean, you got to give her a little credit.
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  She helped to stand the wall up. She.
• 10:27
  Helped stand the wall up where did that stuff, which I don't
• 10:30
  know what it's called, the glue, the liquid nails.
• 10:33
  Oh, the Liquid Nails, I said. Liquid.
• 10:34
  Nails. Putting the Liquid Nails down
• 10:36
  and then the 3rd house was another Home Depot project in
• 10:43
  March of 2020. It was March 8th and 9th.
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  I remember the dates because March 8th and 9th with his last
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  weekend we had before COVID on March 12th, volunteerism at that
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  point when what I forgot to mention was the 1st house that
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  we built on the farm, Auburn University's Mcwhorter School of
• 11:02
  Building Science. The students, we proposed to the
• 11:05
  school and they came out and helped us build it.
• 11:07
  Oh wow, what a great idea. Yes.
• 11:09
  Well, they're, they're students that are going to be project
• 11:12
  managers. So a lot of them haven't had any
• 11:14
  time on the site. So this is they get something,
• 11:17
  they learn something before they go out and start start making
• 11:21
  timelines. Some experience for them and
• 11:23
  some manpower for you guys. That's perfect.
• 11:27
  So 4th house was another house by Auburn University, but now
• 11:31
  they're building their wall sections down in Opel.
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  Is it Opelika? Yeah, Opelika down at the
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  school, they had a brand new science lab built where they
• 11:43
  could lift the wall sections up after they built them, put them
• 11:46
  down. So they carried them.
• 11:47
  They built all the wall sections.
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  When they were ready, they built them up.
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  They brought them up. We've applied for another group
• 11:53
  to come out different year. We had three groups come out.
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  So that was that's the 4th house that we built on the site.
• 11:59
  The 5th house that we built on the site, they came out and
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  built as well. And I don't remember the exact
• 12:04
  timeline at this point. But I want to say in between all
• 12:07
  of this, while this is all going on, we didn't have any horses,
• 12:11
  right? We had donkeys that we'd rescued
• 12:13
  and we thought we put the our chicken coop in where the
• 12:16
  donkeys were. We were going to use them as
• 12:17
  protectors, right? And yeah, guardians for coyotes
• 12:20
  and things, but we didn't have any horses.
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  And the whole time I was trying to get Dave because even though
• 12:27
  he was doing all these things, he was still really struggling
• 12:30
  with coming home military. And I knew horses could help and
• 12:34
  I knew they'd helped him in the past, right?
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  So I saw the Mustang Heritage Foundation and how they had that
• 12:41
  program specifically for veterans, right?
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  It was like a six week program. And that they were.
• 12:46
  Six week tip training. Program and they'd go to Texas
• 12:49
  and they'd be part of a TIP training program and have a
• 12:52
  horse. They'd leave with a horse, a
• 12:54
  Mustang. And so I'd signed him up first
• 12:57
  time I didn't tell him I signed him up.
• 12:59
  I signed him up and but then when I found out, he had to tell
• 13:02
  a story I had to tell him like he had to tell him why he wanted
• 13:04
  to go right. So.
• 13:06
  He reluctantly did that and we didn't make it in time for that
• 13:10
  class. That class closed whatever.
• 13:11
  So then COVID happened, then we applied again, and then they had
• 13:15
  said that they had shut it down because of COVID and then they
• 13:17
  realigned some of what they were doing at the Mustang Heritage
• 13:20
  Foundation and aren't doing that anymore.
• 13:22
  So then we found out kind of a roundabout sort of way about a
• 13:26
  program, which I think you know, about Dale and Renee at our
• 13:30
  ranch. And so again, I reached out and
• 13:33
  I kind of signed him up, you know, to go to.
• 13:36
  So this is all going. On Dale was in that 2018 class
• 13:40
  that I we we'd applied for. So they were wonderful and
• 13:44
  accepted Dave in and this was all going on around this same
• 13:48
  time and then so that was before we went there.
• 13:52
  Yeah, we got our first Mustangs October 23rd of 2021.
• 13:57
  I remember because we got horses that day.
• 13:59
  We were also doing a American Legion Riders music festival
• 14:05
  that day, so when I finished up with that, I ran back to the
• 14:07
  house, to the horses. We went to start seeing the
• 14:10
  horses. In August, well, Babi was our
• 14:13
  tip trainer. We hadn't gotten into Dale and
• 14:15
  Renee's place yet. And so I was looking for, well,
• 14:18
  there's got to be a way. We'll just get a Mustang on our
• 14:20
  own, right? We'll figure this out.
• 14:21
  So, yeah, what about the tip program, Right.
• 14:23
  And in Leeds, which is right outside Birmingham, Abby has was
• 14:28
  a tip trainer and so I reached out to her and she said what we
• 14:32
  were interested in doing, that we wanted to get one Mustang.
• 14:35
  It's hard to do. Like potato chips, which we.
• 14:40
  So Dave went and he met this horse who was a long yearling.
• 14:45
  Dave met him and really connected with him.
• 14:48
  But we're still only going to get one.
• 14:49
  Yeah. We were laughing because I
• 14:51
  walked into the stall with him and I picked up a brush and was
• 14:55
  brushing him because I brushed the donkeys, you know, and Kathy
• 15:00
  and the tip drainer baby are standing over on the side saying
• 15:03
  she says nobody's done that yet. Really.
• 15:06
  He just walked in and you're like, hey, we got this.
• 15:08
  Well, because he didn't really, he knew nothing about horses
• 15:11
  except what domestic that were push button horses.
• 15:13
  And so he saw people grab a brush and brush them and his
• 15:16
  mind saw the brush sitting there and he we're talking me and the
• 15:19
  trainer and we look over and there he is.
• 15:21
  And both of us are like, should we say something?
• 15:23
  But it just went well. And they connect.
• 15:26
  Yeah. And so they were about an hour
• 15:28
  and half an hour and a half away, but we would drive there
• 15:31
  every weekend so that he could see the horse and connect with
• 15:34
  the horse while she was doing the tip trainer.
• 15:36
  Right. And while we were getting our
• 15:38
  space ready. Yeah, I know.
• 15:39
  I'm going to tell. So of course I go.
• 15:41
  And there's a lot of other horses, right.
• 15:43
  And there was this one horse, and she was a sorrel mare.
• 15:46
  And she was, like, all by herself.
• 15:48
  And so me, the mental health professional.
• 15:50
  Yeah. I'm thinking, oh, this is so
• 15:52
  sad. So I got a chair and I spent
• 15:54
  time with her. And, you know, she was connected
• 15:57
  or disconnected from other horses and from humans and.
• 16:00
  But she's also a Mustang. She's also the same place.
• 16:04
  All they have are Mustangs. So, so she basically what they
• 16:07
  said was like, you know, you're going to take her too because it
• 16:09
  was a week before we're going to, we're trying to get ready
• 16:11
  and we're like, OK, what else do we need, you know?
• 16:13
  Because after we've decided to take the horse, I had to build a
• 16:18
  barn. We had a round pen, but I didn't
• 16:19
  have a barn. Yeah, so I was building 3 stalls
• 16:22
  and I put 2 pieces of plywood on the roof.
• 16:25
  Finally, when I got to that point and said, OK, we got a
• 16:27
  barn. Because all you have to have in
• 16:29
  Alabama is either trees or a roof.
• 16:32
  So I had a roof. Yeah, working on it, obviously,
• 16:35
  but I had a roof. Right.
• 16:38
  And so we ended up taking her home and I named her, we named
• 16:41
  Samson, Samson after Samson's strength, right?
• 16:45
  And then I named her Until Grace.
• 16:47
  So there's a song called Until Grace, and it goes Until Grace
• 16:50
  found me because I had pretty much decided, even though I grew
• 16:54
  up with horses and I loved horses, that I didn't want to
• 16:58
  get a horse that I bonded with because I didn't want to lose
• 17:02
  it. I didn't want something to
• 17:03
  happen to it, which is what happened to my horse that I had
• 17:06
  when I was a kid. And so I was really resistant.
• 17:10
  But then Grace came, and then Dave, about a year later, a
• 17:14
  little less than a year, he went off to Renee Dale and Renee's
• 17:18
  and. July 30 or July of 222 is when
• 17:22
  it started. I was alone with the two
• 17:24
  Mustangs. We'd gone to take a look at a
• 17:26
  couple of different Mustangs in two different places.
• 17:28
  In the 1st place they had said they were going to give us
• 17:31
  certain horses and they reneged on it.
• 17:34
  So we went to Pennsylvania Stacey Gardner and picked him up
• 17:38
  from General Stables. General heart stables.
• 17:40
  Heart Stables and I picked up Mustang, Blaze and Super Moose.
• 17:45
  These are more Mustangs. They're.
• 17:52
  Just one that multiplied. When I went up to Dale and
• 17:54
  Renee's, I took another veteran from Alabama with me and that's
• 17:57
  why I got the two horses. I was planning to bring 2 back
• 18:00
  anyway but it could have been one for him, one for me.
• 18:03
  Yeah. However, while he was up there,
• 18:05
  he, he looked at 2 and he and he was, he's got 2 still up there
• 18:10
  that are being put through the process of being able to ride.
• 18:14
  And he's actually just started to build.
• 18:15
  He's got 100 acres down here. He's just started to build down
• 18:18
  here. So.
• 18:19
  Get them down here. But I have I get Blaze and Super
• 18:23
  Moose. So Blaze, if you ever looked at
• 18:25
  his head, he's got the looks like a horse's head on his first
• 18:28
  Blaze and he's pure black. He was the herd stallion for
• 18:30
  double Devil's Garden. OK Boo.
• 18:33
  Super Moose was one of his band stallions.
• 18:35
  So you know, I was working with Blaze as my program horse
• 18:39
  because he's 15 two he's a big boy and at that point I was like
• 18:42
  2 feet. So I needed a little bit bigger
• 18:44
  horse if I was working with him. And after two weeks I wasn't
• 18:48
  getting very far. So I started working with Moose
• 18:51
  in the evenings just for the fun of it because Randy working with
• 18:54
  a couple other with Miss Ellie, which was Dale's sister who
• 18:58
  passed away, that was her horse and nobody had a chance to work
• 19:01
  with Randy worked very well. But I started working with Super
• 19:05
  Moose and Randy and I are standing in the middle of round
• 19:08
  pen and we let him out of his stall.
• 19:10
  Well, he came out of his stall kicking it up.
• 19:13
  He's double barreling up over our heads now.
• 19:16
  Moose is 1414 too. OK, He's not very big.
• 19:22
  Yeah, wise he's powerful, but he's like he's like waves.
• 19:26
  They both have draft horse in them because they introduced
• 19:29
  draft into the into that herd draft in this guy.
• 19:33
  He's got a nice barrel on it. It's like we're going to die.
• 19:36
  Yeah, yeah, that's never a good feeling to have a horse just
• 19:39
  exploding around you. So, but within two weeks I had
• 19:43
  the day I got touch on him, I got full touch on him.
• 19:46
  I was able to take his tag off, put a halter on, put a lead rope
• 19:50
  on same day. And then after that we, I used
• 19:53
  him as a program. Morris, we graduated the program
• 19:56
  two weeks after that. And with Moose, I was able to
• 19:58
  take him around a round pen, over a jump, across a little
• 20:01
  wooden bridge, load and unload the trailer, take him over here,
• 20:04
  brush him for a while, put a pad on him, take him across the
• 20:08
  plastic of the tarp on the ground, take him back to the
• 20:11
  barrel and tie one of my T-shirts that I've worn the day
• 20:14
  before over his eyes and do everything again.
• 20:17
  OK, a lot of trust. Yeah, it.
• 20:20
  Was just, it was amazing to me just to just to see the
• 20:22
  difference. Moose is also the one that ran
• 20:24
  me over when we were trying to do his feet the first time.
• 20:27
  Yeah. He let us see the front ones
• 20:29
  because Dale does the front ones, and then he kicked the
• 20:32
  Dale and then I'm staying. I was standing where I shouldn't
• 20:35
  have been, which was in front of him.
• 20:37
  After he did that, he took off and I was in the way.
• 20:41
  He's like, I'm done with this. I don't care if you're right
• 20:43
  there. My learning curve for horses
• 20:45
  goes that way straight up. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:48
  They're they're fast teachers. You learn quick.
• 20:50
  Yeah, you do. Either you learn quick or you
• 20:52
  get hurt more. And I'm I've been run over,
• 20:54
  kicked once, bitten once and stepped on.
• 20:57
  But that was that was that was Samson.
• 20:59
  Yeah. He was just being goofy.
• 21:00
  He was being goofy any day. He didn't step on my bad.
• 21:03
  He stepped on the end of my end of my boot.
• 21:05
  Yeah, good. Yeah, Question Mafia.
• 21:10
  To stand up. But when all that was happening,
• 21:13
  so then he brought, because he trained Moose, he was going to
• 21:16
  work more with Blaze, right? So he brought Moose back home.
• 21:20
  And we had been scheduled, both Dave and I sponsored by the
• 21:23
  California program to attend our first Masterson's Method
• 21:27
  training. And so Dave came home, brought
• 21:29
  Moose home, and then was going to just after we took the class,
• 21:32
  was just going to go back up, do a little more work with Blaze
• 21:34
  and turn around and come back. But his truck broke down.
• 21:36
  That was Labor Day weekend. We came with the weekend after
• 21:40
  Labor Day. We did the Masterson method.
• 21:43
  And so and so then what happened was when his truck broke down up
• 21:46
  there, he got stuck up there. So he was stuck for seven weeks,
• 21:50
  7 weeks. I didn't get home until November
• 21:52
  2nd. So he on top of the original six
• 21:55
  weeks, I was with the Mustangs all by myself, with Moose, now
• 21:59
  with Super Moose, right, It was just.
• 22:01
  Because they were adding up. Right, well, he was just tip
• 22:04
  trained and I'd have no really no interaction with him, right.
• 22:07
  So but he and I became best buds really fast.
• 22:10
  He's like my he's my love bug and everybody just loves him.
• 22:13
  And the funny part about Moose is, you know, so I grew up when
• 22:16
  I finally did start riding after I got older, I was riding hunter
• 22:20
  jumpers, right. So even though Moose is short, I
• 22:22
  thought he's powerful Little Pony, right?
• 22:24
  He could be perfect for me because I'm sure and he'd be a
• 22:27
  great hunter jumper. And so the funny story is that
• 22:29
  we put in these fences, right? Like the electric fence, the
• 22:32
  solar electric fence with the tape.
• 22:34
  And every day he was getting out and no one else got out.
• 22:38
  And so I was convinced I'm messing up the timeline a little
• 22:41
  bit, but I was convinced I'm like, Dave, Oh my gosh, he's
• 22:44
  going to be my hunter jumper, right?
• 22:46
  And then one day I came home and I watched him go like this and
• 22:50
  he went under the fence. Darn it, that's not going to
• 22:54
  work. Around the same time that she
• 22:56
  saw that, but he was staying here and he had sat.
• 23:00
  We have a swing, it's about 200 yards from that fence and he was
• 23:04
  sitting on it watching Moose because Moose was getting ready
• 23:08
  to go under it. He's just walking back and forth
• 23:10
  and he wouldn't go under it while he was watching it.
• 23:13
  Yeah, smart. They talk about eye pressure and
• 23:17
  what a horse feels, and it really shows this because I
• 23:20
  drove into the driveway, got out of my car.
• 23:23
  He turned to look at me, and when he turned to look at me,
• 23:26
  the horse went under the roof. I watched him go under it.
• 23:29
  He'd been there for half an hour watching it, and he wouldn't go.
• 23:31
  Yeah. That's funny.
• 23:33
  But so then, and we just after that, so then we brought Blaze
• 23:37
  home. Dave started doing more work
• 23:39
  with the Masterson's method. I did just the two day weekend
• 23:43
  class, but he asked the Equine Empowered Therapy program in
• 23:47
  California if they would consider continuing to sponsor
• 23:50
  him because he really enjoyed it.
• 23:51
  And we found how it was really helpful for both Dave and the
• 23:55
  horses. And I learned a lot.
• 23:57
  But I, I have a lot of other things going on in my plate.
• 23:59
  So we thought it would be great for way for Dave to really just
• 24:04
  have a quick course in learning about horses because it's you
• 24:07
  have to deep dive into anatomy. He's like taking all the horse
• 24:10
  anatomy classes. He's done a lot of work.
• 24:13
  He understands a lot more of the top to bottom physical body of a
• 24:17
  horse, all the parts than I do. No, you do.
• 24:20
  And so he really does. And so that's kind of where we,
• 24:24
  we kind of got started with that and we started working more with
• 24:27
  the people in California to understand better about what
• 24:31
  they're doing because you know, there's many different models,
• 24:35
  right, for mention the names or anything, but for equine
• 24:39
  assisted type of therapy, right? Absolutely.
• 24:43
  And so they're, and they're very effective models and they, they
• 24:45
  do great work. A lot of them, many a majority
• 24:48
  of them incorporate what's called hippotherapy, right.
• 24:51
  So there's riding involved. And we really didn't want to do
• 24:54
  that here. We didn't, you know, not that we
• 24:56
  don't have rideable horses because we do.
• 24:59
  And we'll tell you a little bit about those potato chips that
• 25:01
  joined the the pieces. Is that what we found is that
• 25:06
  there's a lot missed when you just go to riding the release
• 25:11
  with the horse, right? The, the connection that you get
• 25:14
  with the horse, with yourself, with others, the work that you
• 25:17
  do through the Mastersons, through the background empowered
• 25:21
  piece, what we talk about, you know, and I didn't mention this
• 25:25
  part. So growing up, I was a groom.
• 25:27
  That's kind of what my parents said.
• 25:29
  If you want to get a horse, you got to prove it to us that you
• 25:30
  can take care of 1. So I got a job at a barn and I
• 25:33
  worked as a groom. So it was drilled into me from
• 25:36
  the beginning about the importance of touching every
• 25:39
  part of the horse's body, noticing every part of the
• 25:42
  horse's body for them to be looking top, you know, top notch
• 25:45
  for the show, but also to look for any sores or anything,
• 25:49
  right. And then I went to school to be
• 25:50
  a veterinary technician because initially I liked animals more.
• 25:53
  I really like people. Some days I spend.
• 25:55
  Yeah. I'm usually in that human
• 25:58
  population. Some days, yeah, some days
• 26:00
  you're just an animal. But that's why you go on.
• 26:02
  But so that the piece was is that, you know, understanding
• 26:07
  this, for me, it was, it was a big shift, right, to understand
• 26:11
  the difference between grooming. I didn't understand that I was
• 26:14
  really connecting and building trust with the horse.
• 26:17
  I thought I had a purpose in my grooming.
• 26:19
  Right. Yeah, focused on the job.
• 26:21
  And so part of what we teach, we have home school students that
• 26:24
  come out here, like we said, veterans, military, everyone.
• 26:27
  The first thing I teach, and that's what Dave gives to me
• 26:30
  because that's my area of specialty, is how to groom the
• 26:33
  horse, right? And we incorporate in the touch
• 26:35
  and the importance of the touch. And then Dave kind of steps in
• 26:38
  and does more of the Masterson piece.
• 26:40
  But every bit of it, we're talking about being present, you
• 26:44
  know, every bit of it we're talking about breathing, using
• 26:47
  our breath. Every bit of it.
• 26:48
  We're talking about the horse's heart rate, our heart rate, you
• 26:51
  know? You touch the horse for three
• 26:53
  minutes, you're going to change your breathing, you're going to
• 26:55
  change your heart rate. Yes, you know, and we talk about
• 26:58
  the human body, it's electrical field goes out six feet, the
• 27:01
  horses goes out 30. So when you enter their 30 foot
• 27:04
  space, they already know where you're coming from, right?
• 27:07
  They know your intent. They know where you're at.
• 27:10
  And we talk so we've, we've added other horses and each and
• 27:14
  we'll tell you about those. But each one of our horses has a
• 27:16
  story, right? And we encourage when we teach,
• 27:20
  we were would had a group out this past weekend from another
• 27:22
  barn who doesn't have Mustangs. They don't have Mustangs, they
• 27:25
  have domestic horses. And they said, well, our horses
• 27:28
  have lived a pretty simple life. And I said, doesn't mean they
• 27:30
  don't have a story. You know, look at their
• 27:32
  personality. They all have a personality just
• 27:34
  like people. And, and by sharing their story,
• 27:37
  whether you know the whole story or not, you can imply things
• 27:41
  about it, like maybe this horse was in charge of the herd,
• 27:44
  right? They're very, they're very
• 27:45
  confident, right? You know, we'll talk about a
• 27:47
  confident mayor, right? Or a confident gelding.
• 27:49
  Why do you think they're confident?
• 27:51
  That's their personality, right? So what are some experiences
• 27:54
  they might have had for a mayor or a gelding that's not
• 27:57
  confident, right? And so we've added other horses
• 28:01
  added. We started with Argentina March
• 28:04
  of 2023. We added her.
• 28:06
  And then we got Artemis, Mother's Day week.
• 28:10
  She was our eight to 10 month old.
• 28:13
  Directly from a storefront. She was, she was wild, Yeah.
• 28:16
  So we gentled her at the at the farm.
• 28:19
  We had full touch on her in two days.
• 28:21
  Yeah. I mean, that's the Mustang
• 28:22
  everybody dreams about when you get one, right?
• 28:25
  Well, but, and she was young and she was very curious and it was
• 28:28
  me grooming. I just sat in there with brushes
• 28:31
  and when she'd come over to me, I'd start touching her.
• 28:33
  And I use grooming gloves first always.
• 28:36
  So that's what I teach people versus that you get with the
• 28:40
  nubbies on it. Yeah, as your hands are right on
• 28:44
  the horse. And just have to teach people
• 28:46
  not to push too hard, right? Yeah.
• 28:49
  First time I ever used them so yeah, Samsung was with me with
• 28:52
  their gloves. But that's the other part, is
• 28:54
  teaching how the different horses, just like us, have
• 28:56
  different sensory systems, right?
• 28:59
  And that, you know, some of the horses are more sensitive to
• 29:02
  that touch. And so we want to be mindful.
• 29:04
  We want to know the horse, right?
• 29:06
  That's true. Yeah.
• 29:06
  We. Want to understand and the horse
• 29:08
  will teach us how they are if we just pay attention.
• 29:11
  And so as I'm saying these things to you, those are the
• 29:14
  things that we incorporate in the equine empowered piece,
• 29:17
  right? So if I'm working with
• 29:19
  providers, you know, I'm really talking about what we learn in
• 29:23
  Masterson, which is we search for a response, we get the
• 29:26
  response, we stay there, right? And then we release, right?
• 29:31
  And so thinking about working with a client, right, or a
• 29:34
  patient is that we search for something that's that could be
• 29:39
  the core of the issue, right? For depression, trauma.
• 29:43
  And then when we find it, we just stay present.
• 29:45
  We just stay present. We don't ignore it and keep
• 29:48
  going. We stop there.
• 29:49
  We get quiet about it, right? And then what we'll do is after
• 29:53
  we do that, we're going to step back a little bit and let them
• 29:55
  not feel this extreme pressure, you know?
• 29:58
  So it's the same with the horse. And if I could teach the
• 30:01
  provider that about the horse, they have this realization like,
• 30:06
  Oh my gosh, that's what I should be doing with my clients.
• 30:08
  A really good visual and understanding.
• 30:11
  It's so beautiful the way those principles transfer.
• 30:14
  You know, you're talking horse body work and then human mind
• 30:17
  and the similarities that you can draw from that and the way
• 30:20
  you can use those principles. Well, the neat part about it is
• 30:23
  that Jim Masterson tells you throughout is throughout the
• 30:26
  books that he writes is less is more, Yes.
• 30:28
  So, you know, a lot of times I'm using an air gap, which means I
• 30:33
  can be this far from the horse. I can be 10 feet from the horse
• 30:36
  and still working to master some method, which is how I got the
• 30:39
  blaze, OK? Because after a couple of days
• 30:42
  of just working with his pole and his TMJ, he walked up to my
• 30:46
  hand to put his head on my hand because he liked the energy
• 30:51
  feedback that he was getting. It's incredible.
• 30:53
  And it's the same thing with the with with the people.
• 30:57
  Less is more sometimes, right? Right, because it's about it's
• 31:00
  really about and we can use. This is the other part that I
• 31:03
  find interesting. You know, I said to the part
• 31:04
  that I could take a year's work of therapy and put it into one
• 31:07
  session. I've been a therapist for a long
• 31:09
  time. I know horses like as far as
• 31:11
  domestic horses, I'm you know, I'm good with that, right?
• 31:14
  And I'm also like, I'm pretty much our veterinarian veterinary
• 31:17
  technician, like all the things. Normally you'd probably call the
• 31:21
  vet on day one. Kathy puts into effect all my
• 31:24
  things until I say and it and I don't.
• 31:26
  I'm pretty smart about it. Like I don't like let a horse
• 31:28
  suffer. Believe me, I'm sure you know
• 31:30
  that you know, but I know a lot about how to treat things.
• 31:33
  You know, skills probably every horse owner should have to be
• 31:37
  fair to have those kind of basic.
• 31:40
  I don't have them, no. Yeah, well, you have Kathleen.
• 31:43
  Right. So I knew all that stuff.
• 31:45
  You know, I knew about how to halter a horse.
• 31:46
  Sometimes, like Dave we were, the donkeys got out and he got
• 31:50
  to halter on the horse. I looked over and I tried not to
• 31:53
  laugh, but the the bottom part was right here.
• 31:57
  Yeah, I'm like. Not quite right.
• 32:01
  Other thing you know, and the donkey is like what is this?
• 32:04
  What are you doing that's funny? They're a little tricky to
• 32:07
  figure out if you're not familiar with them.
• 32:10
  I still do that. I still have to look at it so I
• 32:12
  can get it on right? Yeah.
• 32:14
  With the Mustangs, we usually use rope halters, so this was
• 32:16
  like a regular halter that he grabbed and he was kind of like,
• 32:19
  what the heck is this thing? But so that stuff I know, right?
• 32:22
  I know about riding, I know about saddles, I know about all
• 32:25
  that stuff. But what was fascinating to me
• 32:28
  is like you said, the parallels that when I saw Dave doing this
• 32:33
  Masterson work, I mean, I just took a 2 day class when he took
• 32:36
  the other classes and did, and I watched him do this work, I'm
• 32:39
  like, Oh my gosh, just like therapy.
• 32:41
  Oh my gosh, that's just like therapy.
• 32:43
  Like this is what I would do with a person experiencing
• 32:45
  depression. This is what I do with, you
• 32:47
  know, when we talk about how we integrate a horse into our herd,
• 32:51
  right? Just when we get a new horse, we
• 32:54
  don't just throw it into the herd, right?
• 32:55
  We put it in a round pen. They've all been quarantined, so
• 32:58
  we don't necessarily have to worry about that, right?
• 33:00
  But they, they can do nose to nose, right?
• 33:02
  So they're sharing water. They're sharing water.
• 33:05
  I put a thing up underneath so that they have water on each
• 33:07
  side. So they share water and they can
• 33:09
  do nose to nose, but they're not in the same space until at least
• 33:13
  two weeks and. We had we had to put Argentina
• 33:15
  back in there for another two weeks.
• 33:17
  Yeah, some take longer for sure. That is true.
• 33:20
  She was, we got her from the Mustang leadership program for
• 33:23
  inner city girls out of Chattanooga.
• 33:25
  They do disage up there. She'd been there for 11 years.
• 33:29
  OK, when we got her, she was 12 and now she's the beautiful
• 33:32
  horse. She's a flea bitten, but they
• 33:34
  think she broke her neck when she was when she went during the
• 33:37
  roundup. Because she was a. 6 month old.
• 33:39
  Well, she was orphaned when they got her out of the corral.
• 33:42
  She was an orphan, so that happened, but no one knew
• 33:45
  because she was a baby and she probably had like a hairline
• 33:48
  fracture, right That she did dressage all those years she was
• 33:53
  great and until she started to develop arthritis and got.
• 33:57
  A little irritable, yeah. And she'll then just put her
• 34:16
  head down like this so that the kid can rub on her.
• 34:19
  It's just amazing. But the thing about her,
• 34:21
  everyone of the horses again has a story.
• 34:23
  So Argentina story was she grew up in a very fancy barn, right?
• 34:28
  Very fancy. Like if she pooped on those
• 34:29
  shavings it was picked up pretty quick.
• 34:31
  Yeah. And so she got out of the
• 34:33
  trailer at our place and she was like, what is this place
• 34:37
  there's? Yeah.
• 34:38
  Red dirt, there's no shavings, you know, So it's kind of like a
• 34:42
  kid going to a new school, right?
• 34:44
  And with military kids, they move all the time.
• 34:46
  Their family moves a lot, and so they move a lot.
• 34:49
  So Argentina is a good one to give that example of that.
• 34:52
  She came to a new place and she didn't fit in.
• 34:54
  And because she also grew up in stalls, she really didn't know
• 34:57
  how to get along. And we have our mayors and our
• 34:59
  geldings mixed together in. And it's a hurt.
• 35:02
  It's a hurt even the donkeys are all together, right.
• 35:04
  So she was just a she was not good.
• 35:07
  Like when we finally let her out after two weeks, right, she
• 35:10
  would like harass them and then they would get upset with her.
• 35:13
  And then Sampson, who was the young 1, he would stalk her like
• 35:17
  being a creeper, you know, and she got freaked out and she
• 35:21
  freaked out so much agitated. She's she's definitely got some
• 35:24
  Arab in her because she's got that white, you know.
• 35:28
  And she's excited. Head, head shake.
• 35:31
  And she said the excitability, right?
• 35:33
  And so she just took off running, ran right into the
• 35:36
  fence, right over, over the fence, out into the road.
• 35:39
  And she was just whole body shaking.
• 35:41
  So we put her in two weeks more. But when we tell that story,
• 35:45
  This is why it takes so long and why we don't need to ride,
• 35:47
  right? Because when we tell that story,
• 35:49
  almost anyone can identify with being somewhere where they
• 35:52
  didn't fit in and that there wasn't maybe someone to protect
• 35:56
  them. Right.
• 35:57
  Hide them how to fit in. So it was our responsibility.
• 36:00
  We had to guide Argentina how to fit in.
• 36:03
  We had to teach her. And we didn't really necessarily
• 36:06
  need to teach the herd how, because the herd was just being
• 36:09
  a herd. They were doing what they do in
• 36:10
  establishing their positions. We needed to teach Argentina.
• 36:15
  And she really didn't understand.
• 36:17
  She didn't have the herd dynamics so that, you know,
• 36:20
  you've got the lead mayor and then you have somebody else
• 36:23
  under that and somebody else under that and somebody on the
• 36:25
  bottom. Right.
• 36:27
  She started out, she tried going for the top and that didn't
• 36:29
  work. They weren't quite ready for
• 36:31
  that. Up on the bottom for a little
• 36:32
  while. I think right now she's probably
• 36:35
  second from the bottom. I think Artemis is probably on
• 36:39
  the bottom. Yeah, but Artemis is OK with.
• 36:41
  It. Yeah, she doesn't care.
• 36:42
  No. That's a.
• 36:44
  Spot Grace is our lead mayor. Grace, Grace until Grace, the
• 36:47
  one that had no confidence when we first got her.
• 36:50
  She is our lead mayor with great confidence and she is our our
• 36:55
  strong steady. It's amazing.
• 36:57
  I get tearful thinking about it because before we decided to add
• 37:00
  any other mayors, we talked with her, Dave and I, both together,
• 37:04
  separate. And we said, look, we promised
• 37:06
  you that this would be your herd.
• 37:07
  And we wanted, I'm going to tell the story because we just wanted
• 37:12
  her to know that we didn't want her.
• 37:14
  I kept saying to Dave, like, I don't think we should bring
• 37:16
  another mayor and here we should just get geldings because I
• 37:18
  don't want her to think that we didn't trust her.
• 37:21
  And she just had this piece about her.
• 37:23
  And I said I think she's OK. And he said I think she's OK
• 37:26
  too. And she did amazing the first
• 37:29
  time we brought another mirror and she just told her where she
• 37:32
  needed to belong. And that wasn't at the top.
• 37:34
  Yep. But she didn't hurt her.
• 37:35
  She didn't. And she told everyone else leave
• 37:37
  her alone, right? This is.
• 37:39
  Great. There's a little piece we didn't
• 37:41
  talk about. So when I brought Super Moose
• 37:43
  home again, Samson was too young.
• 37:46
  He was still on the he was 3 year old.
• 37:48
  Moose and Grace bonded. And then here I show up 9 weeks
• 37:53
  later with Blaze, who used to be the herd stallion, and he wants
• 37:57
  to take his position back. And that was the only time I've
• 38:01
  ever interfered with the goings on of the herd because Moose and
• 38:05
  Blaze were fighting it and Moose went for Blaze's throat.
• 38:09
  He's shorter, so that's place he goes when going up and I broke
• 38:13
  that up. I, I got out there whips and
• 38:15
  snapping and just, I'm making a lot of noise.
• 38:17
  So they break it up and they did.
• 38:19
  That's the only time I've ever broken it up.
• 38:21
  And for a while there, Blaze was running the herd with Grace.
• 38:26
  When we brought Dasani in, Dasani bonded pretty much with
• 38:30
  Blaze and Moose and Grace went back to being moose and Grace,
• 38:34
  which was pretty neat because you usually you see the, the
• 38:37
  herd dynamics. It's like they're all mine, but
• 38:40
  he's he's Blaze isn't like that. It's funny.
• 38:43
  So we talked about getting the goddess Artemis, which was the
• 38:48
  Mother's Day gift. She was naturally gated.
• 38:50
  Now her and Samson have bonded. So now you have we got Dasani.
• 38:55
  After that, she's sort of left out in the cold because there's
• 38:58
  nobody really there individually.
• 39:01
  So, but she hangs around Blaze some, but they always have a
• 39:07
  kick off when they, you know, they just, they kick at each
• 39:10
  other and they fight at each other.
• 39:12
  And it's not it's not there's no damage being done.
• 39:15
  It's just, you know, they, it's it's fun to watch.
• 39:18
  Yeah. So you realize what's where the
• 39:20
  actual her dynamics is. And now we just got our last
• 39:23
  after we got Dasani, but she was the last one for 2023.
• 39:28
  We got the two big boys in 2024 in March.
• 39:32
  Those are the two draft horses, Sir Maximus and Sir Orion.
• 39:35
  We got them in March of last year.
• 39:38
  And then the last one we got, our 8th Mustang and 10th horse
• 39:42
  was Pippi Longstocking. She came to us in December.
• 39:46
  I went and picked her up. You've got Dasani Argentina and
• 39:51
  Pippi Longstocking all came from that program for inner city
• 39:56
  girls, the Mustang program for new city girls at Chattanooga.
• 39:59
  Again, Asani was, she's green broke.
• 40:01
  She does well, but she has she, when we got her, she was 7 and
• 40:06
  she has some arthritis issues. And then Pippi was trained and
• 40:10
  they're, they're worried about her growth plates.
• 40:12
  So they didn't want to keep her up there.
• 40:14
  She's only a three-year old, so she's mixed in well.
• 40:17
  Originally the big boys, we thought we were going to have to
• 40:20
  keep them separate because they were obviously workhorses,
• 40:23
  right? And they were sent to slaughter
• 40:25
  because they had injuries or they were old.
• 40:28
  And by the time we got them, it was actually our tip trainer in
• 40:32
  Leeds who called us and said, look, there's these two horses
• 40:35
  and they're a kill pen and, and I want to rescue them, will you
• 40:38
  take them? And we said, oh boy, you know, I
• 40:40
  knew how much that was going to cost to feed them.
• 40:42
  Yeah. But what happened for Dave was,
• 40:46
  you know, think about it, here are these horses in their close
• 40:49
  to 20s. He's mid 20s for one of them.
• 40:51
  And they'd worked all their lives, just like Dave worked all
• 40:54
  his life in the military. And then they basically said, we
• 40:57
  don't want you anymore, right? Throw you out.
• 40:59
  And so I could see for him that this was important.
• 41:03
  And, you know, they got them to our house.
• 41:05
  They had to get a special trailer because they're so huge
• 41:07
  and they were each about 600 lbs underweight.
• 41:11
  Goodness. So every rib was shown.
• 41:14
  Every bone. Hips.
• 41:15
  The hollow between the hips and the ribs were like this.
• 41:17
  Yeah, it was bad. And they had, it was like
• 41:20
  necrotic skin, one of them, like one of them that where all the
• 41:23
  harnesses were, it was all scar tissue that was all open and
• 41:26
  either bleeding or black and the skin was falling off.
• 41:29
  So it took a lot of care, you know, and we've built them up
• 41:32
  and they're great. And at first when we got them,
• 41:34
  they definitely didn't trust people, so one of them would
• 41:37
  growl like I'd never heard a. Horse.
• 41:39
  That's unusual. Right.
• 41:41
  I guess it's not unusual for drafts, which I didn't know that
• 41:45
  right, like they. Didn't either.
• 41:46
  They're very different, right? And so imagine Mustangs and now
• 41:50
  drafts. So we kept them separate because
• 41:51
  we didn't know what to do. And their drafts are so big, you
• 41:54
  know, but they're not as agile. But they can kick.
• 41:58
  For sure, they have a lot of power behind them.
• 42:00
  It's fun to watch them run. They don't do that very often,
• 42:02
  but it's fun to watch them run. Right.
• 42:04
  And so we really worked. I'm building them up, building
• 42:07
  them up, building them up. And then and when I say the
• 42:09
  growling kind of what we discovered was they were very
• 42:13
  anxious around their feet. The first time the vet came out
• 42:16
  they had to anesthetize them to even get the there were shoes on
• 42:20
  one of them on the front. All four?
• 42:22
  Was it all four? Yeah, we got two of them off.
• 42:24
  OK, We had to wait since the other one fell off.
• 42:26
  So because they were very aggressive towards people
• 42:29
  touching their feet and we still didn't understand why, right.
• 42:32
  And so then we built stocks. So we thought, well, we'll put
• 42:34
  stop build stock so we can get them in these stocks.
• 42:36
  So we built these huge crazy stocks.
• 42:39
  They were great. They went in the stocks.
• 42:41
  Walk right in. Yeah, walk right in, but don't,
• 42:44
  right. So it was probably about a month
• 42:47
  or so ago I noticed blood on one of their feet and I'm like, OK,
• 42:51
  I'm going to have to touch you, you know.
• 42:52
  So he let me touch him and when I it was all sores, all back
• 42:57
  here. And then when I touched around,
• 42:58
  it's all scar tissue. So they must have chained them
• 43:01
  to like that's how they tie him right to.
• 43:04
  That's the same leg that's got the bad tendon up in the knee
• 43:08
  area. So he, he has pretty bad
• 43:10
  arthritis and other issues that particular 1.
• 43:13
  So we're just continuing to take our time and be gentle, right,
• 43:17
  and treat them the best we can with medicines and things like
• 43:20
  that. One of them takes a daily pill.
• 43:22
  The other one takes a daily like a natural supplement to try to
• 43:25
  help relieve some of the pain. But integrating them into the
• 43:28
  herd. It's been very interesting to
• 43:30
  see that. Because we had them separated in
• 43:33
  a couple acres from the herd itself, and the herd itself had
• 43:37
  five acres or five to seven acres that they were able to run
• 43:40
  in. But they were nose to nose
• 43:42
  during that entire time. And then we decided to take down
• 43:45
  everything because I tore down the arena, which was around the
• 43:49
  first 3 stalls that we built. And I'm building a full arena
• 43:53
  all the way around now. Stalls all the way around that
• 43:55
  arena because we got. A nice.
• 43:57
  We got an Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs grant to finish
• 44:00
  the six houses, which we haven't really talked about.
• 44:02
  We might get into that, but we're talking horses right now.
• 44:06
  That's a lot. A 54 by 70 foot pole barn out
• 44:11
  there that we got put up through that we're in a, we're in
• 44:15
  transition. All of our corral, all of our
• 44:18
  corral panels ended up being temporary stalls outside because
• 44:24
  the only time we put them in the stall is when we feed them,
• 44:27
  which is in stalls otherwise or, or when we do when the Ferrier
• 44:31
  comes. And most of the time she does
• 44:33
  them out in the out in the open. Yeah, he doesn't care.
• 44:36
  So they have the whole range of the 37 acres, It's all fenced
• 44:40
  and that's with the pond and that's the donkeys and the big
• 44:44
  courses. And.
• 44:45
  The veterans house that we have that veterans come and stay at,
• 44:49
  the horses go right up to it, like so they could come out in
• 44:52
  the morning and have their coffee and there's horses or
• 44:53
  donkeys. There's their herd of horses.
• 44:55
  Yeah, and we got one donkey to walk right up to the door.
• 44:58
  Right up the up the stair. Yeah, and let me in, huh?
• 45:01
  Pretty much. Yeah.
• 45:03
  So part of what our mission is, if you go on to her and I'll get
• 45:07
  this part in there right, Samson Strength Sustainable Veterans
• 45:09
  Project. On Facebook.
• 45:11
  On Facebook and also if you Google search that or if you go
• 45:14
  on Facebook, it'll take you right to our website is that we
• 45:17
  believe that veterans in particular our target population
• 45:21
  are men. They're higher risk for suicide,
• 45:23
  they're higher risk for substance use disorders, and
• 45:26
  it's very difficult to find placements for them for
• 45:29
  transitional housing. Reason being is because it's not
• 45:32
  that it's easy and really easy for others, but for someone
• 45:35
  that's actually got significant physical disabilities, they
• 45:38
  qualify for more things, right? Or for women, or for women with
• 45:41
  children. They qualify for different
• 45:43
  services. Already programs out.
• 45:45
  There, right, So a lot of young men, I say young men, but you
• 45:48
  know, really we've had people from the age of early teens up
• 45:52
  until 60s there's not a whole lot of places for them.
• 45:55
  So they're staying on someone's couch or they're borrowing a
• 45:58
  camper, or they're doing this, or they're doing that, but
• 46:01
  they're not really going anywhere right there.
• 46:03
  So they're considered homeless. And we say transitional not
• 46:07
  because necessarily we're looking at transitional all the
• 46:09
  time from military to civilian life, but what we look at is
• 46:13
  that these guys very often never transition to civilian life.
• 46:16
  And so we're providing transitional services now where
• 46:20
  they can come, they can learn about what their benefits are
• 46:23
  with the VA, with the government, learn about
• 46:25
  educational opportunities, vocational opportunities while
• 46:29
  they're with us. We engage them in doing things
• 46:32
  with the horses. We have an aquaponics project,
• 46:35
  so we've got fish and plants in our greenhouse.
• 46:38
  We do gardening, we do canning, and we have a freeze dryer.
• 46:42
  And all of those things we're trying to teach sustainable
• 46:44
  living, right? So we engage them in that when
• 46:47
  they're there, if they want to, we don't force them to.
• 46:50
  We do kind of have an expectation that someone will be
• 46:53
  participating, being with us on the farm.
• 46:56
  Right, we usually look for 5 to 8 hours a week volunteer time.
• 47:00
  Yeah. And which is usually, why don't
• 47:03
  you come out and feed the horses with us in the morning?
• 47:04
  And the reason we do that is because we usually feed by 7:00
• 47:07
  AM. So we have an expectation you're
• 47:09
  up and out of your. House up and going.
• 47:11
  Right. Yeah.
• 47:12
  And so after that then we could say, OK, what's your plan for
• 47:15
  the day, right. And what are some things we like
• 47:17
  to engage them in involvement in the community.
• 47:20
  So when there's an older veteran that might need a ride
• 47:22
  somewhere, if, if our veteran can drive, we ask them to do
• 47:25
  that. We, we do a lot.
• 47:27
  That's really what we want to do is get them moving forward,
• 47:31
  right. And so again, it's transitional
• 47:33
  housing, it's small footprint homes.
• 47:35
  If you go on our Facebook page and our website, you can see
• 47:38
  what they look like. The homes that we're building on
• 47:40
  that other piece of property, there's six homes being built.
• 47:44
  The ones Dave was talking about, five of them will house two
• 47:47
  people each. Part of what we've learned, like
• 47:50
  you said, it's everything's a learning process with horses and
• 47:52
  humans. Sure is, yeah.
• 47:54
  Is that if it's really, really comfortable there, people don't
• 47:58
  want to leave? I can tell you how comfortable
• 47:59
  it is down there. Every once in a while is so
• 48:01
  quiet down there and it sits on a 3 1/2 acre pond.
• 48:05
  So you overlook the pond and they're sitting outside and it's
• 48:08
  just a little one bedroom bath kitchen area with a nice comfy
• 48:12
  chair. Every once in a while I go down
• 48:14
  there. Yeah, sounds great.
• 48:16
  And Dave's like, where are you at?
• 48:17
  At the house, right. The tidy house.
• 48:19
  But it's, it is a very peaceful place.
• 48:22
  And that's part of what we want and what we notice when guys
• 48:25
  come there and you know, they can't believe how quiet it is.
• 48:29
  And when we had the open house this weekend is quite a few,
• 48:32
  quite a few people that were coming through were talking
• 48:34
  about how peaceful that housing area was because it sits, you
• 48:39
  can see it a little bit from the road, but not much.
• 48:42
  Most of it you can't see. It's down in a little hollow.
• 48:46
  You know, I kept the big trees that were in the center of it.
• 48:50
  So, you know, because normal contractors, what we did do,
• 48:53
  right, it's all gone, put it on, you know, put it up and then
• 48:56
  start growing new stuff. But I took the time and we built
• 48:59
  around old growth so that we had that already in place and it
• 49:04
  makes a big difference. And that's the piece I think
• 49:06
  too, is that you can see we're not really great at Tooting our
• 49:10
  own horn, but we took a lot of time to, we didn't just say this
• 49:14
  is where they're going to go. And we're whatever we did.
• 49:16
  Right is when Dave places the barn, like if you look at the
• 49:19
  photo on the Facebook page, it's a picture looking down into the
• 49:23
  barn on a foggy day with the fog on the mist on the pond, and one
• 49:28
  of the big horses is standing in there.
• 49:30
  When he put that barn on in that position, I was like, what the
• 49:33
  heck. Is he?
• 49:33
  Because it's not square with anything?
• 49:35
  I'm thinking what it's square with is the prevailing wind.
• 49:38
  Is the wind he stood out there and he felt it, you know, and
• 49:42
  but that's what I was also like, why are you putting it there
• 49:44
  like that doesn't make any sense to me, right.
• 49:46
  It doesn't make sense how you're doing this or how you're doing
• 49:48
  that. He's like, just wait, you know,
• 49:51
  Because I don't think that way, he thinks.
• 49:54
  We have very different thought patterns.
• 49:56
  But yeah, I know how that goes. Yeah.
• 49:58
  But that's, again, that's the other part where we can talk and
• 50:01
  share. And when we're doing this, when
• 50:02
  we do the work with couples, right, we don't think the same.
• 50:06
  And very often, because we don't think the same, we butt heads.
• 50:08
  Yeah. And then someone has to step
• 50:10
  back and say, OK, look, let's let's just slow down here.
• 50:13
  And it's usually not me. I got no fuse and no filter
• 50:16
  anymore. Yeah.
• 50:17
  Well, I've gotten better at it being me because it used to be
• 50:20
  where I was like. Yeah.
• 50:22
  Toe to toe with this boy. And I'll tell you what you want
• 50:24
  that psychological stuff in. I'm good at that, right?
• 50:27
  So, but we joke about it, we talk about it now and and I
• 50:30
  think that also helps in those experiences, you know?
• 50:34
  Sure. So are there any questions that
• 50:35
  you have? And we've talked for an hour.
• 50:38
  Yeah, I know the time is flying by.
• 50:41
  Yeah. I thought it would be good to
• 50:43
  talk about you kind of mentioned both of you how the horses have
• 50:46
  helped you separately to talk about maybe that and how you
• 50:49
  drew that into your to your setup that horses are going to
• 50:52
  be part of this service that we're providing well.
• 50:55
  The big piece about it is has been starting with the Masterson
• 50:58
  for me because again I are working with horses until 20/21
• 51:02
  when we got to. Yeah, you guys, you guys went
• 51:05
  fast. Yeah, I'm not.
• 51:07
  Are you in the point? Zero to 60.
• 51:10
  Yeah, but there's no more. We we've been offered horses and
• 51:13
  we've turned them down because we have what we need in our herd
• 51:17
  to work with the mental E equine experiential learning and
• 51:21
  training. We don't need to add any more to
• 51:23
  that. It takes a while for a horse to
• 51:25
  integrate into that. Pippi was the last one.
• 51:27
  She came in in December and she just fell right in because, like
• 51:30
  I said, she's a three-year old, so it's not a big deal.
• 51:33
  Yeah, life's easy when you're young and don't know any better.
• 51:35
  You just take whatever's coming at you.
• 51:37
  Yeah. But working with the Masterson
• 51:39
  for me has allowed me to reach out and get in touch with the
• 51:43
  horses. It makes such a big difference
• 51:45
  for me. Like I said, when I went back up
• 51:48
  to Ohio in mid, mid-september 2022 to work with Blaze and see
• 51:53
  about getting him trained, I started working the Masterson
• 51:56
  piece because I've just been to the course and it's like, yeah.
• 51:59
  Yeah, let's try this stuff out. It works and I would work with
• 52:02
  some of the other horses in the barn and it was funny because
• 52:05
  the barn would calm down. The whole.
• 52:09
  Not just the horse, but the barn, because this one would
• 52:12
  settle down. The entire change in energy.
• 52:15
  And the energy would change and you'd see it.
• 52:17
  And I went from again Blaze when he would go poop and post.
• 52:24
  The energy just flattened everything.
• 52:26
  Just, you know, everything went up.
• 52:28
  And having worked with him, I still don't have full touch on
• 52:32
  him three years later or go 2 1/2 years later.
• 52:35
  But I'll walk up to the middle of field, scratch his head,
• 52:37
  scratch his ears. Sometimes it'll let me work
• 52:40
  down. Just the last two months he's
• 52:42
  really started letting me work his side and his back.
• 52:45
  But he's he needs to get used to it because it's such a different
• 52:49
  feeling for him. Yeah, I think we forget that
• 52:52
  sometimes how different the world we're bringing them into
• 52:55
  is. And I just, I take it at his
• 52:57
  pace. And I've had people say how come
• 52:59
  you don't? Because I don't.
• 53:00
  Need it? Yeah.
• 53:01
  I'm not. I don't care whether I ride him
• 53:03
  or not. That's not my goal.
• 53:06
  My goal is for him to trust me. That's the key.
• 53:09
  Beautiful. So I work with him and, and
• 53:11
  currently he does. Kathy got a good video last week
• 53:14
  of that. I think it was Saturday.
• 53:16
  Yeah, Sunday, something like that.
• 53:18
  But she got a good video of me working with him.
• 53:20
  And, you know, it's all about respect.
• 53:22
  And when he pulls away, I just back off and then take a couple
• 53:26
  of seconds to step back in. You know, sometimes it takes
• 53:29
  three times and it'll let me in. But it is what it is.
• 53:32
  And where was I going with this? How?
• 53:35
  It's helped you too. You know, working with the other
• 53:38
  horses, I worked with all of the different horses, the two big
• 53:41
  guys. The day after we got them there
• 53:44
  again we talked about Orion grunting and just sort.
• 53:48
  Of it's like growling. Yeah, he just.
• 53:51
  If you get too close in his face, that's what he was doing
• 53:54
  or too, yeah. Letting you know this is not OK.
• 53:57
  But I worked with him with the masters in piece and was working
• 54:00
  as Platter Meridian from this far away.
• 54:03
  I was 6 foot away and just worked 45 minutes one side, 45
• 54:08
  minutes the other side and could see the tension release and the
• 54:11
  relaxation that he was getting. And the next day, we had four
• 54:15
  boys grooming him. It was the change was that was
• 54:20
  that tremendous. And he's been like that since he
• 54:23
  has some days he's kicked at me once, but that's because it was
• 54:26
  on ice and I was trying to move him.
• 54:28
  And that's that was my fault. And I realized it afterwards.
• 54:32
  But I yeah, I stay off to the side.
• 54:34
  I don't get right. They let us know when
• 54:36
  something's not right with them. Working with the horses has
• 54:39
  brought me down. It helps me to center, it helps
• 54:41
  me to ground and I just, I love being out there with them.
• 54:45
  I can't wait till I get everything built so I can spend
• 54:47
  more time with them. Yeah, hopefully, if you guys
• 54:51
  don't take on more projects. No, no, no.
• 54:54
  I'm pretty much done after this. Once we finish with this in the
• 54:57
  rescue area, I'm done. Yeah.
• 55:00
  Yeah. For me, but it again, it's I
• 55:04
  believed in the power of horses, right?
• 55:06
  I've always believed in the power of horses.
• 55:07
  When I was in grad school and doing my graduate research, I
• 55:11
  was in Tennessee at Austin P State University, and we had a
• 55:14
  research requirement and I said, I want to study horses and
• 55:17
  humans. And they looked at me like I was
• 55:19
  crazy, You know, like, yeah, through the IRB, which is you've
• 55:23
  got to go through an Institutional Review Board,
• 55:25
  right? Well, I'm going to do it.
• 55:27
  Are you going to, How are you going to find anyone?
• 55:29
  I don't know. I'll find someone.
• 55:31
  So at that time I found a woman named Boo McDaniel who was in
• 55:35
  New Hampshire and she was starting to look at equine
• 55:38
  facilitated mental health way back when.
• 55:41
  This was 199899. And so I said I want to do this
• 55:45
  research. She goes, well, I think I have
• 55:47
  just a place to do it right. You can use our horses even
• 55:50
  though I'm in Tennessee and you're in New Hampshire.
• 55:52
  So I went and I met them and everything and we worked
• 55:54
  together with the local middle school and the school guidance
• 55:58
  counselor and we had students do an 8 week program.
• 56:01
  And so there was a control group that did nothing, stayed at the
• 56:05
  school. And then there was a group that
• 56:06
  came to the program and they basically for eight weeks just
• 56:10
  went an hour a week and they groomed the horses.
• 56:13
  They learned about, excuse me, like parts of the horse, horse
• 56:17
  care, the saddle and all that. And I think the last day they
• 56:21
  probably had a ride, right? It was a riding, but it was only
• 56:24
  8 hours total. And we did a self esteem measure
• 56:27
  and a child's depression measure and we saw significant results
• 56:33
  in those eight weeks and statistically significant.
• 56:36
  Like my professors were blown away, right?
• 56:38
  And it was really exciting. And so that research kind of
• 56:42
  spearheaded some other research to happen after I graduated and
• 56:45
  whatever, not at my university, but for Boo and the Equi
• 56:48
  facilitated mental health world. And so, you know, if you've done
• 56:51
  much about looking into it is there's very little research
• 56:55
  that actually it's anecdotal. It's what we say like how when
• 56:58
  we saw it make a difference, this person was able to get
• 57:01
  through this barrier or whatever, but there's not actual
• 57:03
  documented scientific research. So there is now there's more and
• 57:08
  the horses for mental health, which Dave and I are a part of,
• 57:11
  and I'm going to bring that in right now.
• 57:13
  Yeah, tell us about it. So Horses for Mental Health is
• 57:16
  actually international, but they do programs where they actually
• 57:20
  fund research to look at what are the benefits, where are the
• 57:24
  benefits. There's benefit.
• 57:25
  There's research for hippotherapy, right?
• 57:27
  Because it's easy to measure physical change, it's not to
• 57:31
  measure the psychological or the emotional change.
• 57:33
  So they're starting to look more at that.
• 57:35
  My focus, and our focus of course is veterans.
• 57:38
  So we look a lot at trauma. So there's a trauma measurement
• 57:41
  scale called the PTS or the PCL post traumatic checklist.
• 57:45
  And so those are used pretest and a post test checklist to
• 57:49
  kind of see if there are changes in the person's, you know, what
• 57:52
  they're experiencing for trauma responses or experiences.
• 57:56
  And there's also self esteem. There's also like a
• 57:58
  connectedness assessment, how do people feel connected to
• 58:02
  themselves, to others around them?
• 58:04
  That we do a pre and a post measure.
• 58:07
  There's a lot of research that's coming out right now about that.
• 58:09
  Another part of Horses for Mental Health is every year for
• 58:12
  the last four years during the month of May, which is Mental
• 58:15
  Health Awareness Month, they do a campaign called As Seen
• 58:18
  Through Horses and we were invited to be one of the 95
• 58:22
  nonprofits in the United States, Ireland and Canada.
• 58:25
  And so it starts tomorrow, May 1st.
• 58:27
  I'm not sure when this is going to show, but.
• 58:29
  Yeah, probably a little bit after that.
• 58:31
  So it's probably already started by the time people are hearing
• 58:33
  this, but should be in full swing.
• 58:35
  So the Horses for Mental Health and the As Seen Through Horses
• 58:38
  campaign is an amazing campaign. So the Horses for Mental Health
• 58:42
  obtained sponsors that would cover a fundraising platform.
• 58:46
  So when someone donates to the nonprofit, like our nonprofit,
• 58:50
  which is one of the 95, all the money that they donate comes
• 58:53
  directly to us. They don't take a fee, they
• 58:55
  don't take anything like that. So if I donate $10, the
• 58:59
  nonprofit gets $10 because it's being sponsored by the large
• 59:03
  sponsors, which is great. So we'll be putting out videos
• 59:07
  during the month of May on our Facebook page, on our Instagram
• 59:11
  as well, which is the Samson Strength.
• 59:13
  But it's really to raise awareness about the benefits of
• 59:17
  horses for mental health. There's some amazing videos that
• 59:19
  they have put together, they share about veterans and their
• 59:23
  experiences. You know, we've had veterans
• 59:25
  that have come here and they've spent time with Dave and I and
• 59:29
  the horses, and they leave and they say this is the most
• 59:32
  relaxed I felt, you know? Or they go home and their family
• 59:36
  member sends a message saying, I don't know what happened there,
• 59:39
  but they're talking today. Right.
• 59:42
  We've had the same thing with kids.
• 59:43
  Yeah, lots with. Tell us the little story.
• 59:45
  Because that makes a big sense. Which one about?
• 59:48
  Famous. OK, the first two.
• 59:50
  Yeah, so we had Samson and Moose had laid down out in the field,
• 59:54
  right? And you know, the Mustangs, you
• 59:56
  know how they are. They're just So what you see is
• 59:59
  what you get. They're present when they're
• 1:00:00
  feeling yes and whatnot, right. And so I said, well, you could.
• 1:00:04
  I figured Samson would be fine, right?
• 1:00:05
  Because he's the laid back. Kind of goofy, but laid back.
• 1:00:08
  So the boys went over and they just laid down with Sampson.
• 1:00:11
  He was snoring and everything, and they're just loving on him.
• 1:00:14
  And then the other boy walked around to Moose and Moose.
• 1:00:18
  No one had ever sat next to Moose or gone next to Moose when
• 1:00:21
  he was laying down. So he always gets up when you
• 1:00:23
  go. By gets up right away.
• 1:00:25
  Yeah. So he got very.
• 1:00:26
  Common. Right.
• 1:00:27
  That I got nervous, right. And so I'm just, I'm videotaping
• 1:00:31
  it. And at the same time I'm
• 1:00:32
  thinking, OK, calm down, right? Take a breath.
• 1:00:35
  Yeah. This young man, kind of like
• 1:00:37
  Dave did that first day with the brush, walking into that
• 1:00:39
  Mustang. He just walked right over to him
• 1:00:41
  and Moose didn't move. And he started petting him and
• 1:00:44
  he sat down with Moose. Moose was set up, his head was
• 1:00:46
  up, but he was pretty relaxed and he started touching either
• 1:00:50
  side of his face and he was just petting him.
• 1:00:53
  And on the video I heard him say, I do believe this is the
• 1:00:57
  most relaxed I've ever been in my life.
• 1:00:59
  He says Miss Kathy is the most relaxed I've ever been in my
• 1:01:02
  life. Yes, now this is a or 13 year
• 1:01:06
  old boy. Yes, it was just amazing, right.
• 1:01:09
  And for him, I think in that moment, it created such a level
• 1:01:13
  of confidence and security that he felt comfortable really
• 1:01:17
  engaging with all the horses. And he's one of our he really
• 1:01:20
  upset. Go out.
• 1:01:20
  Can you go out and get the big boys?
• 1:01:22
  And he'll just go out, get the big boys right.
• 1:01:24
  And I'll say, do you feel comfortable grooming the big
• 1:01:26
  boys? He's like, Oh yeah, I got it,
• 1:01:27
  Miss Kathy, right. And he does.
• 1:01:29
  And they're both, they're all have learned so much about how
• 1:01:32
  to be in tune with the horses and in tune with themselves.
• 1:01:35
  And they're mom has shared with us the confidence that she's
• 1:01:38
  seen. And so that's been really,
• 1:01:40
  really great to see that. They're both mother and father
• 1:01:44
  are both prior service veterans. He retired from the service.
• 1:01:48
  She got out after about 10. Yeah.
• 1:01:50
  Then we've had other kids that have come out and with a lot of
• 1:01:54
  anxiety prior to and we say just bring them out, you know, and on
• 1:01:59
  the ride home, I'll get a message.
• 1:02:01
  You know, I can't believe she can't stop talking about it,
• 1:02:03
  right? She's talking about this horse
• 1:02:05
  and and one person drove an hour and a half to get here.
• 1:02:08
  And of course the kids were complaining on the way here.
• 1:02:10
  But then on, yeah, stop talking about.
• 1:02:13
  So I gave him a referral to a closer barn where they might be
• 1:02:16
  able to do some stuff. And and the little girl said,
• 1:02:18
  but is Grace going to be there? You know, Grace isn't there.
• 1:02:21
  I don't want to go. And so it's just amazing to me
• 1:02:24
  because I think, you know, there's this thing about the
• 1:02:27
  Mustangs, it's so different. I'm not can't fall in love with
• 1:02:30
  a domestic horse. You absolutely can.
• 1:02:33
  Yeah, for sure. But when Mustangs trust, they
• 1:02:36
  give it. They give it all.
• 1:02:38
  And even Blaze Blaze's thing with him is it's kind of like
• 1:02:42
  he's aloof. Like, look, I allowed you people
• 1:02:45
  to bring me here, right? I'm going to take charge of this
• 1:02:48
  herd for you. I'll make sure, but don't push
• 1:02:51
  it, right? You know.
• 1:02:52
  And we're like, I'm a herd stallion.
• 1:02:53
  What are you guys thinking you're doing?
• 1:02:55
  Right. And the part that to me is so
• 1:02:57
  why he gets along with Dave so great is because Dave was, you
• 1:03:01
  know, he was an officer. He started out enlisted and he
• 1:03:04
  worked his way up. Thing about Blaze, he didn't
• 1:03:06
  just walk into the stallion role.
• 1:03:08
  Yeah, nobody handed it to him. Yeah, Either way, you.
• 1:03:11
  Got the scars to prove it right. Right.
• 1:03:14
  And there's this part of don't tell me what you want me to do
• 1:03:18
  and they get along great than Stew.
• 1:03:21
  Understand each other. And it and I for me, I just
• 1:03:24
  every time I marvel, right. And like this past weekend when
• 1:03:28
  we had the Mustangs, we had the open house.
• 1:03:30
  So we brought Moose and Grayson and they were in an area and at
• 1:03:34
  first I had the round pen and people, people, I had them
• 1:03:36
  because I wasn't sure how they were going to react.
• 1:03:38
  You know, they've never been around that many people.
• 1:03:40
  I had the round pen. They were outside the round pen.
• 1:03:43
  All the people and the horses were inside, right?
• 1:03:46
  A person with each horse that handles them, that knows them.
• 1:03:49
  You know, one of the students and we had that morning had hung
• 1:03:52
  flags up by the barn. And I'm thinking, oh, this is.
• 1:03:55
  To make it more exciting. You see what I'm going with
• 1:03:58
  that's. Right, I can feel it, the
• 1:04:00
  anxiety. But they didn't even react.
• 1:04:03
  And, and part of it is because when we had the arena before, I
• 1:04:06
  would hang up kites, Walmart kites to fly whenever the wind
• 1:04:10
  came. Fun.
• 1:04:14
  Up high enough. And so they were used to.
• 1:04:16
  They looked at the flags there. Huh, What's that?
• 1:04:18
  And then they didn't. Another weird thing they're
• 1:04:20
  humans doing. By mid morning, people coming, I
• 1:04:24
  just said, oh, just come on in. So they all came in and they're
• 1:04:27
  all around the horses and we're talking about the horses and the
• 1:04:30
  horses were so great, you know, and I was so impressed with how
• 1:04:34
  what it really helped me to see is that this herd trusts me, you
• 1:04:39
  know, because I was the person that was doing the work that
• 1:04:41
  day. And then when Dave came, they
• 1:04:42
  were the same. They they trust that we're going
• 1:04:44
  to keep them safe. Yeah.
• 1:04:46
  And the energy that you're going to bring to them, you know that
• 1:04:49
  you were. And I think that just shows like
• 1:04:51
  you were there to protect them, you know, until you saw
• 1:04:53
  everything was OK. I think they know that.
• 1:04:56
  Yeah, I think they know that too.
• 1:04:58
  And I mean, when you walk in and you just bring your energy down,
• 1:05:00
  ground yourself, it makes a big difference because like I said,
• 1:05:04
  I've watched the Barn when I was up north change.
• 1:05:06
  I've seen a change down here too.
• 1:05:08
  Over the years, Blaze has gone from the pop to just.
• 1:05:11
  He just pays attention. He.
• 1:05:13
  Just pays attention. He's dropped the heavy duty.
• 1:05:16
  Well, the fight, the fight, fight Fighter Freeze.
• 1:05:18
  And we talk a lot about Fighter Freeze, right?
• 1:05:21
  And how Mustangs are the perfect example of that for veterans.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah, very good visual for how it works in US as well.
• 1:05:28
  Right when the donkeys got out that day, Dave and I were on the
• 1:05:31
  way to a wedding. So and then our friends, the
• 1:05:34
  father of the boys and one of the boys came to try to get the
• 1:05:38
  donkeys in. And what he said to us was that
• 1:05:42
  blaze, he had his head way up high and he was actually kind of
• 1:05:46
  like rearing up, like pay attention.
• 1:05:48
  I'm in charge of this herd. I don't know who you people are
• 1:05:50
  and what are you doing right to my herd.
• 1:05:52
  And we've never seen that, like at least not recent.
• 1:05:56
  And it but what it made me realize is that, you know, as
• 1:05:59
  soon as we got there, they all walked away, right?
• 1:06:02
  They're all calm. No, but that they still this,
• 1:06:06
  it's just like anything else. When a new person comes on the
• 1:06:09
  scene, right? Everyone's paying attention.
• 1:06:11
  Like think about it, how you relate it to high school, middle
• 1:06:14
  school, elementary, The new kid shows up, Everyone pays
• 1:06:17
  attention. If something comes in that's a
• 1:06:19
  threat, everyone pays attention, right?
• 1:06:21
  But how do they pay attention? There's one that pays attention
• 1:06:24
  prepared to step in and then others that just kind of get
• 1:06:27
  away, right? And so every, that's the part.
• 1:06:31
  Like you said, everything can be related to human behavior.
• 1:06:35
  And so when I did that equine thing in grad school, before I
• 1:06:38
  did it, I took a week long course in equine experiential
• 1:06:42
  therapy. It was through on site, which
• 1:06:44
  was in Tennessee and the Sierra Tucson program.
• 1:06:48
  And so they came out and taught us about how to work with horses
• 1:06:50
  as therapists, right? And it really helped me to
• 1:06:53
  understand how to integrate that, you know, that everything
• 1:06:57
  can be used and that what they did there and what we do with
• 1:07:01
  ours is that we tell the stories of everyone in the herd, right?
• 1:07:04
  Tell the story about the different horses before we even
• 1:07:07
  pair you up with a horse. And then we ask you to pick
• 1:07:09
  which horse you'd like to work with, OK?
• 1:07:12
  And people will either like, gravitate towards Blaze because
• 1:07:16
  he's the unworkable, he's the illusion, right?
• 1:07:19
  Yeah, the challenge the tough. I'm always like, yeah, OK,
• 1:07:22
  whatever, try it, you know, but or they'll go to like Grace with
• 1:07:26
  a story, right? Or or Argentina with a story how
• 1:07:30
  she's orphaned, right? Or the big boys because of their
• 1:07:33
  suffering, right? Or because they're just so
• 1:07:35
  massive, you know, and it's just so interesting to see what they
• 1:07:39
  can. Then you could take that into
• 1:07:41
  who are you and how do you present?
• 1:07:43
  Like when you go get a new job, right?
• 1:07:44
  How do you react to respond when you go to a new job?
• 1:07:47
  What's the position you immediately gravitate towards,
• 1:07:50
  right? How do you react to respond in a
• 1:07:52
  relationship and an interpersonal relationship?
• 1:07:54
  If you're in a person that's been in domestic violence
• 1:07:57
  situations or, you know, potentially sexual traumatic
• 1:08:00
  situations, what type of people are you getting in relationships
• 1:08:03
  with? It'll show up in the interaction
• 1:08:05
  with the horses, which then can be discussed in a therapeutic
• 1:08:08
  way. Yeah.
• 1:08:10
  Kathy's brought the guys from where she works during the week.
• 1:08:14
  I work at a substance use inpatient program.
• 1:08:17
  She brought them down there. We've had actually when, when
• 1:08:19
  the corral was there or or the arena, we'd sit everybody in a
• 1:08:23
  chair in the arena and just let the horses wander through on to
• 1:08:27
  watch. Who the horses would pick?
• 1:08:29
  Yeah. And then we would ask them, why
• 1:08:31
  do you think they picked you? Why did they come to you?
• 1:08:33
  What was it? Well, they were more inviting,
• 1:08:35
  right? They were more welcoming to the
• 1:08:37
  person. What was it about their energy,
• 1:08:40
  you know? Are they blocked?
• 1:08:41
  And so all of these things, you don't have to be a therapist to
• 1:08:44
  do it. You know, it's it's not therapy
• 1:08:46
  per SE, although it can be integrated into therapy.
• 1:08:49
  Therapeutic. It's therapeutic.
• 1:08:51
  For. Sure, right.
• 1:08:53
  The the connection, mind, body, spirit, all of those components,
• 1:08:57
  right. The body part, my breath.
• 1:08:59
  I'm learning about breathing and slowing my breath down and, and
• 1:09:02
  I'm not doing it for myself. I'm we tell them by slowing down
• 1:09:05
  your breath, you help the horse to feel safe.
• 1:09:07
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:09:08
  That's a common theme I've seen is that people aren't willing to
• 1:09:11
  do it for themselves, but it's like when they have someone else
• 1:09:14
  that they feel like is depending on them, it's like, OK, maybe I
• 1:09:17
  can do this thing now. Especially an animal that might
• 1:09:20
  be scared. Because as soon as you hold your
• 1:09:23
  breath, what's a horse do? It takes a deep breath, stops,
• 1:09:26
  and gets ready to fly. Yeah, they feel the tension
• 1:09:29
  whether you do or not. I think a lot of times we don't
• 1:09:31
  feel it and till we see their reaction.
• 1:09:33
  One of the big things I I, I forced myself to do around the
• 1:09:37
  horses is accentuate my breathing.
• 1:09:39
  So when I'm working, working with Masterson with them, they
• 1:09:42
  hear me breathing. Which when I do that around him
• 1:09:45
  because he's driving me nuts, he.
• 1:09:46
  Goes all right, you're. Breathing again like why are you
• 1:09:48
  breathing like that now maybe you realize we.
• 1:09:51
  Could take the energy down. I wasn't thinking about you, I'm
• 1:09:56
  thinking about myself. So that, that's pretty much it.
• 1:09:58
  I mean, that's, that's how it affects us, I think.
• 1:10:00
  I mean, it's really, I'm just amazed every day.
• 1:10:03
  I'm so grateful that they allow us to be a part of their world.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah, there is something really special that they like us.
• 1:10:10
  I mean, I've said that before, but they seem to enjoy being
• 1:10:13
  around us with all the craziness and trying to figure it out that
• 1:10:17
  we bring to them. I usually walk out every
• 1:10:19
  morning. And when I walk out every
• 1:10:20
  morning, it's like I give a call.
• 1:10:23
  I give a call out. Yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Respond. Grace will respond.
• 1:10:27
  Grace wants food. Blaze is saying hi.
• 1:10:29
  And sometimes we get one more, but it's hard to tell who that
• 1:10:31
  one is. And it's sometimes big boys
• 1:10:33
  answer, I think. I think Maximus answers
• 1:10:35
  occasionally. But the guaranteed one pretty
• 1:10:38
  much is blazing. And Grace.
• 1:10:39
  Grace is looking for food. Yeah.
• 1:10:41
  That is a very common reason why they like us, I'm sure.
• 1:10:44
  Yes, but I think it's deeper also.
• 1:10:48
  I think it's deeper also too, because what's fascinating for
• 1:10:51
  me is that when we bring people out and the herd is out and
• 1:10:53
  about and I say, well, let's walk down and see the herd,
• 1:10:55
  right? You know, sometimes we'll take a
• 1:10:57
  chair or whatever. Sometimes if they person can't
• 1:11:00
  walk real well, we'll take the golf cart down, you know, and
• 1:11:03
  the horses are curious. They want to see who is this
• 1:11:05
  person, you know who you got today and, and we don't, we used
• 1:11:08
  to, but we don't anymore. We don't do treat rewards
• 1:11:11
  because then they just got too pushy.
• 1:11:13
  So we don't do that anymore. They get fed when they get fed
• 1:11:15
  and that's it, right? If they get a treat, they get it
• 1:11:18
  in there. Basically they just come because
• 1:11:21
  they want to see who we are, right?
• 1:11:23
  And then there's some that want attention and they will stay and
• 1:11:26
  they want attention. So our donkeys are notorious
• 1:11:29
  from coming running and turning their butt to you because they
• 1:11:32
  want a butt rub. Yeah.
• 1:11:34
  At Olive we've got a hill, it's about two hundred 250 feet long,
• 1:11:39
  and she came around the edge of the fence, put her ears flat
• 1:11:43
  back, and I'm standing at the bottom by the feet.
• 1:11:45
  Check. Tore down the hill and spun in
• 1:11:48
  front of me and I thought I'm going to die.
• 1:11:50
  Yeah, she wanted a butt. Run, Yeah.
• 1:11:54
  It was urgent. She didn't want you to leave.
• 1:11:57
  She'll come up and she'll back into you.
• 1:11:59
  She'll put that butt back to and it's it's not threatening to the
• 1:12:02
  least. She wants a butt rub.
• 1:12:04
  She wants a butt rub. Jenny wants a butt rub.
• 1:12:06
  Sometimes tango, sometimes foxtrot and then whiskey.
• 1:12:10
  Not so much. He's he's, he hasn't got to that
• 1:12:13
  point yet. He's our feral one.
• 1:12:15
  Out of all of them, he's the most feral, even over the horses
• 1:12:19
  at him since 2017. It's just his, but we let him be
• 1:12:22
  that way. We let him be that way.
• 1:12:24
  It's such quality of life. That's what our vet says.
• 1:12:26
  We'll say something like, well, what should we do about this?
• 1:12:28
  She's like, well, they seem pretty happy, you know?
• 1:12:30
  So yeah, quality of life. Yeah, I mean, that's a huge gift
• 1:12:34
  to give to the animals, to let them let them be kind of be
• 1:12:38
  respectful of Yep, this isn't. You don't enjoy it the way the
• 1:12:41
  other ones do, and that's okay. A lot of times, a lot of times
• 1:12:44
  when it was just the donkeys, they were a little bit chunky.
• 1:12:46
  They've got some extra yeah, neck muscles.
• 1:12:51
  Eating. They're eating the competing
• 1:12:52
  with the horses for the food too, but.
• 1:12:54
  Yeah, probably that and probably a little more energy and stuff
• 1:12:57
  going on for them. Well, we thank you so much,
• 1:13:01
  Charice. Thank you guys for being here.
• 1:13:03
  Your program sounds absolutely incredible from your houses.
• 1:13:08
  I can just see how someone could go there and just like be able
• 1:13:11
  to breathe for a minute to decompress from, from all the
• 1:13:13
  stuff we take in in our modern human world.
• 1:13:16
  And, you know, with the work you're doing with the Mustangs,
• 1:13:19
  I think it's incredible the people that are able to identify
• 1:13:23
  how powerful that is. You know, and we don't use
• 1:13:26
  horses for work like they used to.
• 1:13:28
  But I really think that a big part of them being here for us
• 1:13:30
  now is because this world we live in is overwhelming and over
• 1:13:34
  stimulating. And it's hard and we're facing
• 1:13:36
  challenges. And I think they're kind of
• 1:13:38
  there to be like, hey, it's OK. Like you can breathe and, you
• 1:13:41
  know, you can feel safe here. And I think that's what you're
• 1:13:44
  providing for people, which is really beautiful to see the
• 1:13:46
  pictures. Every time you send me a
• 1:13:48
  picture, it's just an incredible picture of how you can see that,
• 1:13:51
  that connection with the horses and the humans.
• 1:13:53
  And you know, even through the picture, you can feel just the
• 1:13:55
  peace and serenity and healing that's taking place by just
• 1:13:59
  being able to to be in a place that's safe and beautiful and
• 1:14:03
  calm and have that really great connection.
• 1:14:05
  So I really commend you guys for the work you're doing.
• 1:14:08
  I'm glad we were able to to connect and talk about it.
• 1:14:11
  And maybe to end with just give a quick like where can people
• 1:14:15
  find the campaign a quick and we'll include this in notes, but
• 1:14:19
  quick, best place to find you. So it's Samsung Strength
• 1:14:22
  Sustainable Veterans Project is our Facebook page and that's
• 1:14:26
  probably the best, most up to date.
• 1:14:28
  Although we have recently had a donation of our website.
• 1:14:31
  And so our website which is if you Google it, it's either s s
• 1:14:36
  svp.org and that'll put up when you Google it or Samsung
• 1:14:41
  Strength Sustainable Veterans Project, we have another version
• 1:14:45
  of it. So you want to make sure you're
• 1:14:46
  doing Sustainable Veterans Project and but when that's why
• 1:14:51
  if you go to the web or the Facebook page, then you can just
• 1:14:54
  go directly to the. Web.
• 1:14:54
  That's the best place to find everything.
• 1:14:57
  Best place. But if somebody's not on
• 1:14:59
  Facebook, if they just Google Samsung Strength Sustainable
• 1:15:01
  Veterans Project, they'll find that there's stuff on there
• 1:15:04
  about our horses for mental health as seen through Horses
• 1:15:07
  campaign on. It'll be on our Facebook page.
• 1:15:09
  We'll be doing live videos throughout the month.
• 1:15:11
  We've got people that we're going to have come out and talk
• 1:15:14
  to, so that's really great. And your podcasts that we're
• 1:15:16
  going to have on our Facebook page.
• 1:15:18
  Awesome. Yeah, we'll get that up.
• 1:15:20
  Right, it has contact information like e-mail and
• 1:15:24
  phone number and everything also.
• 1:15:25
  OK. And are there ways that people
• 1:15:28
  can support you guys? Is the best way to go through
• 1:15:30
  the campaign? Are there other things people
• 1:15:32
  can do if they want? Yeah.
• 1:15:33
  So we have a ways to support one sheet read is what we call it.
• 1:15:37
  We have an Amazon account under Samsung Strength Sustainable
• 1:15:40
  Veterans Project SSSVP and people can go in and purchase
• 1:15:44
  items for each one of the homes. So homes is listed.
• 1:15:47
  It's like veteran home, 1 veteran home. 2:00 Nice.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah, so people could, if they just want to buy towels for one
• 1:15:53
  of the houses, they could just do a.
• 1:15:54
  Direct contribution right to your doorstep.
• 1:15:57
  Right, there's a PayPal donation link on every page the website
• 1:16:01
  of. The website.
• 1:16:02
  So if you wanted to go to someplace special, we've we've
• 1:16:06
  put out there to fact horses cost a certain amount per year.
• 1:16:10
  You can donate directly to the Horse Nice program.
• 1:16:13
  To the houses. And I keep separate spreadsheets
• 1:16:16
  and whatever comes in. Go.
• 1:16:17
  That's neat. So people can pick like the area
• 1:16:20
  that feels good to them or that they want to donate to.
• 1:16:23
  That's that's really neat. And another way to support,
• 1:16:25
  which it doesn't cost anything, is if they're on social media,
• 1:16:28
  just share it. Right.
• 1:16:29
  Yeah. They might not be able to donate
• 1:16:32
  5 or $10 or whatever, but they might know someone that could,
• 1:16:36
  right? And so share about the power of
• 1:16:38
  horses, particularly for us, the power of Mustangs and rescued
• 1:16:43
  horses and and the trust that happened with.
• 1:16:45
  Humans, like I said, I worked with the Equus effect and they
• 1:16:49
  were all domestics. Little, definitely a little
• 1:16:51
  different. The energy is definitely
• 1:16:53
  different but I was 2013 and I didn't know shit anyway.
• 1:16:57
  Yeah, it's been a long learning process.
• 1:16:59
  Well, fast, not really that long.
• 1:17:01
  A fast learning process from. 2021 till now, yes it's like
• 1:17:04
  that curve has gone straight up. Yeah, it's incredible to just
• 1:17:08
  hear how quickly things have moved for you and how, you know,
• 1:17:12
  you guys just took it on and went for it, which is beautiful.
• 1:17:15
  And that, you know, you have the rescue and the Mustangs, both 22
• 1:17:19
  spectrums of horses that a lot of people consider worthless to
• 1:17:22
  see like they have, they have some really legitimate powerful
• 1:17:27
  things that they can do for for people.
• 1:17:29
  And that's, that's the thing. It's like with the, like with
• 1:17:31
  the big boys, the draft horses, They they came to us.
• 1:17:34
  They were dying. We got them back to health and
• 1:17:37
  they pass off. What, you know, people get up,
• 1:17:40
  They have people love to hug them.
• 1:17:42
  Yeah, must. They're fun to hug.
• 1:17:44
  Yeah. And we've got some pictures out
• 1:17:47
  there from from this past weekend and some folks hugging
• 1:17:50
  them. And I go up to him every morning
• 1:17:53
  and I'll scratch his head, put my head on his head and just
• 1:17:56
  hold her. And he loves it.
• 1:17:58
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:00
  Ryan will let you do that. But in the other part that I
• 1:18:02
  find fascinating is most people, and you probably hear this too,
• 1:18:06
  the first thing that they think when they're coming out to see
• 1:18:09
  horses is that they're going to ride.
• 1:18:10
  Nope. And the first question they have
• 1:18:12
  is when are we going to ride? And we say, not today, right?
• 1:18:16
  And then they'll say, well, do you ride these big horses?
• 1:18:18
  And I said no, you know, the truth is that those horses
• 1:18:20
  worked all their life. You see that mark right there on
• 1:18:23
  his back? That's where a harness that went
• 1:18:25
  right into his back, right? And so we've made a promise to
• 1:18:28
  them that when they came here, they don't ever have to work if
• 1:18:30
  they're. Retired.
• 1:18:31
  Right. And So what their job is, is to
• 1:18:34
  just be big happy guys, right? So, well, we're never going to
• 1:18:38
  ride them. Yeah.
• 1:18:40
  And I think there's a power to that, to being like horses are
• 1:18:43
  about more than riding. I think when we are so focused
• 1:18:47
  on riding, that's often when, you know, they're overlooked.
• 1:18:50
  They're just something that we want to use for what we want.
• 1:18:54
  But that connection, man, it gets strong when you're like,
• 1:18:57
  wait, let's work together on this.
• 1:18:58
  Like, what's going on? What are you thinking?
• 1:19:00
  What is your story? And I love the way you related
• 1:19:04
  stories because I feel that also, you know, it really builds
• 1:19:07
  that empathy and connection, not just with the horses, but kind
• 1:19:11
  of personal insights with other people to be able to, to
• 1:19:14
  understand, like our stories have meanings and the horses
• 1:19:17
  stories have meanings. And you could when you can see a
• 1:19:20
  similarity in a non threatening situation, I'm not looking at
• 1:19:23
  myself, I'm looking at this horse and how like Argentina
• 1:19:26
  reacted and responded right? And how Samson was a goofball
• 1:19:30
  and was just creeping on her, you know, and just use that and
• 1:19:33
  explain it. And people can be like, they
• 1:19:35
  might either be the Argentina or they might be the Samson.
• 1:19:38
  Oh I never really thought that might be how it makes someone
• 1:19:40
  feel if I follow him around. Yeah, I just.
• 1:19:42
  Wanted to know him because that's really what he wanted to
• 1:19:44
  do. He wanted to get to know her.
• 1:19:45
  But he was just doing it in a way that was creepy, Right?
• 1:19:49
  Yeah. And so if you can use those
• 1:19:51
  stories like that, people can see themselves, right?
• 1:19:54
  And identify maybe not necessarily what we call in
• 1:19:57
  treatment character defects, right?
• 1:20:00
  But they could be character traits that get in the way of me
• 1:20:03
  having a relationship with other people.
• 1:20:05
  Yeah. And the things that we desire in
• 1:20:07
  life are the things we need. And like making some little
• 1:20:10
  changes because you're like, it makes sense now.
• 1:20:12
  Right, right. What are some of the reasons you
• 1:20:14
  think it works so fast with horses?
• 1:20:16
  I think horses and dogs are similar, although dogs are
• 1:20:20
  predators, right? And horses are prey.
• 1:20:21
  I think with horses because they are prey and we explain that.
• 1:20:25
  We explain to to them that we're predators to them.
• 1:20:28
  And so, you know, even though it's 1000 to 2000 LB animal,
• 1:20:31
  right that how we react and respond towards them could help
• 1:20:35
  them to feel safe or unsafe, right?
• 1:20:37
  But I think the reason it happens so fast is because
• 1:20:41
  they're just this impressive animal, right?
• 1:20:43
  And when you do the Masterson part, when I talked about the
• 1:20:47
  search and look for the response and then you stay and then you
• 1:20:50
  release. What we're searching for is so
• 1:20:53
  subtle. We're searching for a twitch of
• 1:20:55
  the ear, a little twitch of the eye, a little twitch of the lip,
• 1:20:58
  right? The obvious ones are when they
• 1:21:00
  go and they yawn, stretch or whatever.
• 1:21:03
  We're asking them to pay attention to that, right?
• 1:21:06
  What starts to happen is they become present now in those
• 1:21:11
  moments when they're with the horse, they're out of their
• 1:21:13
  head. And so their head gets quiet.
• 1:21:15
  There's not all this noise because they really want to see
• 1:21:19
  it. They want to see an eye twitch.
• 1:21:21
  They want to see and, and we'll say some of the horses are more
• 1:21:24
  expressive than others. Some of them we know for sure
• 1:21:26
  you're going to get a response really fast, right?
• 1:21:28
  And so we kind of set it up that that's the one the person will
• 1:21:31
  work with that we know needs to have something to try more,
• 1:21:34
  right? Whereas another person could be
• 1:21:36
  more patient, but they they need to to be present.
• 1:21:40
  And, and what I find with working with clients is the
• 1:21:43
  biggest problem, and you mentioned it in our society,
• 1:21:46
  we're going in so many different directions.
• 1:21:47
  We got these freaking things right here.
• 1:21:49
  In our face, all the time in our pockets.
• 1:21:52
  It's a wonderful thing. We're virtual right now.
• 1:21:54
  This is great. We have all this, but it gives
• 1:21:56
  off an energy. It's all this and it's an
• 1:21:58
  intensity and we just can't be present.
• 1:22:00
  We, it's not possible, OK, Unless we distance ourselves
• 1:22:04
  from that for a bit. And then when we distance
• 1:22:07
  ourselves from that for a bit, if we don't have something else
• 1:22:09
  to focus on, we lose our mind because we're so connected to
• 1:22:12
  this, right? So when we take them and have
• 1:22:15
  them touch this horse and go really slow and then they
• 1:22:19
  realize I just did that. I, I touched the horse.
• 1:22:22
  We explained that what you're searching for is a point of
• 1:22:25
  where the horse is holding tension, right?
• 1:22:28
  And so when the horse has the response, the tension is, it's
• 1:22:31
  like us when we go, oh, wow, that feels good, right?
• 1:22:34
  So they are doing it. It's very empowering.
• 1:22:37
  And then they want more, you know, and the bladder meridians,
• 1:22:40
  a long line goes from all the way up all the way down to the
• 1:22:43
  back of the leg, right? And you got to do it on both
• 1:22:46
  sides. If you did the entire horse for
• 1:22:48
  all the Masterson's things, it's like an hour, hour and a half.
• 1:22:52
  Yeah, a couple hours. We don't teach them that.
• 1:22:54
  All we teach them is the bladder Meridian.
• 1:22:56
  It's a simple technique. And it's because anybody can do
• 1:22:59
  the bladder Meridian it had. It causes no pain or damage to
• 1:23:03
  the horse, right in any way, shape or form.
• 1:23:06
  And it's something they can all do to get more in touch with
• 1:23:08
  their own horse. Right with their own horse and
• 1:23:11
  really with themselves, right, because what they'll say is like
• 1:23:14
  as and one of the other things I do is I always take photos, ask
• 1:23:18
  permission. Can I have take your photo?
• 1:23:20
  And at first they might be a little bit like I said no, but
• 1:23:22
  if you don't want me to post it anywhere, I won't, but I'll just
• 1:23:24
  send it to you. And what I found is that when
• 1:23:27
  you send a picture after their day and their experience, they
• 1:23:30
  look at it a lot right? And they remember how they felt
• 1:23:34
  physiolon when they were on course.
• 1:23:37
  And so not only did they have that experience in that however
• 1:23:40
  long time they were with us, now they're taking that experience
• 1:23:44
  and continuing to re experience the positive instead of the
• 1:23:47
  negative. Because the way the brain works
• 1:23:49
  is our brain re experiences things right?
• 1:23:52
  And it's trying to figure it out, it's trying to process it
• 1:23:54
  right. And it doesn't usually re
• 1:23:56
  experience good things. Yeah, yeah, we do like those
• 1:23:59
  negative things to let them run away.
• 1:24:02
  Well, it's, it's our survival part of our brain.
• 1:24:03
  It's wrong with us. It's what's right with us.
• 1:24:05
  But the message it's getting is that we're under attack.
• 1:24:08
  So it pays attention to the scary things, right?
• 1:24:10
  So we need to create a new pathway in the brain for them to
• 1:24:13
  start noticing the good things. And so one of the ways to do it
• 1:24:16
  is to initially have this experience because while the
• 1:24:18
  horse is having a physiological response, so is the human.
• 1:24:23
  OK, Heart rate's lowering, blood pressure's lowering, all of
• 1:24:26
  these things. They've done research about it
• 1:24:28
  and I believe it, right? The three or 4 minutes that you
• 1:24:31
  spend with the horse can last 6 to 8 hours.
• 1:24:34
  After you leave. After you leave.
• 1:24:36
  But it can last even longer if you can hold yourself in that
• 1:24:40
  memory, just like if you think about the physiological response
• 1:24:43
  we can have to a traumatic event can last a lifetime.
• 1:24:47
  Yeah, right. Yeah, we can relive it in our
• 1:24:49
  head. Right.
• 1:24:51
  Both ways. If we can rewire the brain,
• 1:24:53
  create a new neural pathway to re experience this positive
• 1:24:58
  physiological feeling, right, then the brain can tap into it
• 1:25:02
  when it's having a hard time. You know, they can open up their
• 1:25:05
  phone and take a look at themselves with that horse and
• 1:25:07
  remember the feeling they had in their body.
• 1:25:10
  And again, you know, yeah, I'm a therapist.
• 1:25:12
  That's what I do, right? But I don't do therapy here.
• 1:25:15
  That's not what I do. I do second one experience, but
• 1:25:19
  what it can do is it can definitely springboard the work
• 1:25:22
  that a person could do in therapy or the majority of
• 1:25:25
  people to be honest that come out here, they're not going to
• 1:25:27
  therapy. I wish they would.
• 1:25:29
  And so maybe some of what happens is I dispel the myth
• 1:25:32
  about what therapy's about, you know, and goes find a therapist.
• 1:25:35
  But a lot of them having this experience is enough for them to
• 1:25:40
  realize I can feel better than I feel.
• 1:25:43
  I can feel connected to myself. I can be vulnerable and love a
• 1:25:48
  person. And although there might be a
• 1:25:50
  chance that it could hurt, I'm willing to take that chance
• 1:25:52
  because the feeling that I have when I open myself up to it is
• 1:25:56
  by far greater than the feeling I have when I don't.
• 1:25:58
  Yeah. That's horses in a nutshell.
• 1:26:00
  That's horse. Yeah.
• 1:26:02
  Yeah, they are incredible. It doesn't happen in the therapy
• 1:26:05
  in an office, right? Like, you know, I, I have people
• 1:26:07
  don't come to this office. It just looks like this because
• 1:26:09
  I do the virtual thing right. So, but even when I do therapy
• 1:26:12
  with the guys, that's the other part, like what I learned in a
• 1:26:15
  Masterson with horses, I have now applied to my therapy.
• 1:26:19
  You know, when I thought, yeah, when I could, thought I couldn't
• 1:26:23
  learn anything more about how to be a therapist after 30 some
• 1:26:26
  years of doing this right. And I thought I've seen it all,
• 1:26:29
  which I should never say that because then something happens
• 1:26:31
  the next day. But.
• 1:26:32
  Yeah. I have used that concept of
• 1:26:36
  search, find the response, stay there for a second and then
• 1:26:40
  release. I taught it to my interns,
• 1:26:42
  counseling interns, and I said, this is what I learned working
• 1:26:46
  with horses, right? You know, I've, you know, when I
• 1:26:49
  work with people at work that are completely out of control,
• 1:26:53
  right? Like they're, they're so hyper,
• 1:26:56
  you know, non regulated emotionally, right?
• 1:26:59
  And maybe they're experiencing psychosis or whatever it is.
• 1:27:02
  When I experience that, I think of myself going into a pen with
• 1:27:06
  a Mustang, wild Mustang. And I, I first thing I do is I
• 1:27:09
  check my breath. I notice my where I need to
• 1:27:12
  escape just like I would with a Mustang.
• 1:27:14
  Not because I think they're going to attack me and hurt me
• 1:27:17
  intentionally, but because I need to be smart.
• 1:27:19
  I need to take care of myself, right?
• 1:27:21
  And pay attention to their communications.
• 1:27:24
  Pay attention. I never really thought that way
• 1:27:26
  with domestics, right? I just went in and got the
• 1:27:28
  horse. Yeah, you did what whatever was
• 1:27:30
  on the plan for today? Right.
• 1:27:32
  I never thought that way until I experienced Mustangs, you know?
• 1:27:36
  And at first my first thought was if they could kill me,
• 1:27:39
  right? And so then I thought, what the
• 1:27:40
  heck am I doing at almost 60 years old?
• 1:27:42
  We're 60 / 60. Hours gathering Mustangs.
• 1:27:47
  Mustangs and in doing this, but what I've learned is I've been
• 1:27:51
  provided an opportunity to have an even greater experience in a
• 1:27:55
  human to human contact because of the experience that I've had
• 1:27:59
  as a therapist with Mustangs. And the majority of Mustangs
• 1:28:03
  aren't interested in hurting, No.
• 1:28:06
  Yeah, I was working with Blaze. I actually fell on his butt a
• 1:28:09
  couple of times where my hand hit his butt when I was working
• 1:28:12
  with him. He could have put me across the
• 1:28:14
  corral. He just wanted to get away.
• 1:28:17
  That's why. Yeah.
• 1:28:18
  And, you know, that to me was an awareness.
• 1:28:21
  It's just, you know, every horse is different.
• 1:28:24
  But the fact that he was allowing that to happen and not
• 1:28:28
  responding in a negative response, I take that into
• 1:28:31
  account too. I've learned now I take him in
• 1:28:35
  his feed bowl because I take it in every morning and put it in
• 1:28:38
  there for him in on the bars. He's the only one I do it with.
• 1:28:40
  Everybody else, I just stick it to the bars.
• 1:28:42
  I walk in with him, scratch his head, walk over, put it on the
• 1:28:46
  thing and then walk out behind him.
• 1:28:48
  Six months ago, I wouldn't have been anywhere near him in the
• 1:28:51
  backyard. Now I'm walking about this far
• 1:28:54
  from him. He's comfortable.
• 1:28:55
  I'm comfortable and it's made a big difference.
• 1:28:58
  Again, it's a trust issue. You're right.
• 1:29:01
  Naturally, I think they naturally, they are very gentle
• 1:29:05
  until they feel threatened in some way, which sometimes
• 1:29:09
  doesn't make sense to us because we're like, why should you be
• 1:29:12
  scared of that? Why should this bother you?
• 1:29:14
  But they'll tell us this does. I don't feel comfortable.
• 1:29:17
  I don't feel safe. I don't have that trust.
• 1:29:19
  And think about it, it's really the same as people for the most
• 1:29:22
  part. People don't want to hurt you,
• 1:29:23
  right? If someone's had a traumatic
• 1:29:26
  experience by another human being, right, they're going to
• 1:29:30
  treat us the same way. They're going to fight, flight
• 1:29:32
  or freeze. That's what they're going to do,
• 1:29:34
  right? And that's not what's wrong with
• 1:29:35
  us. It's what's right with us.
• 1:29:37
  It's trying to keep us safe, but it's our responsibility, like
• 1:29:40
  we're working with the Mustangs or if I'm working as a therapist
• 1:29:43
  with a client, it's my responsibility to pay attention,
• 1:29:46
  you know, pay attention to those non verbal signals or verbal
• 1:29:50
  signals. You know, think about Orion with
• 1:29:52
  his growling, right, as non verbal as he stomps his foot
• 1:29:56
  like really hard, just his right back foot and there's no flies
• 1:30:00
  around, right? And it's kind of, listen, I'm
• 1:30:03
  getting mad right now, you know, right.
• 1:30:05
  And what I do is I just say, I hear you, buddy.
• 1:30:08
  It's all right, we hear you. We're not going to hurt you.
• 1:30:10
  And then he stops. I've pushed Blaze before and
• 1:30:13
  watched the response from him as like I was working with him one
• 1:30:17
  day and trying to get more touch and he let me have a little and
• 1:30:20
  then stepped off. So I stepped back in.
• 1:30:23
  He swatted me with his tail. Well, first, first he turned his
• 1:30:26
  head and he was like pushed me off.
• 1:30:29
  Then it went back in. He swatted me with his tail.
• 1:30:31
  I went back in, he started to turn his butt.
• 1:30:33
  That's the only time he's ever done that.
• 1:30:35
  I. Paid attention.
• 1:30:36
  Yeah. And it's interesting because
• 1:30:38
  sometimes we need like 10 warnings and then we're like,
• 1:30:40
  OK, no, I'll pay attention. That's where the respect comes
• 1:30:44
  in and you give him the respect and he gives it back and just
• 1:30:49
  we've worked it out pretty well. I'm much more comfortable with
• 1:30:52
  him since then, but it's it's been a learning curve.
• 1:30:56
  It's been fun. I love being around the horses.
• 1:30:59
  They really do. They ground me and bring me.
• 1:31:02
  The work gives me a sense of purpose.
• 1:31:03
  They give me a sense of life. Love that.
• 1:31:06
  That was a keeper free. Yeah, right.
• 1:31:08
  Frame that one. And I thought that principle you
• 1:31:11
  brought up with the Masterson method where you notice just the
• 1:31:15
  smallest change is so powerful because that's what we brush
• 1:31:18
  over all the time. Are those small little, whether
• 1:31:21
  it's with us or the horses, like the small little things that are
• 1:31:24
  like this doesn't feel right or like this is where you need to
• 1:31:27
  put some of that focus. This is where we need to address
• 1:31:30
  this. So to, to really go back to that
• 1:31:32
  level where it's like, it's just the hint of something brings it
• 1:31:36
  out of where it's like we're not addressing stuff until it's a
• 1:31:39
  huge reaction or our life is falling apart or our horses
• 1:31:42
  kicking us or whatever it might be.
• 1:31:44
  What a powerful principle for life is like, pay attention to
• 1:31:47
  to those subtle signs, those subtle things, because you can,
• 1:31:51
  you know, focus on it and address it then instead of
• 1:31:54
  waiting until it's gotten so far down the line, created more
• 1:31:58
  problems, become dangerous. Right.
• 1:32:01
  It's and think about that from the like as we're applying it
• 1:32:04
  once again to ourselves, right? Like when the check engine light
• 1:32:08
  comes on, right? We're not paying attention.
• 1:32:11
  How we can relate that the other part that Masterson's taught me,
• 1:32:15
  particularly as a therapist and as a human being is one of the
• 1:32:19
  thing that they teach in the Masterson.
• 1:32:21
  If I come in with an agenda. The horse.
• 1:32:24
  Forget it. Oh geez, especially with
• 1:32:27
  Mustangs. Well.
• 1:32:28
  Especially with Mustangs, it's almost like they can like, oh
• 1:32:31
  boy, she's got an agenda today. They know.
• 1:32:33
  They know, and it's usually if I'm in a hurry, right?
• 1:32:36
  Because I've got other places to be and I need to get them all in
• 1:32:39
  their stalls. If I'm not in a hurry, they're
• 1:32:42
  almost all in there by the time I get done.
• 1:32:44
  It's totally true. It's totally true.
• 1:32:46
  So if I come in with an agenda and expect I'm going to do it
• 1:32:49
  exactly my way, I might as well just check it out, right?
• 1:32:53
  Let it go because I'm going to get frustrated, right?
• 1:32:55
  And then if I get frustrated, they get frustrated, right?
• 1:32:58
  Well, it's the same in therapy. If I come in with an agenda,
• 1:33:01
  right? Of course, I teach interns.
• 1:33:03
  So interns think they have to have an agenda.
• 1:33:05
  I remember being that way. Like I, if I'm going to teach a
• 1:33:07
  group and you know, I would have a whole plan about what the
• 1:33:10
  group is going to look like. We're taught that.
• 1:33:13
  That's not right. And what I've, what I've come to
• 1:33:16
  learn and it's really from, I've realized it as we're talking and
• 1:33:20
  over the years I've kind of realized it.
• 1:33:22
  It's working with the Mustangs. Don't have an agenda, you know,
• 1:33:24
  come in and just be open to receive what needs to happen and
• 1:33:29
  experience it. That's a beautiful way to put
• 1:33:31
  it. Be open to receiving.
• 1:33:33
  We don't. We don't have to figure out what
• 1:33:35
  that's going to be beforehand. We just have to be ready to
• 1:33:38
  learn. Basic idea what you want to do
• 1:33:40
  for the day, but if it doesn't work that way, just.
• 1:33:43
  Just go. Another principle for life.
• 1:33:46
  Also to not drive yourself crazy.
• 1:33:48
  Flexibility. Always flexible.
• 1:33:51
  Being able to let go of the control we hold on to so tightly
• 1:33:54
  because that's how we've learned.
• 1:33:56
  I think that inner G piece is huge too, because with Mustangs,
• 1:34:00
  it's very cute that like, they can sense your energy.
• 1:34:02
  They know like you're frazzled. They might not know you need to
• 1:34:05
  be somewhere, but they're like, she's off, you know?
• 1:34:07
  So I'm feeling a little off. Mustangs can help us tune into
• 1:34:10
  that. I think we still sense that in
• 1:34:12
  our crazy chaotic world, but we kind of just set it aside and
• 1:34:16
  ignore it. Deep down, we're sensing the
• 1:34:18
  energy isn't good for us. It doesn't feel good, but we
• 1:34:21
  just keep trekking on, doing what we think we need to do
• 1:34:24
  instead of kind of backing off and resetting, readjusting.
• 1:34:27
  But like one of the guys said, that has stayed with us in the
• 1:34:30
  past. If you're your true authentic
• 1:34:32
  self, it doesn't matter what you are, whether you're angry,
• 1:34:36
  whether you're upset, sad, you know, whatever it happens to be,
• 1:34:39
  as long as you're your true authentic self with the Mustang,
• 1:34:42
  Oh yeah, they'll respond to you. Yeah.
• 1:34:45
  You're trying to hide it. Yeah, they, they know already.
• 1:34:48
  I think they're just like, you're going to have to figure
• 1:34:52
  this out before we're going to work together.
• 1:34:54
  That's beautiful. And I think as far as they're
• 1:34:57
  concerned from the herd perspective, they don't want you
• 1:34:59
  in the herd if you're if you're not sure about how you are.
• 1:35:03
  It's. Abusing for them.
• 1:35:05
  It probably feels like a danger to them also because.
• 1:35:08
  Yes, if you walk. I mean, I've gone down there and
• 1:35:11
  I've just been sad about something, right?
• 1:35:13
  And just gone down and said, well, guys, I'm really sad and I
• 1:35:16
  start crying, you know? And of course, Grace comes up.
• 1:35:20
  You named her well. She was named well.
• 1:35:23
  And she just kind of checks me out and she's like, oh, OK, she
• 1:35:26
  just said goes to eat. That's right.
• 1:35:31
  But but that, you know, that that's the pieces if you're just
• 1:35:34
  honest about it. But if we look at it from that
• 1:35:35
  perspective, how we are in society, if we're all over the
• 1:35:39
  place, we don't realize it, we're not addressing it, we're
• 1:35:42
  not safe to be around. Yeah, and we try to hide
• 1:35:45
  ourselves. You know, we try to present what
• 1:35:46
  we think people want instead of maybe how we actually are or how
• 1:35:50
  we're feeling. It's true.
• 1:35:52
  So true. Well, we really.
• 1:35:54
  Appreciate. Yeah, much time.
• 1:35:55
  Absolutely. Lots of great stuff.
• 1:35:58
  Definitely let you guys go get going on everything you guys
• 1:36:01
  have gone on. But thanks for being here and
• 1:36:03
  I'm looking forward to just sharing this with everyone in
• 1:36:06
  the work that you guys do. Thank you for joining us and
• 1:36:09
  learning about horses that heal and the humans who help them.
• 1:36:12
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• 1:36:15
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• 1:36:21
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• 1:36:26
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• 1:36:28
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• 1:36:32
  their divinely appointed mission, please reach out.
• 1:36:35
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• 1:36:38
  remember that the horse is always there to help you heal.