Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Animals as Relatives: Native Wisdom, Trauma & Healing with Brandy Tomhave | EAW 46

Transcript

Animals as Relatives: Native Wisdom, Trauma & Healing with Brandy Tomhave | EAW 46 · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
• 0:44
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:48
  Many of us are used to the equine assisted thing being a sort of a
• 0:55
  European na white American type thing, and we don't often consider that it
• 1:08
  might actually go a bit beyond that.
• 1:11
  So I'm really excited today to have Brandy Tom have, who is the
• 1:16
  second executive director of the Native American Humane Society.
• 1:23
  We've all heard of the Humane Society.
• 1:25
  Again, this was something that came at the Humane Society in America, as we know.
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  It came out of animal suffering largely in cities particularly draft animals
• 1:35
  like horses being, you know, dying in the shafts in the streets, and
• 1:41
  people saying, you know, we should actually do something about this,
• 1:43
  and, well, things are better, however.
• 1:48
  When I went to the Quis Film Festival in Montana in September of 2025, I met Brandy
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  who was fronting the newly formed Native American Humane Society and bringing to
• 2:00
  our attention a whole bunch of oh gosh, animal welfare issues that actually
• 2:10
  affect us all, even though we might be living in different cultural contexts.
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  And I think it just adds an incredible perspective to our
• 2:22
  work that allows us to broaden it, deepen it, gain more understanding.
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  And you're gonna see what I mean as this conversation unfolds because there are
• 2:32
  very different ways of looking at animals, animal assisted stuff, animal welfare,
• 2:38
  that have as much to do with culture as they have to do with, if you like fact.
• 2:44
  So I don't wanna spoil it for everyone.
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  So without further ado, Brandy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
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  Please tell us who you are, what you do, and why you do it,
• 2:56
  and then let's go from there.
• 2:58
  Brandy Tomhave: Sure.
• 2:59
  Well, thank you so much for having me.
• 3:01
  I am really thrilled to be joining you today.
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  So as you mentioned, I am the second executive director of the
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  Native American Humane Society.
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  I am an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, which is located in Oklahoma.
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  You probably can't help but notice that I am very white passing.
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  And I mentioned that because being a Native American, a Native American in
• 3:29
  the United States is it's complicated.
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  We all share a painful and traumatic history.
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  You know, my own family walked along the trail the Trail of Tears from Georgia
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  to well ultimately ended in Oklahoma.
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  We stopped in Arkansas and I think decided that was enough.
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  I think that our identity politics are different than the identity politics of
• 3:57
  other minorities in the United States.
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  Native Americans are only about 2% of the population.
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  But very little is understood about Native Americans today and why their
• 4:08
  status is different than any other Americans in the United States.
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  We have a very specific political relationship with United States
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  as a result of treaties and statutes and Supreme Court cases.
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  So that.
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  Affirm the sovereignty of tribes.
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  And so if you're an enrolled member of a tribe you are not so much a racial
• 4:32
  minority as a citizen of a dependent sovereign nation within the United States.
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  And if you don't remember anything else I say today, that's really probably
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  the most important thing you'll learn because that fact is what everything
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  else we're gonna talk about flows from.
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  The, the trauma of the, not only the history that Native Americans
• 5:00
  share but the, the damage that it continues to do and how that trauma
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  and damage is less a matter of moral failings of individuals than systemic
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  failures of government systems.
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  And and whatever happens to people, happens to their animals.
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  And okay.
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  So,
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  Rupert Isaacson: alright.
• 5:27
  So why, you know, you could have just, I know you're a lawyer and I know
• 5:31
  that your husband Jeff is a lawyer
• 5:32
  Brandy Tomhave: Oh yeah.
• 5:33
  Rupert Isaacson: And that you have spent your professional lives, you know,
• 5:36
  working on behalf of Native American.
• 5:41
  Rights in various ways, which needs to be done.
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  Why did you turn your attention to animals?
• 5:49
  Brandy Tomhave: You know, I, that is a really good question because
• 5:52
  I certainly wasn't looking for it.
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  I will tell you what I was doing immediately before.
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  Okay.
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  Two things.
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  I had worked very closely with the Navajo Nation to help stand up the first cancer
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  treatment center on any Indian reservation to make local culturally sensitive cancer
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  treatment accessible to native families who otherwise have no opportunity to to
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  deal with that, that disease in a way that gives 'em any chance to, of surviving it.
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  And then I had also just represented the president of the Navajo Nation in this
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  multi jurisdictional effort to improve the systemic response to missing and murdered
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  indigenous people on the Navajo nation.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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  Brandy Tomhave: And that's really like, so one's access to cancer treatment.
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  The other one's access to ju justice.
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  You're right.
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  Yeah.
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  And so I think I'm very drawn to causes that try to provide access
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  where none has otherwise existed, and that's only an issue in
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  under-resourced, overlooked communities.
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  And I, I, I have always been inspired by those kinds of causes.
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  And you know, I, I wanna help and have some impact.
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  And it, and that's in my own small way, how I have found a, a, a path forward,
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  you know, right towards that goal.
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  And then I, I learned about, I, I'm embarrassed to tell you, I
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  had never noticed the animals.
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  I had spent 25 years out on the Navajo Nation working in the deep res.
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  Every cause I've ever worked on, doesn't matter how large or small straightforward
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  or complex, every conversation starts at someone's table in the deep res.
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  And, and my job has been to then carry that conversation forward from someone's
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  home or office to, you know, the council chambers, to the president's office, to
• 8:00
  Congress, to the White House ultimately.
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  And, I had seen dogs and I, you know, you can't visit a reservation without
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  noticing, you know, dogs and cows and horses, you know, outside community
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  spaces where you just don't see them where I live now in Baltimore I'd
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  never really given them a thought.
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  And then the president of the Navajo Nation asked me to
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  accompany him to a local animal shelter in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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  And I had no idea why he asked me to jump in the backseat.
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  And I was like, you know, all right, I'll, I'll, I'll go along with this.
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  I have no choice.
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  And that really changed my life.
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  And it wasn't the dogs, it was the people in the shelter that I found
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  so shocking because they were sort so casual with their racism, frankly.
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  They said to then president, this
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  Rupert Isaacson: was outside of the res, right?
• 8:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:00
  Brandy Tomhave: Flagstaff.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah.
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  Flagstaff is a border town.
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  Yeah.
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  A college town, a wealthy town.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
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  Brandy Tomhave: That, that's a rather
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  Rupert Isaacson: nice place.
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  Yeah.
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  I've been there.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Brandy Tomhave: To the Navajo Nation.
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  And so, you know, it's some, it's someplace you're gonna travel through
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  if you visit the Grand Canyon.
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  Yeah.
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  And and so the folks at this shelter, I looked at the president of the Navajo
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  nation and said, well, you really need to do something about your res dogs.
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  40% of the dogs in our shelter come from the reservation.
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  And and then the, the conversation kind of deteriorated from there.
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  One of my,
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  and let me give you an example of how, so I took it
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  Rupert Isaacson: once more.
• 9:38
  Quick question.
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  Yeah.
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  Why did the president of the Navajo Nation take you to this place?
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  Brandy Tomhave: He had been invited and I think he had been invited to
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  Rupert Isaacson: to be lectured.
• 9:50
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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  Because,
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  Brandy Tomhave: because the dogs that were being taken from the Western
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  agency of the Navajo Nation were seen by this non-profit organization
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  as a drain on their resources.
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  Right.
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  But this non-profit organization was providing, it's like,
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  Rupert Isaacson: why are you abandoning all your dogs?
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  We are the ones mopping up the mess.
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  Come on, do something about it.
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  Brandy Tomhave: Yes.
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  Rupert Isaacson: That was the message, right?
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  Yeah,
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  Brandy Tomhave: correct.
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  But the nonprofit organization had a contract with the county
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  to provide these services.
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  So it was for all county residents, and President Nez rightly reminded
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  them that Navajo Nation families.
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  Our county residents too.
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  They're paying sales tax, they pay county taxes just like everybody else.
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  And this nonprofit organization just didn't have the right to
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  decide which residents they were going to provide services to.
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  That was really not a conversation I had any business in, you
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  know, participating directly.
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  But I did have a question which they entertained for me.
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  And that was, well, how do you know those dogs are strays?
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  And they said, well, you know, tourists will call us and tell
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  us that they see a dog outside of, you know, a store or a hotel.
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  And so we send up our van and collect them.
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  And there is frankly just no way of that, let me back up.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  There was no system, there was no effort to determine whether those dogs were
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  owned or unowned, which is problematic because on the Navajo nation, like
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  many tribes and frankly lots of rural communities owned dogs run around when
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  they're, you know, humans are, are out doing their thing during the day.
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  The dogs are, are too.
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  There wasn't a process of like, you know, notification, giving an owner
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  the opportunity to learn that their dog had been taken and where their dog
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  had been taken to and where and how.
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  Right.
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  People won't color in their
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  Rupert Isaacson: dog saying, this dog belongs to such and such a person, blah.
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  Right.
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  Yeah.
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  Brandy Tomhave: Right.
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  And I think that there.
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  There are just kind of inherent judgments made.
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  We all make judgments about each other.
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  But when you act upon those judgments in kind of such a definitive way, it can
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  be absolutely devastating to a family.
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  You come home and you're, you know, your your dog's gone.
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  Your, your kid's best friend is gone.
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  You know, your, your companion is gone.
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  And so what really struck me was that these were really nice people doing a
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  really great service for the county, trying really hard without enough
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  resources, but attitudinally, they just thought about Navajo families as
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  being kind of inherently different.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Well, probably neglectful that, that would've been their thought.
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  Yeah.
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  And so I just, I want to bring the conversation for a moment.
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  So listeners and people watching this will probably be wondering, okay, well this
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  is interesting, but what does, what has this got to do with equine assisted stuff?
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  Alright.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, just in for context equine assisted is also part of animal assisted.
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  And as we all know, those of us who particularly follow say horse boy method
• 13:05
  or any of those types of things is that we don't just work with horses.
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  We are working with any social animal that we are hoping that, a person with
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  a need is going to form a relationship with, and then we can work within that.
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  So anyone who's running a therapeutic riding place, if the kid is into the
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  dog, not into the horse, well hey, great.
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  We're now gonna work with the dog.
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  We might bring the horse in later.
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  You know, so, and we are gonna talk about horses as they relate to this as well.
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  So don't, if you are thinking, well how does, how's this relevant?
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  Hold that thought.
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  'cause we are, I promise gonna bring it back.
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  But I think what we need to do is, is let Brandy outline this
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  cultural difference in perception.
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  Brandy Tomhave: Because
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  Rupert Isaacson: I do feel, as we'll see in the course of this conversation
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  that there is stuff there for us to learn, we practitioners how to better
• 14:01
  our service through understanding perhaps the Native American and
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  other different ways of looking at the human relationship with animals.
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  So, okay.
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  Just having made that point over to you, so you are sitting in this place in
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  Flagstaff, Arizona, you're seeing Oh yeah.
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  These people are coming from a good place emotionally, morally.
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  They wanna do the right thing, but they are, they don't realize that the
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  people on the Navajo reservation have a different type of relationship with
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  their dogs, and now there's an impasse.
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  So people are going in there and taking dogs that are actually family
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  dogs thinking they're neglected dogs.
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  Now what?
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  Yes.
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  Brandy Tomhave: Right.
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  E Exactly.
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  And I think that, you know, I have outed our friends and Flagstaff and that
• 14:53
  perhaps might be unfair because it's not that is not unique to them in any way.
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  And working on the Navajo Nation, what I soon learned from the friends with
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  whom I worked there was that there are a lot of well-intended folks parachuting
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  into their communities trying to help
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  Yeah.
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  Basic.
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  And, and the, the form of that help is telling them how to treat their dogs.
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  And that does so much damage and that feels so much like, a a eight.
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  I am, I'm struggling to find the words.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  There was a time when it was perfectly acceptable to steal
• 15:40
  kids from native families.
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  Yeah,
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  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
• 15:43
  Brandy Tomhave: And the government encouraged missionaries to do that
• 15:46
  Rupert Isaacson: a hundred percent.
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  And sent them to boarding schools where they were all sexually abused and
• 15:49
  every kind of horrible thing happened,
• 15:52
  Brandy Tomhave: right.
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  Rupert Isaacson: North America.
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  Yes.
• 15:53
  Yes.
• 15:54
  Brandy Tomhave: And, and what was driving that was a shared assumption
• 15:57
  that those kids would be better off being raised anywhere than
• 16:03
  there in their own communities.
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  Yeah.
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  By their own families.
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  And bottom line, that is a belief that is still held pretty firmly by
• 16:13
  folks who see animals on reservations.
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  So it's not cool to steal the kids anymore, but you can rescue the dogs.
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  Yeah.
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  It's the same phenomenon and it lands emotionally the same
• 16:28
  for the native families who find their loved one absent and
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  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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  It's
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  Brandy Tomhave: so,
• 16:34
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I, I totally understand this.
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  Why did you decide,
• 16:40
  given that the human abuses that go on, on in Indian country are so still so
• 16:48
  pressing, why did you decide to then switch your attention to these animals?
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  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah, because it's such an extraordinary opportunity.
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  I have worked in a tribal advocacy for almost 30 years and this is the
• 17:07
  one area that no one else has really shown up to deal with quite yet.
• 17:14
  Hmm.
• 17:15
  The federal government has responsibility vis-a-vis treaties and statutes
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  and case law to provide for, for forming main things for tribes,
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  housing, education law enforcement and and environmental management.
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  Okay.
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  And not not veterinary care, not animal wellness.
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  And so there is no federal program or model that has had an
• 17:48
  opportunity to help or hurt tribes when it comes to animals just yet.
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  What that means.
• 17:57
  Is that while the housing that you see on Indian reservations it's result
• 18:02
  of decisions made in Washington DC largely by non-native people about
• 18:06
  what housing should look like.
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  Same thing with education, same thing with public safety.
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  Same thing with land management.
• 18:13
  Here when it comes to animals, it is an extraordinary opportunity
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  for tribes to do authentic nation building to decide for themselves what
• 18:24
  animal wellness systems should look like within their own communities.
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  They didn't have that opportunity in the other spheres of daily life
• 18:32
  that I just listed, but here they do.
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  And I find that incredibly exciting as an advocate for native people
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  and everything I learned working in the sector of public safety or
• 18:47
  public health for tribal communities.
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  All of those lessons are absolutely relevant here because what we're really
• 18:55
  talking about is creating systems where none have ever existed before
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  and they are going to be created.
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  On the ground by tribes themselves and the, and it's gonna be peer to
• 19:12
  peer knowledge sharing and coalition building, rather than having the feds
• 19:18
  issue dictates about what that should look like in a tribal community.
• 19:22
  I've never had an opportunity to be a part of that, and I am 61 years old,
• 19:28
  and that is a heck of a way to, you know, I guess, move towards what I,
• 19:37
  what I'm assuming is gonna be like the last quarter of my professional life.
• 19:41
  I, that's, well, I
• 19:42
  Rupert Isaacson: think, yeah.
• 19:43
  What, what, what I think you're, you're hitting on, which is really
• 19:45
  interesting to me, is that animals are always the ambassadorial
• 19:49
  bridge between human cultures.
• 19:52
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 19:53
  Rupert Isaacson: So, for example, the equine assisted world that we do,
• 19:57
  the equines are a bridge between the neurotypical and the non neurotypical.
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  The therapy dog is a bridge between this human population
• 20:11
  and that human population.
• 20:14
  I routinely go to foreign countries and I can show up in a place where I
• 20:20
  don't speak the language and I know very little about the culture and.
• 20:27
  I can meet other horse people from that culture.
• 20:30
  And the horse is the ambassador between us now.
• 20:33
  It's not just that animals are not the only thing that does that.
• 20:35
  There are things within human culture like music or healing or land management
• 20:39
  or there are many cultural things that can bridge and do bridge human societies,
• 20:45
  particularly human societies that perhaps don't understand each other very well.
• 20:49
  But I think what you're putting your finger on, which I think is fascinating
• 20:53
  to me, is that particularly the dogs and the horses in Native America can serve
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  as a bridge, an ambassadorial bridge of understanding of the entire culture
• 21:09
  between white and native American society.
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  And in Europe, you know, outside of native, outside of white America,
• 21:17
  if you like, you there is often a sort of fascination with a perceived
• 21:25
  idea of what Native American horse culture might look like.
• 21:31
  Yeah.
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  Because of the adoption and really successful adoption of the
• 21:36
  horse by Native American tribes, you know, once the Spanish had
• 21:41
  shown up and that they could use.
• 21:44
  Those horses very successfully against the whites.
• 21:49
  And particularly like on the Comanche nation, you know, they kept the
• 21:52
  whites out of Texas for 300 years.
• 21:54
  I mean, without, without the horse.
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  They couldn't have done it.
• 21:58
  When the horse brought to them by the whitey used as a tool against
• 22:03
  the whites with great success.
• 22:06
  And at the same time served as a respect bridge that any of the people
• 22:09
  coming from white America into Comanche could go, wow, these guys really know
• 22:14
  what they're doing, but there's stuff we can actually learn from here.
• 22:17
  This is sort of our tradition that they've taken and now they've made it, you know,
• 22:20
  something that we can learn back from.
• 22:22
  Whoa.
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  So you've got people coming from that perspective too.
• 22:24
  And I think that Native American relationship with canines is also
• 22:30
  something that's been a fasten source of fascination, because when Europeans
• 22:34
  first showed up particularly in the, on, on the plains, they noticed that
• 22:38
  people were using dogs as draft animals, as well as as hunting partners and
• 22:43
  companion animals and the rest of it.
• 22:45
  And so they clearly knew a whole lot more about dogs than a lot of
• 22:49
  the Europeans that were coming in.
• 22:51
  And this was a source of fascination.
• 22:52
  People wrote about it.
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  Now we've reached a point where I would say probably it's gone the other way.
• 23:00
  The perception now is that no, we in the.
• 23:05
  If you like the white world, know more about these things than people living in
• 23:09
  rural slums because the, you know, when you go into a, an Indian reservation
• 23:17
  in the US I've been to many of them.
• 23:20
  They often look like that.
• 23:22
  And so it's hard then if you knew nothing about that other background to
• 23:28
  look at that and go and not go, okay, these animals look kind of neglected.
• 23:33
  And at the same time to not understand what the relationship
• 23:38
  with the animals might be.
• 23:40
  So the horses are walking around, apparently untended, but of
• 23:44
  course they all belong to people and they actually are used.
• 23:48
  They just don't happen to be fenced.
• 23:50
  And the same with the dogs.
• 23:55
  You are in this really interesting position where I think you can speak as an
• 24:01
  ambassador for those animal ambassadors, which brings a greater understanding
• 24:08
  between these two historically antagonistic human cultures to do, kind
• 24:16
  of allow the animals to do what the animals always do, which is cool us out
• 24:20
  and make us actually realize that we deal with the same species and ought to be on
• 24:28
  the same side occupying the same planet.
• 24:31
  We shouldn't be trying to colonize, but yet I can definitely see how your
• 24:39
  experience in that Flagstaff animal shelter would've made you go, ah,
• 24:44
  sadly, this is still colonization.
• 24:48
  It's just coming from a good place rather than a bad place that's
• 24:52
  even more ambiguous and therefore almost even harder to address.
• 24:58
  No,
• 24:59
  Brandy Tomhave: it is very hard to
• 25:04
  convince, very passionate, well-intended people that they
• 25:09
  could be doing harm because it's the last thing they want to do.
• 25:15
  And I think that really cha challenges their core belief about themselves.
• 25:22
  I get that that's hard for all of us.
• 25:25
  I love how you've characterized animals as being these kind of bridging ambassadors.
• 25:33
  I just wanted to share with you that you know, in my tribe, the, the Choctaw
• 25:39
  people and, and other tribal people, you know, have thought of dogs as being
• 25:44
  ambassadors from the spirit world.
• 25:46
  Yeah.
• 25:46
  And I'm sure that's true all around the world.
• 25:48
  Right?
• 25:48
  Same thing with horses.
• 25:50
  Absolutely.
• 25:51
  And and I think that this nascent effort to help tribes develop their own animal
• 26:01
  wellness systems is an opportunity for them to reclaim their own historic,
• 26:10
  traditional relationships with animals who've unfortunately, you know, are
• 26:16
  too often now seen as just a nuisance.
• 26:18
  Because reservations are not designed for companion animals.
• 26:23
  And I just have to say that on behalf of tribal folks, it's galling to have
• 26:31
  non-natives who, like, as you white people
• 26:35
  Rupert Isaacson: call it like, it is, it's fine.
• 26:36
  It's,
• 26:37
  Brandy Tomhave: it's usually white women, you know, who look just like me.
• 26:39
  It's older white women, you know, caravans of them who come in and
• 26:44
  start judging people about how they live and the condition of their dogs
• 26:48
  because those white women are living on the land that belonged to those
• 26:52
  native families not that long ago.
• 26:55
  Yeah.
• 26:55
  Like.
• 26:56
  Within a hundred years.
• 26:58
  So you can find people to these spaces.
• 27:01
  The reason why they didn't have problems with dogs before is because
• 27:03
  there's plenty of room for everyone.
• 27:05
  Yeah.
• 27:05
  There's no longer is, and the housing that the federal government provides is
• 27:11
  so sub, so small, so substandard that you have multiple generations of people.
• 27:16
  You can have 12.
• 27:17
  It's not at all uncommon to have a dozen to 20 people living in a two
• 27:22
  bedroom house that is not fenced.
• 27:25
  Where, where are the animals supposed to be?
• 27:28
  And those families and those communities have larger problems that are urgent
• 27:34
  right now regarding their own hunger and their own health and their own warmth.
• 27:40
  And they just can't quite get to the dogs like people like me who have the comfort
• 27:47
  and privilege of you know, all of those kinds of basic needs are taken care of.
• 27:51
  So, you know.
• 27:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 27:53
  It, it's also, there's a really interesting thing.
• 27:55
  I dunno if you remember.
• 27:56
  We were in Montana together in Missoula for that festival.
• 27:59
  And there was a, another presentation going on, if you remember, from
• 28:04
  the local dog shelter talking about homeless people and their dogs Yeah.
• 28:09
  And trying to provide veterinary care for that and
• 28:11
  Brandy Tomhave: mm-hmm.
• 28:12
  Rupert Isaacson: In the current political climate, this is getting more and more
• 28:15
  difficult and so on and so on and so on.
• 28:17
  And, I remember thinking, yeah, the happiest dogs, often the happiest
• 28:22
  dogs I've seen are the dogs owned by homeless people because they have
• 28:27
  constant companionship from their owners.
• 28:29
  The owners do not go out to work and leave them frequently.
• 28:33
  They are there all the time.
• 28:34
  They have a totally defined job.
• 28:37
  They're protecting their companion.
• 28:41
  They're acting as sort of a bridge.
• 28:43
  They, they earn money because if you sit and your panhandling and
• 28:46
  your dog is with you, people are more likely to give you money.
• 28:49
  And the dog's pretty grand.
• 28:50
  Dog doesn't care whether it's sleeping, you know, on the street or on your sofa.
• 28:55
  And so this perception that say the animals owned by those people
• 28:59
  are suffering is that, well, they might be, but they often are not.
• 29:05
  And the animals owned by people living in houses are frequently suffering.
• 29:10
  So one can't really judge by those standards.
• 29:14
  And then the same thing with say with horses.
• 29:17
  Now obviously if I go on a, anywhere, a reservation or not a reservation,
• 29:21
  and I see horses that are obviously say under fed or clearly worm ridden
• 29:26
  or something like that, then yeah, I'm gonna notice that and I'm going to but.
• 29:30
  The reservation that I've spent the most time on is the Navajo reservation.
• 29:35
  And I'm going to talk a little bit about my relationship with the
• 29:38
  Navajo reservation in a minute.
• 29:39
  'cause this is specific to this conversation because there would
• 29:43
  be no horse boy without the Navajo nation and I'm, so, I owe a debt
• 29:48
  of gratitude to the Navajo nation which I'll go into in a moment.
• 29:52
  When I was on the many times that I've been on there, I've tended to
• 29:56
  notice that the horse is in pretty good Nick, when you go around, yeah,
• 30:00
  there's the odd horse that isn't.
• 30:01
  But for the most part, what you see, and I've seen plenty of horses in
• 30:05
  white America, not in good nick too, by the way, but for the most part,
• 30:10
  driving around that vast area, which is the size of Ireland, I believe.
• 30:14
  The horses look pretty good and people are riding them pretty well and
• 30:19
  are, have a relationship with them.
• 30:22
  That is to do with livelihood, not sport.
• 30:29
  It's to do with culture.
• 30:31
  And that makes generally for happy, fulfilled animals as well as people.
• 30:36
  So
• 30:39
  it's clear that there is stuff to be learned from both sides.
• 30:46
  Your organization is, is doing a really great thing and they're
• 30:49
  gonna provide, you know, more veterinary systems and fantastic.
• 30:54
  Fantastic.
• 30:55
  And at the same time, there is a relationship that one
• 30:58
  doesn't really want to disturb.
• 31:03
  Can you talk to me a little bit about what we don't want to disturb IE
• 31:09
  what is the therapeutic value within Native America of canines and equines?
• 31:18
  I don't mean what fanciful notions can we white people have about Native American
• 31:23
  horsemanship or something like that.
• 31:24
  Now, I don't mean that, what I mean is specifically family to family.
• 31:30
  What role, given that we're dealing often with quite traumatized
• 31:34
  communities, what role do the dogs and the horses generally have
• 31:43
  or play in the human wellbeing of people living there?
• 31:51
  Brandy Tomhave: Well, thank you for that question.
• 31:53
  And I am daunted by the challenge of answering it and doing it justice,
• 32:02
  Rupert Isaacson: make it subjective.
• 32:03
  It's, this is just gonna try my best interpretation.
• 32:05
  Yeah.
• 32:07
  If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're considering
• 32:09
  a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 32:13
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 32:18
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 32:24
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 32:30
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 32:33
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 32:36
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 32:40
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 32:45
  It works incredibly well.
• 32:47
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 32:49
  Check it out.
• 32:51
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 32:55
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 32:58
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 33:00
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 33:05
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 33:08
  when they're not with you.
• 33:10
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 33:14
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 33:16
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 33:20
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 33:25
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 33:28
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 33:33
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 33:37
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 33:40
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 33:44
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 33:49
  absolutely gives you this.
• 33:50
  Brandy Tomhave: So.
• 33:53
  Well, first let me start with the traditional role and
• 33:58
  then I have to come clean.
• 34:00
  The Native American Humane Society focuses on, focuses upon companion
• 34:04
  animals, so I'm more able to speak to dogs, but absolutely, you know,
• 34:10
  we, we, horses are a huge part.
• 34:13
  Horse culture is a huge part of native culture.
• 34:17
  Hmm.
• 34:17
  And and I have seen all the same things that you have.
• 34:20
  And let me start by saying that native American people try, there's
• 34:29
  576 federally recognized tribes.
• 34:33
  All of them are different.
• 34:33
  They're not a monolith.
• 34:34
  Each has its own culture, history, practices, language,
• 34:38
  historically and today languages.
• 34:40
  But what they share is a extraordinary bond with animals because native.
• 34:50
  Culture across the board is one based upon relationality
• 34:55
  and that we are all relations.
• 34:58
  So, you know, we are relations with horses.
• 35:01
  We are the relations of with dogs.
• 35:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:04
  And I think that's very different than non-native cultures, at
• 35:08
  least here in the United States.
• 35:09
  And I'll just link my conversation to that.
• 35:12
  And so we have had relationships with animals since time immemorial.
• 35:17
  And and we don't distinguish between the spiritual and the scientific.
• 35:22
  It's the same.
• 35:24
  Okay.
• 35:25
  And we all carry our own medicine, so.
• 35:29
  Horses and dogs are part of tribal ceremonies and songs and practices.
• 35:36
  They are embedded in religions and native religions.
• 35:41
  So it's not all uncommon for the a tribe to traditionally view a dog as being the
• 35:48
  messenger from this world to the next.
• 35:51
  On the Navajo Nation there's a little dog that looks like a chihuahua that is
• 35:55
  believed to have protected their winter God the, the deity known as a y Bache.
• 36:02
  And so that dog still factors into y Bache ceremonies.
• 36:05
  I have never been a part of it.
• 36:07
  It's, I can't speak about a Navajo ceremony beyond that, which you know,
• 36:13
  I have, that little bit has been shared with me by very close Navajo friends.
• 36:18
  So I think that horses and dogs have always played a profound role in
• 36:29
  tribal cultures in terms of informing us as human beings, who we are and
• 36:33
  our place in the universe and our relationship with all beings today.
• 36:38
  And then as a practical matter moving forward, I think they were certainly.
• 36:46
  Allowed to just be companions.
• 36:48
  Archeologists have dug up bones of native people in California recently.
• 36:55
  Where the animals are buried with humans.
• 36:59
  We are assuming that, that there is a relationality there, right?
• 37:04
  Native leaders were photographed for formal portraiture in
• 37:08
  Washington DC cradling puppies.
• 37:12
  So there's a re relationality, and yes, and also they were used to pull tvo.
• 37:18
  These are the dogs the horses in war.
• 37:22
  Navajo people are shepherds and you know, obviously for you
• 37:27
  know, sheep dogs and hunting.
• 37:30
  And so for practical purposes today, there is an extraordinary, ranching
• 37:37
  tradition with my husband's comes from a family of ranchers from the Fort Brisel
• 37:41
  Reservation in North Dakota, and that's the home of the Mandan Hiza and RA Nation.
• 37:47
  And a lot has changed.
• 37:49
  The US Army Corps of in of engineers flooded the town that
• 37:55
  my father-in-law grew up in.
• 37:57
  So the place is unrecognizable from what it was just two generations ago.
• 38:03
  And yet the ranching practices have continued as though
• 38:09
  nothing has changed, right?
• 38:10
  So, horse culture is really important and manifests in all kinds of
• 38:15
  ways, including rodeo and rodeo.
• 38:19
  I think the only thing that's as big as rodeo in Indian country is basketball.
• 38:23
  And also you asked me part of why I got into this, you know, I was working
• 38:29
  basically within a kind of public safety sphere of the Navajo nation
• 38:35
  trying to help missing and murdered persons and their families find justice.
• 38:41
  And in the course of that.
• 38:46
  I unfortunately came face to face with instances of animal cruelty and abuse
• 38:52
  because there is no greater indicator of future human violence than past
• 38:57
  human violence against an animal.
• 39:02
  And that's a greater indicator of future violence than violent human on
• 39:06
  human violence, which I think is really
• 39:07
  Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
• 39:08
  Interesting.
• 39:08
  That is interesting.
• 39:09
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 39:09
  And, and so I actually was sent photographs of animal
• 39:14
  abuse on the Navajo Nation.
• 39:16
  And and to me, this is the final manifestation of the
• 39:22
  trauma from genocide mm-hmm.
• 39:24
  Is when you lose your own humanity.
• 39:26
  Yeah.
• 39:27
  And that's really what the Native American Humane Society is about, is
• 39:33
  helping tribes themselves restore,
• 39:37
  reclaim,
• 39:37
  and restore the human animal bond that has always existed since
• 39:41
  time, Memorial time immemorial.
• 39:44
  But that, you know, the consequence of genocide has, you know, really
• 39:48
  compromised because colonization is still a daily reality.
• 39:56
  For a lot of native people.
• 39:58
  It's not something that they're reading about in a history book.
• 40:01
  They're still, you know, they got up today and are still living the
• 40:05
  consequence of that based upon the policies and practices Absolutely.
• 40:09
  Of the US federal government.
• 40:10
  And that directly affects everything.
• 40:15
  And when people are profoundly traumatized they bring that trauma to
• 40:21
  every relationship, including, especially I think with the most vulnerable
• 40:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 40:27
  The helpless.
• 40:28
  Yeah.
• 40:29
  Brandy Tomhave: The helpless.
• 40:29
  Those would be animals.
• 40:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I get it.
• 40:32
  And what's interesting to me is that it's very natural and understandable if you
• 40:39
  are a people that have been colonized to look at the process of colonization
• 40:49
  as that people to your people.
• 40:55
  You know, I, I, my family's incredibly mixed, but on my father's side, it's
• 41:00
  Litvac Lithuanian Jews who got out because of the pogroms, the killing of masculine
• 41:06
  of Jews in the 19th century there.
• 41:08
  And sort of that's what sp, you know, sent them to the Americas
• 41:12
  and to South Africa, where my family's from in the last 200 years.
• 41:17
  This process of genocide weirdly, often fueled on horseback has been going
• 41:27
  on since about the early Bronze Age.
• 41:32
  So that's about 4,000 years.
• 41:35
  And of course, where does it start?
• 41:37
  Eurasia, it starts in Eurasia and the step peoples who would've been
• 41:43
  not unlike Native American peoples.
• 41:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:47
  And it's interesting, if you go to Mongolia, you know,
• 41:49
  it's really interesting.
• 41:50
  You look around and go, oh, this must be what America kind of looked like
• 41:52
  before the white people showed up.
• 41:54
  You know, because it's of course
• 41:54
  Brandy Tomhave: just,
• 41:55
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 41:55
  I have
• 41:55
  Brandy Tomhave: to tell you that I have a very dear friend,
• 41:58
  Uhhuh,
• 41:58
  Who is Navajo and lives and works out on Navajo, and she
• 42:02
  went to Mongolia by herself.
• 42:04
  She's very interest.
• 42:05
  Okay.
• 42:05
  And she got there and she said, I traveled all the way across the world only to
• 42:10
  find people who looked exactly like me.
• 42:11
  Exactly my relations.
• 42:13
  I got the biggest kick out of that
• 42:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Eve.
• 42:15
  And to the, to the degree that Athabascan, you know, native American
• 42:18
  languages seem to either originate in Northern Asia or vice versa.
• 42:26
  We don't, we'll never know which one, but we know that
• 42:29
  it's a similar language route.
• 42:31
  And you know, you, you're with the, the.
• 42:34
  Horse tribes of the step, and they're living in ge yurts, which are not
• 42:39
  dissimilar from Hogans and so on.
• 42:42
  And then you go north into Siberia and they're living in teepees and yeah.
• 42:47
  Speaking language, it sounds quite same.
• 42:48
  And, and a very similar spiritual system.
• 42:52
  Healing system express with the round drum, the way of dancing, the way
• 42:57
  of chanting, the way of da da da.
• 42:58
  And of course, this actually goes into Europe too.
• 43:00
  If you go across into Northern Scandinavia, you're gonna find
• 43:03
  this with the Saami people.
• 43:04
  These are the last, if you like, indigenous people left in Europe.
• 43:08
  But of course, everyone in Europe is indigenous too.
• 43:11
  The Celts, the Vikings, you know, they were all the people who were there.
• 43:15
  Yeah.
• 43:15
  Right.
• 43:16
  And we've all been killing each other.
• 43:18
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 43:19
  Rupert Isaacson: With great enthusiasm and committing genocide upon genocide
• 43:24
  on each other since the first person threw their leg over the back of a horse
• 43:29
  and realized it made you super human.
• 43:31
  And it seems to have started in a place in western Russia called Lake, where
• 43:36
  people began to breed horses for a higher wither about 4,000 years ago, the way
• 43:41
  you could actually fix a saddle because truly wild horses or have no wither
• 43:44
  so saddles, they're hard to stay on.
• 43:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:47
  And they exploded out of there and killed everybody.
• 43:50
  And, and Mongolia, as you know, became the most violent culture on the planet for.
• 43:57
  Centuries, you know, KU, k Genghis, Khan, Tamerlan, these people who
• 44:01
  would like explode out of their, kill everybody from the Pacific
• 44:05
  to the Mediterranean for 20 years.
• 44:08
  And then Atilla, Lahan, you know, all these people.
• 44:10
  And then sort of run out of energy retreat back to the heartland
• 44:14
  and then half a generation later explode out and do it again.
• 44:18
  And then somewhere in the 17th century, some Tibetan monks wandered over the Altai
• 44:23
  plateau into Mongolia and just started talking about this thing called Buddhism.
• 44:29
  And like in a generation, they kind of went, oh yeah, we don't have
• 44:33
  to do that genocide stuff anymore.
• 44:34
  Yeah.
• 44:35
  It's kind of a stupid idea.
• 44:36
  Yeah, let's just have a good time here and you now go to Mongolia.
• 44:40
  And they're like the coolest people on the planet.
• 44:42
  And that trauma that then went obviously to the new world and everywhere else
• 44:48
  that was colonized was just simply the process of colonization that'd
• 44:52
  been going on within Eurasia forever.
• 44:54
  And then it just, when people figured their way across the
• 44:58
  big oceans, well they're just gonna go do it over there now.
• 45:01
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 45:01
  Yeah.
• 45:01
  Rupert Isaacson: And also the people that they found in Africa and Native were also
• 45:06
  doing, frankly, doing it to each other.
• 45:08
  They were not saints.
• 45:09
  And so, okay.
• 45:12
  We're all as bad as each other.
• 45:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:14
  Except for the hunter gatherer people who don't do that stuff.
• 45:19
  But anyone who is a herding culture or a farming culture does this stuff.
• 45:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:24
  And
• 45:28
  so we have more in common than we think we do.
• 45:30
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 45:31
  Rupert Isaacson: I also posit that within white America, there is a, and
• 45:37
  we haven't talked about black America, obviously there's also an inherited
• 45:41
  trauma of how they arrived because a lot of people arrived in America because
• 45:48
  they were fleeing what was not so great in Europe and encountered great
• 45:57
  hardship when they got to the Americas.
• 45:59
  'cause there were, you know, you could be exploited pretty well and a lot of
• 46:03
  people, you know, arrived there also as indenture, indentured labor and slaves.
• 46:07
  So the first slaves were actually Irish and then they ran out of them
• 46:12
  and then started thinking, hmm, those West Africans look quite useful.
• 46:15
  Let's get them across into the Caribbean.
• 46:17
  And, you know, brutal.
• 46:20
  And now we are all coming out of this and looking at each other
• 46:27
  going, well, we're all still here.
• 46:31
  And you know what?
• 46:33
  We all love our dogs and we love our horses.
• 46:37
  Is it not time to.
• 46:42
  Just admit that we're just all the same.
• 46:44
  And I think what you are doing is so much a part of that and that this debt of
• 46:48
  gratitude that I've got to Native America.
• 46:51
  So for those who don't know the, a lot of people know the story of how I
• 46:55
  went to Mongolia with my son, but what they don't know maybe is that there's
• 46:59
  a follow up book called The Long Ride Home, which details the three journeys
• 47:03
  that I was told to make by the Mongolian Shaman ghost after he did his healing.
• 47:10
  And the last of those was on the Navajo reservation.
• 47:13
  And I had already had a lot of adventures on the Navajo reservation
• 47:17
  working in the human rights sector as a journalist for sort of 10 or 15 years
• 47:23
  beforehand, I fell into it following the story of an amazing woman called
• 47:26
  Roberta Black Goat, who refused.
• 47:28
  Yeah.
• 47:29
  You know, remember her?
• 47:30
  Yes.
• 47:30
  Yeah.
• 47:31
  She refused to move from that contested land that the Peabody
• 47:34
  Coal Company were gonna blow up that sacred mountain and she wouldn't go.
• 47:38
  That makes sense.
• 47:39
  And I went and stayed with her for a while and back in the nineties and was so
• 47:46
  privileged to see that traditional life.
• 47:48
  And anyway, so then I eventually end up there with my son and a healer
• 47:54
  whose name, his real name is Chi, but he was also known as Blue Horse.
• 47:58
  And we call him Blue Horse in the book because we wanted to protect his identity
• 48:02
  a little bit because he was still.
• 48:03
  We didn't want him getting overwhelmed, but blue horse is often what he went by.
• 48:07
  And he would use horse energy after he healed my son, the healing rituals.
• 48:14
  And then we sweated on my son's behalf.
• 48:16
  But then he also did a, a ritual with making the fire and then
• 48:20
  in the ash, seeing the patterns in the ash and interpreting what
• 48:25
  might be still be in my son.
• 48:26
  That need was unhelpful and needed to come out.
• 48:29
  And then after we'd sweated all day, my wife and I, not Rowan, we didn't
• 48:34
  put him through the sweat lodge.
• 48:35
  And then the dawn leaving the corn pollen ceremony that was done at
• 48:42
  dawn on the rim of the canyon.
• 48:46
  My son was still very using, very scripted language at this point and
• 48:53
  you couldn't really have a conversation with him or like back, back and forth.
• 48:56
  Like we are.
• 48:58
  We get on highway I 40, interstate 40 heading out of the Navajo
• 49:03
  reservation towards Albuquerque.
• 49:05
  And as we go under Mount Taylor, which as you know is the Eastern's
• 49:09
  boundary, there's this like truck stop in a McDonald's, you know,
• 49:12
  very prosaic after we've done this beautiful ceremony and so on and so on.
• 49:16
  And there's a truck stop and McDonald's and in their, of
• 49:19
  course there's these terrible.
• 49:21
  Horrible drinks, slushies that have the, all these chemicals in them.
• 49:25
  And I, my son wants one, and I don't want to give him one because I know
• 49:27
  he'll send him nuts and he has a big meltdown and we get back in the car
• 49:34
  and I'm like, oh God, you know, of course you're gonna have a meltdown.
• 49:37
  You know, you know, go on then.
• 49:38
  You know, just knock yourself out.
• 49:40
  You know?
• 49:40
  I was grumpy because I hadn't slept.
• 49:42
  And, and he goes from the back, he goes, I'm not being grumpy, Dan.
• 49:46
  I'm just telling you what drink I want.
• 49:49
  And I just pulled over on the shoulder
• 49:53
  and went, who are you?
• 49:57
  And from that moment on, we had actual conversation, and it happened right
• 50:06
  through and after these ceremonies, and I could go into more amazingness.
• 50:12
  That's happened on the Navajo reservation, but the practice of
• 50:16
  horse boy method, which is how a lot of people have come to this podcast.
• 50:19
  And now my work would not have happened, but for the input of
• 50:25
  Navajo Nation, native America.
• 50:28
  And there was a generosity there.
• 50:31
  I think that's what I'm trying to put my finger on, that
• 50:35
  said, look, you're a white boy.
• 50:40
  Your people have done terrible things to our people, and we're frankly angry about
• 50:44
  it, but we see that your son needs help.
• 50:50
  And we are not gonna be wankers.
• 50:52
  We're absolutely gonna help him.
• 50:55
  And we just have to live within that ambivalence.
• 50:59
  And the help that they gave him was top notch.
• 51:06
  Talk to me about the concept of generosity, animal to human, human
• 51:12
  to animal within Native America.
• 51:16
  And for people who are listening or watching this who are
• 51:20
  practitioners of animal assisted stuff, what can we learn from that?
• 51:28
  Brandy Tomhave: You ask great questions, Rupert.
• 51:30
  I think that, as I said before, every tribe is different, you know?
• 51:35
  Yeah.
• 51:35
  And I, I, I don't want to gloss over that.
• 51:37
  I, I, I want to really recognize and, and ensure that we're
• 51:41
  Rupert Isaacson: indeed, but one can make generalizations even about, say Europe.
• 51:44
  Okay.
• 51:44
  We're all different nations and then we, yeah.
• 51:46
  European nation, we a thousand different nations.
• 51:48
  And it's the same, but we can also talk about Europe, you know?
• 51:51
  Yeah, yeah,
• 51:52
  Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
• 51:52
  So that said,
• 51:53
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 51:54
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 51:54
  It is such a a, a, a, a moral foundation.
• 52:01
  It's such a, a, a foundational value with an every tribal community i, I know of.
• 52:06
  And it is, it's, it is how you begin and the demonstration of generosity is really
• 52:15
  how you begin and end every interaction.
• 52:18
  I think that has been my experience.
• 52:20
  And so there is an expectation of generosity as well in some communities,
• 52:27
  like, the Pacific Northwest communities what we hear in my family call the
• 52:31
  fish tribes you know, there's potlatch, there's a whole tradition of potlatch,
• 52:34
  communities, you know, where it's very ritualistic and and very you know,
• 52:39
  ceremonially ostentatious and that, you know, you give, give, give and
• 52:44
  then the, the, the extent which you can give your status goes up, right?
• 52:48
  Like there's a, there's a direct correlation between the, the capacity
• 52:52
  to give and, and and your standing that is very specific to them.
• 52:58
  I too have experienced what nothing like you and your son, but my experience as an
• 53:06
  outsider in tribal communities with whom I've worked is extraordinary generosity
• 53:11
  to me and and a willingness to give me.
• 53:19
  The benefit of the doubt mm-hmm.
• 53:21
  To
• 53:22
  have faith that I am who I say I am, and I am there for the reasons I state.
• 53:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:29
  And
• 53:29
  that's pretty extraordinary when you think about how, how much
• 53:34
  native Trust has been betrayed.
• 53:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:37
  And yet it's it's still a social Um hmm.
• 53:45
  What's, what's the term I'm looking for?
• 53:46
  It's, it's, it's a social construct that is very, it's a system of
• 53:51
  Rupert Isaacson: ethics.
• 53:52
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 53:52
  There, there you go.
• 53:53
  A hundred percent.
• 53:55
  A hundred percent.
• 53:56
  And and I think that I, i not sure if this answers your question directly, but I,
• 54:03
  in terms of between humans and animals, there is an understanding that anything in
• 54:09
  everything an animal gives you is a gift.
• 54:12
  And it is to be respected and honored, um mm-hmm.
• 54:16
  On a spiritual plane.
• 54:17
  And there is, so there is a reciprocity between humans and animals.
• 54:23
  That is I think very special within tribal communities.
• 54:27
  It's, it's, it's recognized in a very special way and honored Ceremonially.
• 54:31
  Ceremonially, but then even just casually, socially.
• 54:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Yeah.
• 54:35
  Brandy Tomhave: They're not so much seen as and again, this is a generalization
• 54:40
  and I apologize for that, but they're not seen as beasts of burden.
• 54:43
  They're seen as relatives.
• 54:46
  Rupert Isaacson: This is the key.
• 54:47
  I think.
• 54:48
  So while you were talking earlier, I was looking up on my phone
• 54:52
  Cartesian relationship to animals.
• 54:55
  So as you're probably aware, there was in the 17th century a bloke
• 55:00
  called Decart who was a philosopher.
• 55:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:02
  Right?
• 55:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:03
  And he is basically more or less considered responsible for the shift in
• 55:11
  Western thought to materialism, to saying, you know, for example, consciousness
• 55:21
  comes from the brain, or the universe is just a physical thing, or animals
• 55:31
  because they don't speak and express emotion in the way that humans do,
• 55:38
  although they kind of do, I dunno how he could have come up with that really.
• 55:41
  Because I mean, anyone observing a mammal, you know, it's not that hard.
• 55:45
  It's not that different from us to say, well, that means they don't have souls.
• 55:51
  And if they don't have souls.
• 55:53
  Then they just be suburban and therefore they don't actually suffer.
• 55:57
  So it doesn't matter how much you abuse them.
• 56:00
  Brandy Tomhave: And it's a very atomized view.
• 56:02
  Rupert Isaacson: It is, it is.
• 56:03
  Now, it was not always the European view by any means.
• 56:05
  So, you know, you talked about like the potlatch and that kind of gift giving.
• 56:09
  That's Viking culture, right?
• 56:11
  And that's Germanic horse culture.
• 56:13
  The goths, the vandals, the, you know, you talk, but what it, what that Cartesian
• 56:19
  thing does come from is a little bit the ancient, the cultures of the ancient world
• 56:25
  starting in Mesopotamia, going into Egypt, then Greece and Rome, which were basically
• 56:33
  justifying slavery, you know, and again, we haven't talked about the experience
• 56:40
  of of, of black America and of course black America and Native America often
• 56:43
  quite intertwined because Native American generosity would often give sanctuary to
• 56:49
  runaway escaped slaves, which would bring down the wr of the feds upon the Native
• 56:54
  Americans, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 56:56
  And there's many black native American tribes from the southern US all the way
• 57:02
  down into Central and South America, like the Garner and okay, okay.
• 57:06
  The Mosquito Indians and so on, Seminoles.
• 57:11
  But this Cartesian view of animals I think was just a kind of an
• 57:16
  inheritance of a certain kind of.
• 57:20
  Ancient world urbanized justification of enslaving any entity, human or animal.
• 57:30
  And that, of course in the 19th century expressed itself in
• 57:37
  America as manifest destiny.
• 57:40
  And therefore, well, you can't stop progress.
• 57:43
  So these people are in the way, and it doesn't really
• 57:46
  matter what we do with them.
• 57:47
  And anyway, we're again, give them the roads just like the Romans did, gonna
• 57:50
  give 'em roads and things like that.
• 57:51
  So, you know, it doesn't really matter what we go in there and do.
• 57:55
  And therefore it doesn't matter to the animals that what we do to the
• 57:58
  animals that carry us in there.
• 58:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 58:01
  So I think by the time, say, native American people sitting on a horse, were
• 58:08
  looking across at, say, a settler or a US cavalry man sitting on a horse, then
• 58:16
  you'd have two very, very, very different perceptions of what this horse meant.
• 58:22
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 58:23
  Rupert Isaacson: And what's
• 58:24
  Brandy Tomhave: happening in that moment
• 58:25
  Rupert Isaacson: and what this land meant and what this human
• 58:28
  relationship ought to be.
• 58:30
  Because we also know that the vast majority of Indian tribes actually were
• 58:36
  quite good to the whites when they first showed up and then regretted it later.
• 58:41
  That generosity, again,
• 58:45
  my feeling having spent a bit of time on in Native America is that could we, as the
• 58:54
  white inheritors of that decar, Cartesian, I think is the word viewpoint, who are now
• 59:03
  going Yeah, of course animals have souls.
• 59:05
  Of course we must have relationships with animals of course.
• 59:07
  And now that, you know, you got the Native Americans probably looking
• 59:10
  at there going, yeah, no, no shit.
• 59:12
  Sherlock, you know,
• 59:13
  Brandy Tomhave: well they think about one health, the whole notion of one health go.
• 59:17
  It's like,
• 59:18
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 59:18
  Have you
• 59:19
  Brandy Tomhave: heard that one?
• 59:19
  Yeah, right.
• 59:20
  No, no.
• 59:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk to me about that.
• 59:21
  Yeah.
• 59:21
  Brandy Tomhave: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 59:22
  I didn't mean to interrupt.
• 59:23
  No, no,
• 59:23
  Rupert Isaacson: please.
• 59:24
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 59:24
  So one health is this concept, right?
• 59:28
  That animal health and human health are completely interrelated and
• 59:32
  therefore must be considered together.
• 59:36
  And, you know, the world Health Organization has a
• 59:39
  big one health program, okay?
• 59:43
  The United States at least, I don't know what time it is, they
• 59:46
  used to have a one health program.
• 59:50
  Really, I can't give up.
• 59:51
  Okay.
• 59:51
  Yeah.
• 59:52
  But you know, it's just for native people when they hear about One
• 59:56
  Health and these fancy found basically white, highly hyper educated white
• 1:00:03
  professionals come into their community to tell them about One health.
• 1:00:07
  What they're really doing is saying back to native people what they have always
• 1:00:13
  known and have never stopped practicing.
• 1:00:14
  And that is that, you know, the human life and animal life is completely
• 1:00:20
  interconnected, and that is true on the spiritual plane as well as
• 1:00:23
  the, the practical physical plane.
• 1:00:26
  And so of course our health is interrelated and that's not any kind of
• 1:00:31
  aha moment in Indian country, and they just sort of chuckle, you know, because
• 1:00:35
  they tend to be a very polite people.
• 1:00:38
  And so anyway, yeah, that's one health and it feels kind of like an appropriation
• 1:00:43
  of an essential native value that, you know, sort of Western medicine
• 1:00:48
  has figured out how to commoditize and, and brand, but we're all for it.
• 1:00:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  Provided, yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Put the money where the mouth is if possible.
• 1:01:01
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:02
  Rupert Isaacson: If if someone is listening to this conversation from, say,
• 1:01:10
  Slovakia or.
• 1:01:13
  Pakistan, let alone Leicestershire in England or Ohio in the States.
• 1:01:21
  And they are practitioners, let's say they animal assisted practitioners.
• 1:01:27
  Doesn't have to just be equine.
• 1:01:31
  What would be the sort of, it doesn't have to be the one thing,
• 1:01:36
  what would be the paramount things that you think they could learn from
• 1:01:45
  the Native American way of relating to
• 1:01:50
  particularly companion animals that could help all of us better our practice, no
• 1:01:56
  matter what culture we're coming out of?
• 1:02:08
  Brandy Tomhave: You know, this is so simple.
• 1:02:10
  I fear it will sound trite, but I'm gonna share with you something that
• 1:02:14
  someone recently shared with me that just really landed for me and has
• 1:02:20
  been changing for me as a person.
• 1:02:23
  And it is so simple, which is to recognize that,
• 1:02:31
  that maybe.
• 1:02:33
  Our job every day is really simple, and that is to be a good relative,
• 1:02:38
  be a good relative to these animals.
• 1:02:41
  When you really boil something down to, to something that basic, all of
• 1:02:47
  a sudden anything seems possible and practical, like what does that mean?
• 1:02:53
  What you know, this is, you know, my dog Luke and the Choctaw people raise
• 1:02:59
  these cattle hula leopard dogs to hunt for bears and, and pigs in the swamps.
• 1:03:05
  And and he loves to get in on a good zoom call, so my apologies, but no,
• 1:03:09
  Rupert Isaacson: he's a gentleman.
• 1:03:10
  Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  I really try to be a good relative to Luke, which means that I try every
• 1:03:18
  day to put myself in his place and think what's a good day for Luke?
• 1:03:22
  And make time for that and do that thing.
• 1:03:25
  And I think that I'm not well traveled like you are.
• 1:03:29
  I haven't been all over the world, so I don't know what would resonate
• 1:03:32
  for people outside the United States.
• 1:03:34
  But if it's someone in Ohio, like you mentioned, I think it would
• 1:03:39
  be to understand that when you are treating when you're dealing
• 1:03:45
  with an a companion animal, the.
• 1:03:49
  You are dealing with a companion.
• 1:03:51
  It doesn't matter if they're an animal or not.
• 1:03:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:53
  It's the companionship that, the, the whole thing, everything should pivot upon.
• 1:04:00
  So you have to deal with both ends of the leash.
• 1:04:04
  Right.
• 1:04:04
  Don't just treat the animal.
• 1:04:07
  Treat the animal and the person who is their relative, it's like cancer.
• 1:04:12
  Cancer happens to the whole family.
• 1:04:14
  You can't just treat the patient, you treat the whole family because
• 1:04:19
  otherwise the patient won't do well.
• 1:04:21
  The patient will not thrive.
• 1:04:23
  And I think you could
• 1:04:24
  Rupert Isaacson: actually say the same for autism and Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Absolutely.
• 1:04:27
  Serve the whole family.
• 1:04:28
  Absolutely.
• 1:04:28
  Serve
• 1:04:29
  Brandy Tomhave: the whole family.
• 1:04:29
  I think that, and so, yeah, be a good relative.
• 1:04:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Be a good relative.
• 1:04:34
  That doesn't sound trite at all.
• 1:04:36
  Okay.
• 1:04:38
  Now speaking of being good relatives couple of challenging questions back
• 1:04:41
  to the perception from outsiders of how animals might get treated
• 1:04:48
  differently in Native American context.
• 1:04:52
  And again, I think this will help us understand about our
• 1:04:56
  relationship to animals in general.
• 1:04:58
  So I was recently at a equine conference in the USA another
• 1:05:04
  one after we've met in Florida.
• 1:05:07
  And it is part run by people who are very much Mustang Mustang advocates.
• 1:05:14
  And one of the topics of conversation that came up in these presentations
• 1:05:22
  was that there is a problem.
• 1:05:24
  I was told on Reserv Indian reservations where Mustangs are
• 1:05:32
  rounded up wholesale and sold for meat.
• 1:05:35
  I don't know if this is true or not.
• 1:05:37
  And they were saying this is part of the general problem 'cause it's also
• 1:05:40
  going on outside of Native America.
• 1:05:42
  But they said, you know, we can, we can affect it to some degree within
• 1:05:47
  white America, but Native American nations are, they're sovereign
• 1:05:49
  nations, so we can't really go in there and do anything to better the
• 1:05:54
  the lot of those mustangs there.
• 1:05:57
  And I heard that and I was like, well that's interesting because,
• 1:06:00
  you know, I know the plains cultures in particular, the Western American
• 1:06:04
  cultures of Native America to be very horse friendly, very pro horse.
• 1:06:09
  So I wonder what the real story here is.
• 1:06:15
  And of course, of course I thought of you and I thought, I wonder what Brandy
• 1:06:19
  would say if she was in the room.
• 1:06:21
  So this is kind of my ch chance to ask you a little bit about that.
• 1:06:25
  What, what do you think?
• 1:06:25
  Yeah,
• 1:06:27
  Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
• 1:06:27
  Well, so.
• 1:06:29
  I think this is really complicated.
• 1:06:31
  Yeah.
• 1:06:31
  And my time to confess, this is why the Native American Humane Society does
• 1:06:36
  not include within its scope horses.
• 1:06:41
  Okay.
• 1:06:41
  Because it is so complex.
• 1:06:43
  And honestly, if we can be impactful, you know, regarding companion animals will
• 1:06:48
  have really done a good job achieving a, a a, a mission for native people.
• 1:06:58
  This is complicated because of the land, right?
• 1:07:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:02
  So I'm gonna tell you I don't have a definitive answer for you, but I can give
• 1:07:05
  you a couple of scenarios that Right.
• 1:07:08
  And I'm not
• 1:07:08
  Rupert Isaacson: looking for a definitive answer.
• 1:07:09
  Answer.
• 1:07:09
  I'm looking for a discussion.
• 1:07:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:07:11
  Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
• 1:07:12
  So, the Salt River Pima Indian tribe in Arizona have an extraordinary
• 1:07:20
  program that is a WildHorse sanctuary.
• 1:07:24
  Mm.
• 1:07:24
  It's, it's amazing.
• 1:07:27
  And the next time you're here, we should go there.
• 1:07:29
  Salt
• 1:07:29
  Rupert Isaacson: River Pima in Arizona.
• 1:07:30
  Brandy Tomhave: Salt River.
• 1:07:31
  Yeah.
• 1:07:31
  In Scottsdale.
• 1:07:33
  Ah, you usually said
• 1:07:33
  Rupert Isaacson: that Sounds like Phoenix to me.
• 1:07:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:36
  Okay.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah.
• 1:07:37
  Brandy Tomhave: You associates Scottsdale with, you know, country clubs and
• 1:07:40
  Rupert Isaacson: golf courses.
• 1:07:41
  Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  Resort
• 1:07:41
  Brandy Tomhave: living.
• 1:07:41
  Sure.
• 1:07:42
  But the Salt River Pima are still there and they have this.
• 1:07:46
  Extraordinary WildHorse, you know, Mustang sanctuary.
• 1:07:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:52
  The same is true of the Hoopa Indians in Northern California on the Pacific Coast.
• 1:07:57
  The two could not situationally be more different from each other,
• 1:08:02
  and you are absolutely right there.
• 1:08:04
  There is this thriving, beautiful horse culture within Indian country.
• 1:08:11
  And also we have a little land problem.
• 1:08:15
  There's a once a really funny native comedian named Charlie Hill who
• 1:08:20
  went on David, the David Letterman show a nighttime talk show here
• 1:08:25
  and said you know, so Indians have a little real estate problem.
• 1:08:29
  And that real estate problem is a real problem for animals.
• 1:08:33
  Two legged M four-legged.
• 1:08:35
  And, and for wild horses especially.
• 1:08:40
  So Indian reservations are primarily, not exclusively, but most of,
• 1:08:45
  mostly comprised of federal land.
• 1:08:49
  That means it's not private land.
• 1:08:51
  It cannot be owned in fee.
• 1:08:54
  It cannot be bought or sold.
• 1:08:56
  It's being held in trust for the benefit of.
• 1:08:58
  Tribes by the federal government.
• 1:09:01
  That means there is no property tax base.
• 1:09:04
  And that is why you don't see animal welfare programs and systems on
• 1:09:09
  Indian reservations because a tribe doesn't have the capacity to raise,
• 1:09:13
  raise revenue for animal systems like local towns or counties.
• 1:09:17
  The way all that stuff is paid for is to, can
• 1:09:20
  Rupert Isaacson: I just go devil's advocate for a moment?
• 1:09:21
  'cause I can hear a whole bunch of Americans saying, what about the casinos?
• 1:09:25
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:09:26
  So the casinos are the most regulated tribal casinos are the most regulated
• 1:09:31
  businesses in the United States, right?
• 1:09:33
  And who benefits the most from tribal casinos are states.
• 1:09:36
  And that's pursuant to the federal law that allows tribal gaming the Native
• 1:09:41
  American Indian gaming actor niga.
• 1:09:43
  And so that's all been negotiated by the federal government and the states.
• 1:09:48
  So the states get the most and the extent that tribes, tribal casinos are
• 1:09:55
  profitable, they are typically being managed by the big gaming concerns.
• 1:10:01
  Right?
• 1:10:02
  So, I would just like to say for the record that what you see when you
• 1:10:07
  see a successful tribal casino is not a moneymaking machine that is
• 1:10:13
  exclusively for the benefit of the tribe, which is what we all assume.
• 1:10:19
  Right.
• 1:10:19
  And so, you'd be surprised.
• 1:10:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Would, or, or hope, we would hope as well.
• 1:10:23
  Oh,
• 1:10:23
  Brandy Tomhave: right.
• 1:10:23
  We would hope so.
• 1:10:24
  But that's usually not the case.
• 1:10:25
  And then those monies are already identified in terms
• 1:10:27
  of how they can be spent.
• 1:10:28
  So that's, that's why not, and then,
• 1:10:31
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 1:10:31
  Good answer.
• 1:10:32
  And,
• 1:10:32
  Brandy Tomhave: and then those monies are prioritized for, for human needs education
• 1:10:37
  is at the top of every tribe's list.
• 1:10:39
  Every tribe that has a casino is spending money.
• 1:10:41
  They're, they're plowing it into education, housing, senior
• 1:10:45
  services, stuff like that, including my own, the Choctaw Nation.
• 1:10:49
  So, that's why not the tribal casino.
• 1:10:51
  So now you've got land that can't, there's no tax base for it.
• 1:10:55
  And you have federal agencies that really dictate what can be, how that land can be
• 1:11:03
  used, what can be done on the land and out west it's the Bureau of Land Management.
• 1:11:07
  Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  And, you know, BLM are really the the decision makers when it comes
• 1:11:12
  to wild horses in the western part of the United States, which is
• 1:11:16
  Rupert Isaacson: including on Indian land.
• 1:11:17
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:11:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:11:18
  Yeah.
• 1:11:18
  Yeah.
• 1:11:19
  Brandy Tomhave: And so, the tribe has a seat at the table,
• 1:11:23
  but BLM is calling the shots.
• 1:11:26
  Rupert Isaacson: I see.
• 1:11:27
  Brandy Tomhave: And so the decision making is structurally complicated.
• 1:11:35
  The agendas are nuanced and
• 1:11:43
  mm-hmm.
• 1:11:44
  And competing.
• 1:11:45
  And so for example, if you have a, a herding nation, right?
• 1:11:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:11:52
  You have grazing permits
• 1:11:54
  mm-hmm.
• 1:11:55
  And people who have grazing permits and those grazing, if you can't own
• 1:12:00
  land, having a grazing permit is the only chance you have to exert agency
• 1:12:10
  over land as though it is your own.
• 1:12:13
  Right.
• 1:12:13
  So
• 1:12:15
  what a wild horse can represent to a native family with a grazing permit
• 1:12:22
  who's running sheep, is like an existential threat to their own existence.
• 1:12:31
  And it's likely that a tribal community where there's a lot of
• 1:12:37
  hurting is also a tribal community where there's a lot of poverty.
• 1:12:42
  So the opportunity.
• 1:12:44
  To make money
• 1:12:47
  Rupert Isaacson: by herding those wild horses.
• 1:12:49
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:49
  By herding
• 1:12:49
  Brandy Tomhave: those wild horses may look different to them than to me.
• 1:12:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  Brandy Tomhave: And I have, yeah.
• 1:12:58
  So it, so it does happen.
• 1:13:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:13:00
  It is controversial within tribal communities because you have traditional
• 1:13:03
  families who think it's an abomination, that it's a betrayal of traditional
• 1:13:09
  Native American beliefs, and then you have other families who think it's survival.
• 1:13:14
  Yeah.
• 1:13:14
  And it's, it's us or them.
• 1:13:16
  And and I don't know how to mediate that because both are true.
• 1:13:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  Yeah.
• 1:13:24
  No, I, I, I hear you.
• 1:13:26
  And I don't think there's an easy answer.
• 1:13:28
  It's an interesting discussion because it, it brings up this whole other
• 1:13:35
  discussion of, you know, are horses feral in the United States or are they native?
• 1:13:42
  Because although the conquistadors did bring them back, they had actually
• 1:13:48
  been here they had been present some thousands of years before and then had
• 1:13:53
  gone, and that's why they thrive so well.
• 1:13:58
  Because it is actually original habitat and it creates a really
• 1:14:02
  interesting ecological discussion.
• 1:14:05
  Particularly, as you say, if the people having that discussion or
• 1:14:08
  leading that discussion are the descendants of the conquistadors.
• 1:14:12
  And I don't think we're gonna arrive at a definitive answer, but I think
• 1:14:18
  what's useful about those types of questions is that they just draw
• 1:14:23
  attention to the fact that there are all, all sorts of ambiguities.
• 1:14:27
  And to get anywhere real in life, one actually has to deal
• 1:14:32
  in ambiguity and compromise.
• 1:14:35
  I think you answered that very well.
• 1:14:37
  I've got a second question, which is, I know of one good, doesn't mean that
• 1:14:44
  there aren't others, but I only happen to know of one person who's really working
• 1:14:49
  in the equine assisted sphere within Native America and making a difference.
• 1:14:52
  There's a woman called Jessica Jessica White Plum.
• 1:14:55
  And I want to get her on this show and I can't find her email address.
• 1:15:00
  And I, I keep trying because she was on Warwick Schiller's podcast, the Journey
• 1:15:04
  on podcast, which is really good.
• 1:15:05
  And I've met her and she's doing amazing work with that in Native America.
• 1:15:12
  And I, I would like to get involved.
• 1:15:14
  And then I had also spent some time on the Nez PE reservation years ago
• 1:15:21
  when I was following the release of.
• 1:15:25
  Of wolves into the American West.
• 1:15:29
  And I followed that in its early stages in the nineties as a journalist.
• 1:15:32
  And you, you may well be familiar with this, but it's very interesting, you
• 1:15:35
  know, in Yellowstone the wolves were released and the, there's no doubt
• 1:15:39
  that the ecology benefited massively.
• 1:15:42
  And then the Wol have since gone out and colonized many other places.
• 1:15:47
  And some people love it, some people hate it.
• 1:15:49
  But what's nice is they're back in the neighboring state of Idaho.
• 1:15:53
  So that was Wyoming, Montana, as you know, in Idaho, which
• 1:15:57
  has a sliver of Yellowstone.
• 1:15:59
  The government moved in very quickly to try to scupper and sabotage the
• 1:16:07
  Wolf Free Introduction program there.
• 1:16:09
  And it was the Nez Pece Indians who stepped up casino owners Interesting.
• 1:16:14
  And said, actually, for us, the wolves are a symbol of family.
• 1:16:18
  We want them back.
• 1:16:20
  And they funded it.
• 1:16:21
  And but what they also did, as you know, the Nez pe, they're
• 1:16:25
  very much a horse culture.
• 1:16:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:16:27
  And appaloosa horses in the us Well, that's the Nez PE Indians.
• 1:16:33
  Any of us who own an appaloosa have ever owned an appaloosa.
• 1:16:36
  Okay.
• 1:16:36
  Maybe they actually came from Kanab rubber lines brought over by, from Europe by the.
• 1:16:44
  Spanish.
• 1:16:44
  Okay.
• 1:16:45
  But nonetheless, taken by the Nez person, whole culture and a whole breed.
• 1:16:50
  And they had a program for quite a long time with youth which I looked
• 1:16:54
  at a little bit when I was there with appaloosa breeding and training.
• 1:16:58
  Are you aware of what's going on within Native America, within these
• 1:17:02
  sort of equine assisted things at all?
• 1:17:05
  And ha what if, so I know this is outside of your dog companion.
• 1:17:10
  Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  But, but what, are there conversations going on and what are you aware of?
• 1:17:18
  Brandy Tomhave: So, I'm not aware of enough, as much
• 1:17:21
  as I should, so, uh mm-hmm.
• 1:17:23
  No, I, so I just wanna mention, yeah, I've heard of Jessica White plume too.
• 1:17:27
  I similarly would love to chat with her.
• 1:17:29
  So maybe you and I can,
• 1:17:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Jessica, are you watching this?
• 1:17:32
  Can you?
• 1:17:33
  That's right.
• 1:17:33
  Yeah.
• 1:17:36
  if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
• 1:17:41
  you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
• 1:17:47
  of dressage training.
• 1:17:48
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:17:57
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:18:03
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:18:10
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:18:12
  Intrigued?
• 1:18:13
  Like to know more?
• 1:18:15
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:18:20
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:18:22
  Take it from there.
• 1:18:23
  Brandy Tomhave: So I, I would love to be a part of that conversation.
• 1:18:27
  So, I think I could be wrong.
• 1:18:31
  So anyone out there please note, take this with a grain of salt, but I think that the
• 1:18:37
  program in the Nez per Tribe was started by a Navajo gentleman named Rudy Shialla.
• 1:18:44
  Have you ever heard his name?
• 1:18:45
  I
• 1:18:45
  Rupert Isaacson: have not.
• 1:18:46
  Please tell me.
• 1:18:47
  Brandy Tomhave: So Rudy recently passed away, and, he's a extraordinary person.
• 1:18:53
  He's the kind of guy who found a way to wear horses into every
• 1:18:57
  conversation inside the fi.
• 1:18:59
  The first five minutes didn't matter what you're talking,
• 1:19:02
  Rupert Isaacson: that's like me.
• 1:19:03
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:19:03
  It, it really didn't matter.
• 1:19:05
  He will, would link everything back to a horse.
• 1:19:09
  Okay.
• 1:19:09
  And,
• 1:19:10
  So he was born and raised on the Navajo Nation, a traditional,
• 1:19:14
  in a traditional Navajo family.
• 1:19:16
  And he found a way to walk in both worlds.
• 1:19:19
  And he went off and got his PhD and fell in love with a Native American woman
• 1:19:25
  who is not Navajo and I think in Idaho.
• 1:19:28
  And and raised a family there.
• 1:19:30
  And for many years ran a horse program for the NS per tribe.
• 1:19:35
  And I believe it's the one you're describing that's a youth program.
• 1:19:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:19:39
  And
• 1:19:39
  he, Rudy just recently passed away.
• 1:19:41
  You might be interested to know that Rudy in the final years of his life was working
• 1:19:47
  very hard on establishing a registry of what he believed to be the original.
• 1:19:55
  American horse that was a, a Native American horse that was a smaller horse.
• 1:20:00
  And that there he was working with the University of Kentucky doing this
• 1:20:05
  genetic research and he wanted to bring back the original native horse.
• 1:20:11
  I don't know more than that, but it's a shame that Rudy left us before you
• 1:20:17
  two getting a chance to meet each other because I have a feeling that you
• 1:20:21
  would have been, become dear friends.
• 1:20:24
  I will say something that I hope,
• 1:20:31
  I don't mean disrespect to our tribal partners or my, you know, native
• 1:20:36
  friends, but I think that there is so much unmet need in tribal communities
• 1:20:44
  that the needs of individuals who have learning differences or neurological
• 1:20:51
  differences or I hate to use the term disabilities, but you know Sure.
• 1:20:55
  Just, you know, different disabilities.
• 1:20:58
  They, there are not enough services for them.
• 1:21:01
  They're not enough a part of the conversation.
• 1:21:04
  And so I think that this is very new mm-hmm.
• 1:21:08
  In most tribal communities.
• 1:21:10
  And, I am going to seek them out though now.
• 1:21:16
  And I think that
• 1:21:21
  this is gonna sound terrible.
• 1:21:23
  Rupert, I, I don't, again, I'm gonna, I am afraid to say this, but I'm
• 1:21:27
  gonna go ahead 'cause I feel like I'm safe and you're really candid.
• 1:21:30
  And so here I go.
• 1:21:33
  I think for much the same reason why the needs of dogs are not at the top
• 1:21:39
  of a priority list, because they're so busy trying to deal with the, the needs
• 1:21:43
  of two legged family members, housing, clean water, you know, electricity,
• 1:21:50
  access to broadband, all those things, they just don't make the list.
• 1:21:54
  And similarly, they are trying, they're trying so hard to deal with the needs
• 1:22:02
  of, of mainstream tribal members.
• 1:22:06
  They have, they oftentimes just don't have the bandwidth to deal
• 1:22:11
  with special needs because basic needs are still front of mind.
• 1:22:18
  And because the federal government has not probably the Indian Health
• 1:22:23
  Service is the primary agency to provide healthcare in, in, in tribal communities.
• 1:22:28
  And I know that this is emergent, right.
• 1:22:32
  I'm not the first person to say this or to recognize this, but
• 1:22:35
  this is still relatively new.
• 1:22:37
  Yeah.
• 1:22:38
  New.
• 1:22:39
  And so, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:22:40
  I wish I did.
• 1:22:41
  And I'm gonna seek that out and I'll let you know.
• 1:22:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, here's a, here's a question then.
• 1:22:46
  I mean, I think I'd love to collaborate with you and, and with
• 1:22:50
  Jeff and that's your husband and
• 1:22:53
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:22:53
  If you
• 1:22:53
  Rupert Isaacson: actually, I'd like to get him on the other show, which
• 1:22:55
  is live free, ride free to talk about his career in Indian law.
• 1:22:59
  Actually maybe both of you together because that's a different conversation
• 1:23:03
  and I think we, we touch on a lot on human rights on that one.
• 1:23:07
  Okay.
• 1:23:08
  That's my other podcast.
• 1:23:09
  Okay.
• 1:23:10
  But
• 1:23:13
  I work so much in the USA and horse Boy originated in the USA.
• 1:23:18
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 1:23:18
  Rupert Isaacson: And I owe such a debt of gratitude to Native America for my
• 1:23:22
  son, for my career, because also my break into human rights journalism was through
• 1:23:28
  the Cree Indians up in Northern Quebec.
• 1:23:30
  We haven't told that story yet, but they gave me my first big break.
• 1:23:35
  Brandy Tomhave: Oh
• 1:23:36
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:23:36
  Quickly I was living in Canada trying to establish myself as a writer.
• 1:23:40
  I'd gone to Canada 'cause I was in love with a Canadian girl who dumped me.
• 1:23:43
  And then I kind of survived and broke into journalism and
• 1:23:48
  got wind of this story that.
• 1:23:52
  A government hydro company called Hydro Quebec was going with the
• 1:23:57
  government there to flood an area the size of France, the size of France.
• 1:24:03
  France is quite a big country.
• 1:24:05
  Quebec is huge, as you know, it's the size of Western Europe.
• 1:24:09
  And this was below James Bay.
• 1:24:10
  This is all Cree land.
• 1:24:11
  And they had actually done something quite similar in the seventies and had
• 1:24:17
  to pay a big reparation to the Cree.
• 1:24:21
  And the Cree had done something very clever.
• 1:24:23
  They'd gone, they'd used a lot of that money to send a bunch of
• 1:24:26
  their people to law school 'cause they knew it would come back again.
• 1:24:30
  And it did and it came back bigger.
• 1:24:32
  And what was going to happen, it was reckoned was that the flow of water
• 1:24:37
  the displacement was going to cause the earth crust to shift locally, which
• 1:24:42
  had released mercury from the bedrock.
• 1:24:43
  It had already happened, but on a much greater scale and poison
• 1:24:48
  everybody, you know, in that catchment area, which included, you know,
• 1:24:51
  people down in the United States.
• 1:24:53
  And the Cree were trying to bring this to the attention of the New England states
• 1:24:59
  who were gonna buy the hydro power.
• 1:25:03
  And, and this was a big story in Canada and it was all over the
• 1:25:07
  papers, but it wasn't really being reported in the us It certainly wasn't
• 1:25:11
  being reported in the UK or Europe.
• 1:25:13
  So I rang.
• 1:25:16
  A large London paper from my sort of slightly homeless life
• 1:25:20
  in Montreal and said, if I got you this story from you kids in
• 1:25:25
  Brandy Tomhave: Montreal.
• 1:25:26
  Yeah.
• 1:25:27
  Rupert Isaacson: And they said, well, we've got no idea who you
• 1:25:29
  are, but you know, go get the story and send it to us and we'll see.
• 1:25:31
  And I did and I went up there and I didn't have any credentials.
• 1:25:40
  And the tribal council who I had the band council who I had contacted
• 1:25:49
  when I arrived, they looked at me and my photographer, who was just
• 1:25:53
  my friend who took good pictures and said, where's your winter gear?
• 1:25:56
  'cause it was March and it was, you know, it's James Bay, it's like serious winter.
• 1:26:01
  And we said, well, we're wearing it 'cause you know, we're Canadian boys, right.
• 1:26:06
  And, and they just laughed at us and said, okay.
• 1:26:09
  They took us and they kidded us out with caribou, moose, skin Parkers
• 1:26:13
  and leggings and stuff up to here.
• 1:26:15
  And they took us out onto the trap lines and they showed us a way of life
• 1:26:20
  of people still living under canvas, people still living in tps, living off
• 1:26:24
  the forest and saying, you know, I don't know if your people back in London will
• 1:26:29
  value this, but this is our life and our culture and this is what's at stake.
• 1:26:35
  And they.
• 1:26:37
  Chartered like a sea plane for us to go up into these, you know, it was
• 1:26:42
  thousands and thousands of dollars that we could, normally you'd need
• 1:26:44
  a budget for this from a newspaper.
• 1:26:46
  I didn't have anything.
• 1:26:47
  They just did it.
• 1:26:48
  I, anyway, I came back with the story and I published it and it broke the
• 1:26:54
  story in Europe and it was my big break.
• 1:26:57
  And the, the Cree were actually successful.
• 1:27:01
  They, they, they fought off Hydro Quebec and they taught
• 1:27:04
  me a really valuable lesson.
• 1:27:05
  They not only gave me generously, my first big break, but they
• 1:27:10
  at their own expense really.
• 1:27:12
  But they showed me that those human rights endeavors against the odds often
• 1:27:20
  actually work if a small group of people get together and sort of decide to.
• 1:27:28
  And then that played out into my later life with similar types of work in
• 1:27:32
  Africa and the Kalahari and so on.
• 1:27:34
  And then later, of course, with autism advocacy, you could argue that I got my
• 1:27:40
  apprenticeship in all that from the Cree.
• 1:27:43
  Wow.
• 1:27:44
  Who owed me nothing.
• 1:27:49
  So I feel like I have a debt to settle with Native America for my career and for
• 1:27:56
  the health of my son and for the birth of.
• 1:28:00
  Horse boy, which happened in Coman, which is Central Texas, which by the way has
• 1:28:04
  no comanches in it because the genocide was pretty darn, you know, thorough.
• 1:28:11
  Complete.
• 1:28:11
  Yep.
• 1:28:12
  Yeah.
• 1:28:12
  Yep.
• 1:28:13
  And I would like to give my services, so I don't want to do it in a way of, white boy
• 1:28:20
  comes in and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:28:24
  I just want to collaborate our technologies and say,
• 1:28:28
  well, what can we do?
• 1:28:30
  There is a need, as you say, within special needs.
• 1:28:32
  There is a need within animal welfare, but there's also a lot that
• 1:28:37
  we can learn about animal welfare.
• 1:28:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:28:40
  Outside of Native America.
• 1:28:41
  It's both.
• 1:28:42
  It's, it's, it's not a one-way thing.
• 1:28:44
  Are you up for it?
• 1:28:45
  Shall we give it a go?
• 1:28:48
  Brandy Tomhave: Oh my God, absolutely.
• 1:28:49
  Geez.
• 1:28:50
  And that five seconds, I was wondering how he's gonna convince you to to
• 1:28:56
  work with me in, in my capacity at
• 1:28:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I was hoping I was gonna convince you.
• 1:28:59
  Well, great.
• 1:29:00
  Well, I'm, yeah.
• 1:29:00
  Right.
• 1:29:02
  Brandy Tomhave: No, absolutely.
• 1:29:04
  Absolutely.
• 1:29:05
  There's something I wanna share with you that is kind of a callback to
• 1:29:09
  the earlier part of our conversation, and this is something that I.
• 1:29:15
  Am am still on a journey of learning from my Navajo sister
• 1:29:20
  and she's an extraordinary person.
• 1:29:23
  She has advanced degrees.
• 1:29:25
  She works within a healthcare system at a very high level.
• 1:29:30
  She's asked to speak in New York City and Washington, DC and and she's speaking
• 1:29:39
  with pharmaceutical companies and medical technology companies and thought leaders
• 1:29:46
  in public health in the United States.
• 1:29:50
  And she lives, traditionally, she lives in a place near the Grand Canyon on the
• 1:30:02
  Navajo Nation, where she and her family only recently got indoor running water
• 1:30:11
  and electricity, and they really struggled over that because it's a trade-off.
• 1:30:17
  Because so she is a national expert and spokesperson on a specific topic
• 1:30:24
  in public health, Western medicine.
• 1:30:29
  And she is a traditional Navajo woman who is a practitioner also of Navajo medicine.
• 1:30:37
  And she works in a hospital and you know, lived tradit, went home
• 1:30:44
  to a additional home site that she shares with her husband and sons.
• 1:30:50
  And and she is not atypical.
• 1:30:53
  That's pretty common there.
• 1:30:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:30:55
  This ability to work, walk in both worlds and to maintain a balance between them.
• 1:31:02
  And I'm sure you know this, but the, the Navajo word for what we
• 1:31:07
  would trans say is balance is and
• 1:31:15
  is the
• 1:31:18
  ethical north star of the, of the dine of the Navajo people.
• 1:31:24
  And
• 1:31:28
  it's a really profound concept.
• 1:31:32
  And you know, it's interesting you were talking about, you know,
• 1:31:37
  balance on a horse and our balance with, with animals, you know, the
• 1:31:41
  idea of not only relationality, but, but balance between ourselves and
• 1:31:46
  within ourselves is really central.
• 1:31:49
  To everything.
• 1:31:51
  And when I first went to work for the Navajo Nation and I, I worked in
• 1:31:57
  their Washington office and my job, I was an employee of the Navajo Nation.
• 1:32:01
  This was before I my husband and I struck out on our own and created
• 1:32:05
  this tribal advocacy consultancy, which we've had for almost 30 years.
• 1:32:09
  But I learned from all my Navajo teachers and I learned all the stats about
• 1:32:14
  the Navajo Nation you know, the lack of paved roads and running water and
• 1:32:19
  electricity in homes and all of that.
• 1:32:24
  And collectively when presented all at once, it has the
• 1:32:29
  same effect as poverty porn.
• 1:32:32
  And this person who I've been describing to you who I consider we
• 1:32:38
  claim each other as sisters one day she said, you know, Brandy, for, for
• 1:32:43
  many of us, that's a lifestyle choice.
• 1:32:47
  And I just stopped dead in my tracks and she said, we are choosing to
• 1:32:54
  maintain our traditional way of life.
• 1:32:58
  And I teased her.
• 1:32:59
  I was like, oh my God, you're off grid.
• 1:33:00
  You're just Navajo's off grid.
• 1:33:02
  And like, so yeah, they've always been off grid, right?
• 1:33:04
  It's not some, you know, new green initiative that they're
• 1:33:08
  getting tax rebates for.
• 1:33:10
  That's something that I try to remember always that
• 1:33:17
  what we think we see when we visit a community that is so different from our
• 1:33:24
  own, and that is really ancient, what we think we see may not actually be what
• 1:33:30
  we see because we don't have access to the information and, and knowledge that
• 1:33:39
  would, that's necessary to decipher it.
• 1:33:43
  Yeah.
• 1:33:43
  And that's only gonna be provided to you when you've earned the trust of folks
• 1:33:48
  with that, when you've only earned their trust to, to be given that information.
• 1:33:51
  Right?
• 1:33:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:52
  And so, I guess how that relates to our conversation about animals,
• 1:33:58
  it's so obvious, but bears repeating
• 1:34:04
  when you visit a reservation and unless you're from there, you're a
• 1:34:10
  visitor and should behave accordingly that there's a really good chance
• 1:34:15
  you don't know what you're seeing.
• 1:34:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:34:17
  And you have to humble yourself to that reality and understand that what is
• 1:34:26
  our objective, which might be safety.
• 1:34:29
  Right.
• 1:34:30
  Like everyone has to be safe, and so all the dogs have to be inside and all
• 1:34:34
  the children accounted for that might not be their highest cultural value.
• 1:34:40
  Maybe theirs is Jose.
• 1:34:42
  Maybe it's balance and balance and safety are not the same thing.
• 1:34:48
  And, and you know, I I just wanted to share that with you
• 1:34:52
  because our conversation has sort of reminded me of that.
• 1:34:56
  Yeah.
• 1:34:56
  And I just wanted to thread that through it because it has been so impactful
• 1:35:02
  to me because as a lawyer mm-hmm.
• 1:35:06
  As a, you know, social justice warrior I really thought that I was helping.
• 1:35:13
  Right.
• 1:35:14
  And I think you will see when you, if you, you know, ever take a look at the Native
• 1:35:18
  American Humane Society website mm-hmm.
• 1:35:21
  That you are not gonna find poverty porn.
• 1:35:24
  You're not going to find it.
• 1:35:26
  What's poverty
• 1:35:26
  Rupert Isaacson: porn?
• 1:35:26
  That's a great term, but I've not heard it until just now.
• 1:35:30
  Brandy Tomhave: Wait, it might be, it might be one that until this moment
• 1:35:33
  we only was only ever uttered in my house, you know, images of a people.
• 1:35:40
  That are bleak and only look at them through a lens that it's, it's a window.
• 1:35:48
  Yeah.
• 1:35:48
  And you're just looking at the desperate straights
• 1:35:52
  Rupert Isaacson: to make yourself feel better about yourself.
• 1:35:54
  Yeah.
• 1:35:55
  Brandy Tomhave: Well, yeah.
• 1:35:55
  You're, you're, you're basically imposing upon a people a narrative that basically
• 1:36:01
  says, look at these poor people.
• 1:36:02
  They have nothing.
• 1:36:04
  They need everything.
• 1:36:06
  We must help them.
• 1:36:08
  And it's, there's a lot of like child international hunger campaigns
• 1:36:13
  that, you know, feature poverty porn.
• 1:36:16
  It's terribly effective as all porn is.
• 1:36:18
  Like what's, there's arguably no more effective communication than pornography.
• 1:36:24
  But what does that really, that
• 1:36:24
  Rupert Isaacson: used to be the case until social media.
• 1:36:27
  Brandy Tomhave: Okay.
• 1:36:28
  Okay.
• 1:36:28
  Right.
• 1:36:29
  You could tell it used to sex
• 1:36:31
  Rupert Isaacson: cell was the Yeah.
• 1:36:32
  Now we've realized no anger and fear.
• 1:36:34
  Cell being Rage.
• 1:36:36
  Rage, rage cells.
• 1:36:37
  Yeah.
• 1:36:37
  Rage.
• 1:36:38
  Brandy Tomhave: So I mean, as well-meaning as that is, it can also be dehumanizing.
• 1:36:44
  Sure.
• 1:36:44
  'cause if you're the subject of that narrative you likely don't
• 1:36:49
  want that to be the only thing.
• 1:36:51
  That is said about you and, and, and it feels very exploitative.
• 1:36:56
  Yeah.
• 1:36:57
  And,
• 1:36:58
  And so, and I will just share this getting back to animals.
• 1:37:02
  That is the, the system of funding animal welfare really rewards that, right?
• 1:37:07
  So that if you go into a community and you do a mobile spay neuter you
• 1:37:11
  know, clinic, let's say, gosh darn it, you're gonna get on social media
• 1:37:16
  and you're gonna show the most vivid,
• 1:37:19
  Rupert Isaacson: gonna show the need.
• 1:37:20
  Yeah.
• 1:37:20
  Absolutely need.
• 1:37:20
  You
• 1:37:21
  Brandy Tomhave: gotta show the need and you're gonna be rewarded for the need.
• 1:37:23
  And it's a head count and it's a heart heartstring pull.
• 1:37:28
  And and, you know, native people are sick and tired of being the subject of that.
• 1:37:34
  Hmm.
• 1:37:35
  Because what it's really doing is it's objectifying and commoditizing
• 1:37:40
  a situation and that you may or may not understand that you may or may
• 1:37:46
  not have been given permission to even
• 1:37:51
  you
• 1:37:51
  know, claim in any way.
• 1:37:55
  And yeah, and it's disrespectful.
• 1:37:57
  And I think getting back to being a good relative, it's kind of
• 1:38:00
  like taking pictures of of uh mm.
• 1:38:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
• 1:38:06
  Imagine if someone came into my messy room and took pictures of my messy room and
• 1:38:11
  put them on a website about how we need to relieve people from living in messy rooms.
• 1:38:18
  Brandy Tomhave: Oh, you're a hoarder.
• 1:38:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Say, yeah.
• 1:38:19
  Hey, I didn't give you permission to use that picture.
• 1:38:21
  And they're like, you know what?
• 1:38:22
  Room's such a mess.
• 1:38:23
  Ru Yeah.
• 1:38:24
  Yeah.
• 1:38:25
  You need, it's like,
• 1:38:25
  Brandy Tomhave: I, I, I go to the YM YMCA.
• 1:38:28
  Right.
• 1:38:28
  And you're not allowed to take pictures in the locker room.
• 1:38:30
  Yeah.
• 1:38:30
  Because it's, you're so vulnerable, right?
• 1:38:33
  Yeah.
• 1:38:33
  You don't want taking a picture of you're like, oh my God, look at this woman.
• 1:38:36
  Yeah.
• 1:38:36
  And you know what?
• 1:38:37
  I have these comm the picture it is of like, oh my God,
• 1:38:40
  look at this pork community.
• 1:38:42
  It's, it's just, we, we can do better than that.
• 1:38:45
  We can be better, better relatives to each other.
• 1:38:49
  Well, it's
• 1:38:49
  Rupert Isaacson: what's really interesting about the point that you
• 1:38:50
  make there is that's of course how often people perceive special needs.
• 1:38:54
  Yep.
• 1:38:55
  And it, it comes from a good place.
• 1:38:57
  I mean, and if you were, if you're running the Native American Human Society, you
• 1:39:02
  do need to let people know why there is a need and why they should donate.
• 1:39:09
  And at the same time, you want to be respectful and, and, and it's all about
• 1:39:14
  that, that treading, that ambiguous line.
• 1:39:17
  Again, I think the only way that one can really do that well is
• 1:39:22
  by giving the people who one is trying to serve the voice.
• 1:39:26
  So you know where I'm lucky, say with the.
• 1:39:29
  My relationship with Rowan.
• 1:39:30
  You met Rowan.
• 1:39:31
  You saw Rowan speaking.
• 1:39:33
  Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
• 1:39:34
  Rupert Isaacson: So, you know, and he's sort of telling his story and
• 1:39:39
  explaining how autism feels from the inside and what his relationship
• 1:39:43
  with animals has been and so on.
• 1:39:46
  And so he's an advocate for why animal assisted therapies should be supported.
• 1:39:52
  He's exactly the person who should be saying it because he is the recipient
• 1:40:00
  and he's now actually part of a PhD program that's happening at Manchester
• 1:40:04
  Metropolitan University in the uk looking at how to better equine assisted
• 1:40:10
  practices for autistic people by finally consulting with autistic people and
• 1:40:15
  to who have, who have un you know, had equine services and saying to them what
• 1:40:21
  worked well and what should change, you know, entirely rational thing to do.
• 1:40:27
  That study happens to be run by somebody who is, runs a horse boy program,
• 1:40:31
  you know, and, but, you know, yeah.
• 1:40:35
  Within the, within the, an equine assisted world, I've also seen very
• 1:40:40
  much the opposite way, which is we are the therapist and we are God and we.
• 1:40:46
  Provide the service and look at these poor people who need the service.
• 1:40:50
  And you can absolutely see why that mindset comes about.
• 1:40:52
  And I can't condemn it because it's understandable, but it's too
• 1:40:56
  simplistic and it doesn't bring about the real change, which is
• 1:41:03
  self-advocacy, self agency to say, well, are we, are we services that
• 1:41:15
  train people as they would in any walk of life to go into
• 1:41:20
  their professional lives later?
• 1:41:22
  Or are we just leading kids around for a pony ride saying, oh, how sweet.
• 1:41:29
  There's an evolution there.
• 1:41:31
  It might have started that way, but it shouldn't stay there.
• 1:41:33
  And I think what you are doing, you know, is say, well, there is poverty.
• 1:41:38
  But there's also a different way of relating to animals.
• 1:41:40
  Perhaps some of those animals are actually happier and better treated
• 1:41:44
  than animals that might be outside the reservation, even if it might
• 1:41:48
  not appear that way at first.
• 1:41:51
  And similarly within the human communities.
• 1:41:53
  And at the same time, some of the animals are abused and some
• 1:41:56
  of them really do need help.
• 1:41:58
  And some of the humans are abused and, and one does not negate the other one
• 1:42:04
  needs to hit it bang in the middle.
• 1:42:06
  That's, but as you say that discernment is hard to come by if you haven't, you know,
• 1:42:16
  spent your life doing that kind of thing.
• 1:42:17
  You know, as you say, what you see may not be what is Yeah.
• 1:42:21
  Yeah.
• 1:42:21
  Brandy Tomhave: I, I'll tell you what, I think that humility and
• 1:42:26
  advocacy are hard to hold at the sink.
• 1:42:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:42:31
  Yeah.
• 1:42:31
  Brandy Tomhave: And
• 1:42:32
  Rupert Isaacson: so true.
• 1:42:32
  Brandy Tomhave: And
• 1:42:33
  Rupert Isaacson: true.
• 1:42:33
  So true.
• 1:42:34
  Brandy Tomhave: You know, I
• 1:42:35
  Rupert Isaacson: so true, so true.
• 1:42:37
  Brandy Tomhave: Guilty you know, guilty
• 1:42:38
  Rupert Isaacson: myself.
• 1:42:39
  I have, yeah.
• 1:42:39
  Guilty I have.
• 1:42:41
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:42:43
  Brandy Tomhave: And because it gives you
• 1:42:44
  Rupert Isaacson: power.
• 1:42:44
  Being an advocate does give you power.
• 1:42:46
  Yeah.
• 1:42:46
  Yeah.
• 1:42:47
  That can be intoxicating.
• 1:42:48
  Yeah.
• 1:42:49
  Yeah,
• 1:42:49
  Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
• 1:42:50
  Yeah.
• 1:42:50
  It's very seductive.
• 1:42:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:42:52
  And it's very, you know, there's a, a, it's easy to lie to yourself.
• 1:42:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
• 1:42:56
  And righteous anger is the worst kind, because that's when people
• 1:42:59
  really do the bad stuff is when they are justified in it.
• 1:43:03
  Brandy Tomhave: Right.
• 1:43:03
  Right.
• 1:43:04
  That's
• 1:43:04
  Rupert Isaacson: when you've gotta watch out for your soul.
• 1:43:05
  Yeah.
• 1:43:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:07
  Yeah.
• 1:43:07
  Brandy Tomhave: I wanted to just I wanna say I'm just so thrilled for Rowan and,
• 1:43:13
  and, and for, you and, and his family and his friends, and everyone who, who love
• 1:43:19
  him and have been part of his journey.
• 1:43:21
  It's, I only got to meet him for a few moments and he's
• 1:43:25
  just such a badass, isn't he?
• 1:43:28
  And yeah, he just is, he's just great.
• 1:43:31
  Yeah, he is.
• 1:43:32
  And you know, you you know, inviting me to to work with you and, and, and maybe
• 1:43:39
  collaborating with Native American Humane Society is so exciting because what
• 1:43:44
  I wanna share with you, and I, I just want the chance to say this out loud.
• 1:43:48
  It's often said that there is a res dog problem on Indian reservations, but I
• 1:43:53
  think it's entirely possible that the dogs are less a problem than the solution.
• 1:43:59
  They may be a problem right now in terms of daily nuisances regarding
• 1:44:04
  the small stuff in life, like, I don't know, noise and, and mess, right?
• 1:44:12
  But when it comes to the more complex stuff, they might be the solution.
• 1:44:18
  One of the real challenges on every reservation, which again is
• 1:44:22
  directly part of the continuum of genocide, colonization, trauma,
• 1:44:29
  is mental health and suicide.
• 1:44:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:44:32
  Brandy Tomhave: And when you think about horses and dogs, you know,
• 1:44:37
  and honestly I have friends who would kick me if I didn't say that.
• 1:44:41
  Native people just think of horses as big dogs, right?
• 1:44:43
  They're, they're companion animals.
• 1:44:45
  So I have a, the president of our board whom you met, Dr.
• 1:44:49
  Michael Yellowbird who like my husband is a member of the Mandan Hi Andra Nation.
• 1:44:53
  He is like, we have to start bringing horses back into our mission.
• 1:44:57
  And I said, but Dr.
• 1:44:58
  Yellowbird, we're just focusing on companion animals.
• 1:45:00
  He's like brandy, they are companion animals.
• 1:45:03
  And and of course he's right, right?
• 1:45:06
  Yeah.
• 1:45:07
  But because we're not trading in poverty porn, I don't have the
• 1:45:10
  budget yet, but we'll get there and I'm sure with your help, we'll,
• 1:45:13
  that will happen sooner than later.
• 1:45:15
  But here's the thing.
• 1:45:17
  In a community where
• 1:45:23
  pe children are killing themselves,
• 1:45:31
  what's easier, more readily available source of comfort.
• 1:45:39
  Could there be than a companion animal, whether it's a horse or a cat
• 1:45:44
  or a
• 1:45:44
  dog.
• 1:45:46
  And they've not been, no one has like built programs
• 1:45:49
  around that in Indian country.
• 1:45:50
  And I would really love it if we could start helping folks think about
• 1:45:55
  that and think about what that could mean for them in a way that resonates
• 1:46:02
  culturally and, you know, you know, kind of like vibrates for them.
• 1:46:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:46:09
  I feel we need to get Jessica White plume into this conversation.
• 1:46:13
  Yeah.
• 1:46:13
  And yeah, because I think this is exactly where she's been working.
• 1:46:18
  And get some, get some mentorship.
• 1:46:21
  Get some direction.
• 1:46:23
  Yeah.
• 1:46:23
  Yeah.
• 1:46:24
  Yeah, because
• 1:46:24
  Brandy Tomhave: like they say, like, we are our own medicine.
• 1:46:28
  Yeah.
• 1:46:28
  But we can't access it, you know?
• 1:46:32
  Isn't that a shame?
• 1:46:35
  Yeah.
• 1:46:35
  And so I, I, I'm I'm the crazy woman who's saying, no, dogs aren't the problem.
• 1:46:39
  They, they're, they're the answer.
• 1:46:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:46:42
  No, I think you're right.
• 1:46:43
  I mean, back to, back to, you know, us in Missoula eight, 10 weeks ago
• 1:46:52
  with the presentation going on about homeless and dogs.
• 1:46:58
  And thinking, yeah.
• 1:46:59
  You know, those dogs are keeping those people alive.
• 1:47:02
  Did you
• 1:47:03
  Brandy Tomhave: see the dog that was in the sleeping in the guitar
• 1:47:06
  case across the street from event?
• 1:47:09
  Yeah.
• 1:47:09
  There was a homeless gentleman who was busting on the street corner and
• 1:47:14
  and there was his dog very happily sleeping in the, in the guitar case.
• 1:47:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:47:23
  Absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:47:25
  Okay, I'm intrigued and I'm gonna throw this out here as a challenge.
• 1:47:29
  Readers not readers, viewers, and listeners, if you are in the equine
• 1:47:35
  assisted world in, or the animal assisted world in North America,
• 1:47:41
  do you want to get involved in this as well?
• 1:47:45
  Come on.
• 1:47:46
  This is gonna be so cool.
• 1:47:48
  Why would we not?
• 1:47:49
  It's adventure.
• 1:47:51
  And
• 1:47:55
  what better way to pay our debts, heal our wounds, explore the west?
• 1:48:03
  Well, the whole thing actually, not just the west, you know, but not to
• 1:48:06
  go in with a sense of white Indian, Indian, white how about people and
• 1:48:17
  animals, but people who are of the place.
• 1:48:22
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 1:48:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Who can orient us?
• 1:48:27
  So many of us are so lost.
• 1:48:30
  Doesn't mean that they have all the answers, but they've been on
• 1:48:32
  that land a long time and they will certainly have some answers.
• 1:48:39
  And we, if we can humbly give what we can give and collaborate and let
• 1:48:45
  the animals kind of be the medicine
• 1:48:49
  to heal that stupid monkey shit that we get up to.
• 1:48:53
  'Cause yeah, you know, you're a dog.
• 1:48:55
  You're, you are.
• 1:48:55
  Luke back there isn't relating to me as white or you as native.
• 1:49:02
  He's just looking at the two monkeys yabbering for two hours, you know?
• 1:49:07
  Yeah.
• 1:49:08
  And he loves us each unconditionally.
• 1:49:10
  It's just the Yaba monkeys, you know, who happen to be his companion as well.
• 1:49:17
  Brandy Tomhave: That's right.
• 1:49:18
  Rupert Isaacson: So maybe we yaba monkeys.
• 1:49:19
  Can
• 1:49:22
  you know it Tribe is such an interesting thing.
• 1:49:25
  I'm a great believer in it, you know, my family's very tribal white
• 1:49:29
  Africans are very tribal as well.
• 1:49:31
  They've learned, you know, but so are, so are Europeans.
• 1:49:35
  You know, the Scots hate the English.
• 1:49:37
  The English, you know, the Welsh hate, the English, the Irish hate the
• 1:49:40
  English 'cause of our tribal histories.
• 1:49:41
  Then you go, you know, village to village within England, and the people from
• 1:49:45
  that side of the county have always fought with the people from that side
• 1:49:48
  of the county for the last 10,000 years.
• 1:49:50
  And, you know, then it all culminated in our World War ii, which is our
• 1:49:55
  glorious expression of tribal warfare that made us realize that maybe we
• 1:50:00
  can't quite go on like that anymore.
• 1:50:04
  But tribe is also community.
• 1:50:06
  There, there, there, there are the, there's the, there dysfunctional tribes.
• 1:50:10
  Tribes that eat, eat themselves.
• 1:50:13
  And then there's the tribes that actually look after each other.
• 1:50:17
  And when I'm doing horse boy method trains, I'm always talking
• 1:50:19
  about how you cultivate tribe.
• 1:50:22
  Because that is the fundamental human way to live on planet earth.
• 1:50:26
  No matter what continent you're talking about.
• 1:50:33
  That's what's needed.
• 1:50:35
  And if it's the animals that bring us back to that, well, let's do it
• 1:50:42
  and go into service because that's where our quality of life is.
• 1:50:48
  What are animals but nature?
• 1:50:49
  What is nature but the planet?
• 1:50:50
  What is the planet?
• 1:50:51
  But what we rely upon if we can treat a dog well, if we can treat
• 1:50:56
  a horse well, we've got a better chance of treating each other well.
• 1:50:59
  Got a better chance of.
• 1:51:00
  Making sure there's food in the fridge and not, you know, actually having a
• 1:51:05
  planet in another couple of generations.
• 1:51:07
  So we know that all of this is connected.
• 1:51:10
  We know that the better side of tribalism, not the worst side of
• 1:51:17
  tribalism is where happiness lies
• 1:51:23
  medicine, as you would say.
• 1:51:25
  You know,
• 1:51:28
  I think it's time we just got on with it.
• 1:51:32
  Brandy Tomhave: You know, we all carry our own medicine because we all
• 1:51:37
  carry our own stories and we would do well to humble ourselves, to listen
• 1:51:48
  to each other's stories, I think.
• 1:51:52
  And I think that
• 1:51:59
  gathering together around animals
• 1:52:02
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:52:03
  Brandy Tomhave: Could create an opportunity to do just that.
• 1:52:07
  Where
• 1:52:10
  daily life otherwise prevents those kinds of moments of
• 1:52:16
  community and a deep introspection
• 1:52:21
  Rupert Isaacson: and stories can divide as well as unite.
• 1:52:25
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:25
  Rupert Isaacson: If the stories, blood feud, the stories, your grandfather
• 1:52:28
  did that to my grandfather, right.
• 1:52:30
  If the story is your people did that to my people, that can be true.
• 1:52:34
  But there's also another story of common humanity.
• 1:52:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:38
  That's also true.
• 1:52:39
  We, but I, I, I totally hear you.
• 1:52:43
  It, it's animals that allow us to hear that second story.
• 1:52:46
  Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:52:48
  Yeah.
• 1:52:49
  And I feel like it's more necessary now than ever.
• 1:52:53
  That's in part because I'm 61 and I wanna get something right before I go, you know?
• 1:53:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think you've probably got about, you've probably got
• 1:53:01
  more decades than you think, so you can
• 1:53:04
  Brandy Tomhave: Well, no, I'm, I'm not planning on going
• 1:53:06
  anywhere, but I feel like
• 1:53:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, I hear you.
• 1:53:09
  That I hear you.
• 1:53:09
  Such
• 1:53:09
  Brandy Tomhave: important work, right?
• 1:53:11
  Yeah.
• 1:53:11
  I suggest to the Native American Humane Society without knowing anything about it.
• 1:53:17
  And I think Native American was my buy-in, but humane
• 1:53:24
  Yeah.
• 1:53:25
  Is
• 1:53:25
  what is keeping me
• 1:53:28
  because Absolutely.
• 1:53:29
  Because that is such a pro profile.
• 1:53:33
  Found word that is so needed now more than ever.
• 1:53:37
  Not just, I mean, I was, yes.
• 1:53:39
  I, it feels really prescient because I'm, you know, older and I want to, you
• 1:53:44
  know, be a part of something that is that important, but because of what's
• 1:53:49
  happening in the world right now Hmm.
• 1:53:51
  And I know that for a lot of us, we don't know what to do.
• 1:53:55
  And it's, it's scary.
• 1:53:59
  It's God, it just feels like, you know, like kind of the
• 1:54:03
  doors of hope are just shutting.
• 1:54:05
  Right.
• 1:54:06
  And, but there are opportunities to come together.
• 1:54:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:11
  And, and, you know, and animals create really wonderful, organic ways to
• 1:54:19
  do that that are accessible to us.
• 1:54:22
  Yes, they do.
• 1:54:23
  And, and I think that and in that way, they are going to, if, if you feel
• 1:54:30
  isolated, if you feel disempowered, if you feel lost, you know, if you can find
• 1:54:38
  community with animals and with other people who wanna have this dialogue around
• 1:54:44
  animals, that's something we can do.
• 1:54:46
  And we don't need anyone's permission to do it.
• 1:54:49
  Yeah.
• 1:54:51
  And I think it's really necessary and it could be transformative.
• 1:54:57
  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
• 1:54:58
  For some
• 1:54:58
  Brandy Tomhave: of us,
• 1:54:59
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 1:54:59
  If we can get the interspecies thing a bit better, we can probably get our
• 1:55:03
  intra species thing a bit better, right?
• 1:55:05
  Yeah.
• 1:55:06
  Right.
• 1:55:06
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:55:07
  Yeah.
• 1:55:07
  No, I hear you.
• 1:55:09
  Well, I'm in.
• 1:55:11
  Okay.
• 1:55:11
  And I think a lot of our listeners are too, so
• 1:55:15
  Brandy Tomhave: Awesome.
• 1:55:16
  Rupert Isaacson: I'll have a chat with some other people In Horse Boy World,
• 1:55:19
  there is a, we, we are having this conversation in end of 2025 fall of
• 1:55:24
  2026, there is going to be a neuroscience conference with a movement method,
• 1:55:30
  which is our one-horse therapy approach which we get asked to put on by Eastern
• 1:55:35
  Virginia Medical School, which is part of we, part of dominion University.
• 1:55:40
  And it's about movement and nature and the mind and mental health, particularly
• 1:55:45
  from a pediatrician's point of view.
• 1:55:47
  I think maybe I, let's meet there and there'll be a bit of a gathering of the
• 1:55:55
  horse boy folk, and let's have a bit of a breakout session and talk about this.
• 1:56:01
  That sounds wonderful.
• 1:56:02
  All right.
• 1:56:02
  And I think I might be starting a program.
• 1:56:06
  Or not me, but one of the people who was actually at the conference
• 1:56:10
  we met in, in Missoula, her family ranch is in North Dakota.
• 1:56:17
  And we're talking about where you are now moving to, we are
• 1:56:20
  talking about getting a program.
• 1:56:22
  So anyway, things are clearly coming together.
• 1:56:23
  Let's, let's chat and see what we can do.
• 1:56:25
  I'm I'm, I'm so up for the adventure.
• 1:56:29
  Brandy Tomhave: Well, me too.
• 1:56:31
  And boy, I would love for you and, and Rowan and and your wife
• 1:56:37
  to come visit us in North Dakota.
• 1:56:39
  It would be amazing.
• 1:56:40
  I think you have to bring your sleeping bags.
• 1:56:42
  We might have you in teepees.
• 1:56:44
  But
• 1:56:44
  Rupert Isaacson: so up for that,
• 1:56:46
  Brandy Tomhave: you know, the next time we chat I'll be there.
• 1:56:49
  We're okay.
• 1:56:49
  Meeting in April.
• 1:56:51
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 1:56:52
  All right.
• 1:56:53
  All right.
• 1:56:53
  Okay.
• 1:56:54
  And then I, yeah, we'll, and let's get you also and, and Jeff on the
• 1:56:58
  Live Free Ripy podcast and Okay.
• 1:57:00
  That conversation.
• 1:57:01
  Yeah,
• 1:57:02
  Brandy Tomhave: just stay in touch.
• 1:57:03
  Rupert Isaacson: I will.
• 1:57:04
  Alright.
• 1:57:05
  I guess we're at that two hour mark, so it's probably time to say Aone.
• 1:57:11
  I will see you on the next one.
• 1:57:13
  Oh my
• 1:57:14
  Brandy Tomhave: God, wonderful.
• 1:57:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Rather than goodbye.
• 1:57:16
  This has been so great, Brandy.
• 1:57:17
  Thank you so much.
• 1:57:19
  Brandy Tomhave: Thank you.
• 1:57:20
  I I'm really grateful to have met you and Rowan and for you to be
• 1:57:26
  willing to keep that conversation going and I'm very curious and
• 1:57:32
  excited to see where it takes us.
• 1:57:34
  Yeah,
• 1:57:34
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
• 1:57:35
  All right.
• 1:57:36
  Till the next time.
• 1:57:37
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• 1:57:39
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• 1:57:40
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• 1:57:43
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