Giving Horses a Voice - Grete Jørgensen

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So typically I kick the episodes off by having the guests tell us who they are and what it is they do. Yeah. So my name is Kathy Ogenson. I’m working as a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research, and I’ve done that the last 15 years. Yeah.

And I guess I’m here today to talk about the horse voice project that we have. Yeah. So why don’t you give us a little bit of background into what is the horse voice project? Yeah. So basically it’s a research project where we are a very nice group of researchers from both Norway and Sweden.

It started off as an ID many years ago after we had a similar project on thermal regulation where we managed to teach horses this symbol method. So we asked horses if they wanted to wear blankets or not in different winter weather conditions. And we wanted to continue with this method because we saw that it had potential for so many, so many other questions that we wanted to ask the horses. And we applied again and again. And I guess this was the fifth time that we applied for this horse voice project.

And finally it got funded and we were very happy that it did. But we don’t have too many cores, right? Or too many funding opportunities for horse research. Nowadays it’s much more into production animals and climate, gas and sustainability and stuff, right? So we have this joint funding opportunity called the Norwegian or Swedish Norwegian Horse Fund.

And when you compete up against people that want to solve important health issues or sport, yeah, you know, sport Taurus is trying to have very good results in nutrition. Nutrition or stuff. It all boils down to, I guess our project not being it was good enough, but it was too few funds to get funded. So we were so happy and so excited when we were able to to get it funded in 2024. Awesome, SO can you this is such an interesting thing because for the I actually remember seeing something on Facebook a while ago about these people doing this study saying what their horses can choose or not to choose whether to wear a blanket and I will put myself in the over blanketing category.

I’d like my courses to be nice and toasty. And so as someone who personally can overplay divorces, I was like, oh, that’s really interesting. And as I kind of looked into it more and I realized that you guys taught these horses to use symbols for yes, no, you know, that sort of thing. How I guess where I kind of want to start is how did you guys teach the horses? What the symbols?

Meant, yeah. So that’s a very good question. And we haven’t an article on it actually from the previous project, but the theory behind it is quite simple. The horse just needs to learn to associate the symbol with an action. So we operate with two symbol boards when we perform the actual preference testing.

But before this, all horses need to be trained to learn how to use the symbols and the consecutive process of showing the symbol and then performing the action, like taking a blanket off or putting it on again. And this is done to create an association within the individual between the symbol and the action. And the training is separated into 10 steps or stages if you like. And the horse needs to reach these stages before going to the next. And finally then we can ask the horse it’s opinion.

And then we just ask the horse if you want no change or if you want blanket on if it is a horse without the blanket initially. But we also did test where we had has horses that had a blanket on initially based on the owner’s preferences, right? And then ask the horse if it wants did no change like keeping the blanket on or taking it off. So. So actually the horses learned three symbols and the blank symbol meaning no change, and then another symbol for taking a blanket off and another symbol for taking or putting a blanket on.

And what how often did the horses preference either contradict or align with what the owner sort of wanted their horse to wear? Yeah, it’s a, it’s a very good question, how often? But we learned was we actually made the horses feel the weather, if you know what I mean. So we put them out for an hour just to feel the weather first so that their choice would be an informed 1 based on them staying the rest of the day out in the paddock. So just to the share opportunity to, to understand that the horses have cognitive abilities around this is interesting.

But just as in in many cases or in the in most stables that have visited the the owner has like a list on the box store, right? Yes, when it’s under and and, and over this kind of temperature, when they’re conditioned, the horse needs a blanket or two blankets or whatever. And some horses are clipped and then obviously they need to be blanketed. But there are very nice stories to be told around this. How often actually the horses chose differently than the the owner or others would expect.

And I must say it wasn’t me that performed the the the first Test and it’ll still not be doing it in this project. But it is tuded Bouvik which is a excellent animal trainer and has a lot of experience and she could tell like stories about this cold blooded horse fjord horse that we would all expect to be a Hardy start with. A lot of the hair coat was complete and everything and and both we and the owner meant that this source could stay without the blanket for most of the time unless the weather was really harsh. But it turned out during many of the tests that this horse chose to have a blanket on. So it was freezing actually and this changes very rapidly with age we see.

So even if they do have long coats or seem to be in perfect condition, they can freeze, they can feel cold and it really could prefer to have a coat on. But vice versa, that does the different or the opposite was also true. Like the one blood horses that we would expect to be freezing very easily chose to have the blankets up. And, and at one particular session, Tudid told us she came to the stable to perform the test because the horses were already trained. We’re just going to gather information and test them in different weather conditions.

And she saw a horse that tried to approach, approach her, tried his very best to get her attention. And she was not supposed to test this horse just at that time. But she said, oh, what a heck, I would just put this horse forward and ask him to do his choice. And it turned out that he was really sweaty underneath the blanket, was really eager to get it all. I about, but he was interesting, yeah.

Signaling to her like I need to speak to you. It’s like, hey lady, I’ve got some complaints That’s so funny. And it is funny because even I have, I personally have six horses, right? And two of them are retirees, 2 of them are sort of young horses and two of them are like going competition horses. And four of them are off the track thoroughbreds.

And I have two off the track thoroughbreds who we’re in Fahrenheit, but in like 35° weather is when the thoroughbreds will decide, yeah, I’m actually getting cold. I could use a blanket on now. And but my, you know, warm blood loves having blankets on. And like the reason I kind of gathered this was because if it was a certain temperature and I went to put a blanket on my thoroughbred, she’d run away from me. But if she felt that it was getting cold, she’d stand there and let me blanket her.

And so they, they do communicate. And sometimes I go, you know, the temp’s going to drop at 7:00 in the morning. You’re putting this gosh darn blanket on. But if I know it’s going to stay consistent overnight, I go, OK, I’ll let you decide to not wear a blanket. Just don’t be mad at me in the morning.

And so it is interesting how they can decide comfort levels, right? And I mean, as a, as an animal, that’s kind of what we’re all made to do, right, is like seek out comfort. And so when you’re in a situation where you’re giving them the opportunity to go and feel the temps outside and then say, OK, what would you like? What would make you most comfortable? They’re able to make decisions based on that.

So in the the like training or teaching them of these symbols and creating these associations, are you guys getting involved in anything like positive or negative reinforcement in order to make the associations? Or is that sort of not the, is that not necessarily something that they’re taught? OK, they touch this symbol, the blanket gets put on, end of story. Or they touch the symbol, the linga gets taken off, end of story. How do you guys start to make those associations with the horses?

No, but obviously that’s actually one of the eye openers for us. Most horses are not trained using post slave reinforcement, but it was for us. It was the only way to go and we struggled with some of these sources to actually get them to understand that there was no wrong answers and there was no punishment behind any wrong answers. So first of all, some of these sources really difficult to get get into, get to just touch the board with a muscle because they were so afraid that that would be wrong. They are so trained to stand completely still and almost not move when when people are around and there is so used to being yelled at or told off if they move.

So we struggled a bit in the start with some individuals just to to have them crawl out of their shell actually and trust that the carrot was for them and it was safe and that they could get a carrot. Whatever choice they made, it was not a wrong choice. And one of the steps is also to be LED ahead to the the two symbol boards, but then to themselves, take a step forward and touch the board. And just to take that step forward was for many of them very difficult because they were so trained not to move. You know what I mean?

So this really makes you think how, how do we actually train the horses And, and yeah, but really the, the, the professional trainer tuted, she’s working a lot with dogs as well. And there we’ve come a bit far further, right. So we use positive reinforcement in everything more or less. And it’s acknowledged as a way of training the animals and it’s not scared. And we don’t necessarily think that giving the the the dog a a treat means that the dog starts biting.

But that’s so many times when it comes to horses, you can’t treat them with treats because then you teach them to bite so. Yeah, yeah. No, it is. It is fascinating. One of the things I do in my training, although I’m with my personal horses and event rider, the way I sort of make my income is through a problem or behavioral issues with horses.

And I do this bag saying when I first get a shut down horse into training and I have a plastic bag on the end of a stick and all they have to do in the beginning is just look at the bag and they get positive. They train them through positive reinforcement and by the end of the three sessions or whatever it usually takes, they’re touching the bag, they’re seeking out the bag because they know that going into the pressure actually means a positive thing. And so it, it is eye opening to see how quickly horses can change their kind of mental state based on how we’re approaching the training. Yeah. And so I, I was kind of wondering in that sense, because in my head this is like the perfect experiment to sort of test positive reinforcement because there’s no, there’s no necessarily training outcome, right?

Like it’s not if you teach the horse with a carrot, they’re now not going to go down the center line or that, you know, that sort of thing. So it it’s interesting to see that you guys are noticing horses making associations based on positive reinforcement. And if I read the study correctly, every horse learned how to do this. Yep, I did. Which I think is just a testament in itself to the ability for all horses to be able to like, think.

Yeah. And it’s actually demanding because everyone asked this question, what, what did we think? Actually, of course they can learn. We just need to give them time. And since this was the initial experiments, we we needed to figure out how much time or how many steps they needed.

And of course there were individual variations and all reached that goal, of course. And but we spend a lot of time just getting them to trust the process, to trust us, to trust that there were no wrong answers and to trust characters for them, for example. So it’s a tricky bit, but it really demonstrates what we want with this project and it’s horse wise project, yeah. What is like besides blanketing? What is this?

Or what could this be applied to? Everything you can ask the horse everything like what type of feeds, what type of equipment it would prefer, what type of training that they. But just think how what potential we have in US learning how the horse could be trained for, for who care, for example, habituating them to all these necessary treatments that we do to them in a daily basis. And some horses really find difficult or or even scary. So, but the big question here is will we respect their answers?

Should they be asked for their opinion on every matter? Maybe not, maybe not, but yeah. So the hypothesis behind Horse Horse Project is to improve horse welfare and how to do it well by increasing the owner’s awareness. So if we could achieve something there, it would definitely help if we hypothesize that if we could, if horse owners could learn that horses have great cognitive abilities and are able to choose, that they are able to communicate and have these emotions and feelings about all the stuff that we do to them, that maybe we can change the owner’s attitude towards the horse as well. And, and shift the perspective from, yeah, using the horse to purely, purely as a means of winning next trophy.

And I mean, that’s very few owners that have that perspective. But of course but towards maybe acknowledging the horses living, being with emotions and needs and and that we have a responsibility to respect the horse regardless of the use that we might have for its achievements in the sport. Yeah, it it, it’s such an interesting thing. The, the longer I stay in as a professional in the sport, the more I realize horses are a lot easier to work with than people. Because a horse, once you kind of get on their side, they go, oh, yeah, OK, I’ll do whatever you want, really.

And if they say no, it’s usually for a pretty good reason. But the owners can’t rationalize that as quickly as the horses can. And I don’t even think it’s because they don’t want to. There are just so many set conditions around kind of people who own horses for sport. You know, there’s plenty of people that just own horses because they like them and they don’t really ask much of the horses.

But that’s where I find studies like this very interesting, because I think there’s so much that we. Put on ourselves that we can kind of start to offload onto the horse, not in a way that’s necessarily demanding, but in a way that allows them to make decisions. You know that. Yeah. Although you’re saying, you know, what does the horse want to do that day?

To some listeners that might sound, Oh my gosh, I can’t let my horse decide to, you know, do dressage or go, you know, go jump or whatever that day with this is the thing we need to do. And that’s where I find this so interesting because what do horse sports look like when horses start making the decisions? And you know, because I, I think there are horses that like the, they like the pressure. You know, I’ve personally had horses that really thrived in pressure. I would, you know, I’ve always been a very choice based trainer and I’ve always kind of done self-care for horses.

So I would go out to the barn every day and I’d go out to my horses field and for like 10 days in a row she would come out to get rid of. And then for like 2 days straight I wouldn’t be able to catch her. And then ten days she’d go, you know, 8 days she’d come in and then a day she wouldn’t let me catch her. And although it sounds crazy and sometimes it’s like, well, we have a competition today so we actually need to go or, or whatever. But it it, to some people it seems so abstract to let horses think, but horses are like the best prey animal in the world.

You know, they’re so quick, they’re so smart, and we don’t give them the ability to, like, make decisions around their daily lives. So many of it is controlled. And I just think even some people might hear this and be like, well, it’s just blanketing. But it’s like, OK, then where’s the problem with giving them the opportunity to say I don’t want to blanket today? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this thing they know much better than we do. No, but I agree. I did the same with my horses. Obviously, I don’t spend hours and months teaching them a simple method. I just go into the paddock and with a blanket and if the horse stays still, it’s blanketed because then it feels cold.

But if it moves away, it’s like, OK, you’ve, you’ve done your decision. Exactly, exactly. I’m not chasing no one around. So that is sort of where I wanted to go with this a little bit though was how do you think we take some of the findings from something like the horse voice project and apply that to horses who are maybe doing performance or people who do have performance aspirations? Do you have any sort of thoughts around that idea?

So many, so many. But it’s a very ethical question actually. But there’s a way to go first. First of all, when people come to me and say I know best, what can I say? Every horse owner can do what they want.

The only problem is that I feel that these owners choices for training or for husbandry practices, perhaps not always are based on high level of knowledge about horses as a living being, about their natural behaviour and about their needs. We see it again and again, practices performed in stable that the owner keeps his or her horse or the training methods used by their trainer or idol. If you want that in the sport is very much set. It’s setting the stage for the opinions about right and wrong and training methods, good or bad, are getting adopted without question as long as a successful or charismatic trainer has told them to do so. So where to do, where to go with this?

I mean, taking it to the sport, I don’t know where do we draw the line between what the horse needs and what we can ask the horse to do for us so that we can perform our sport. Is it true that horses, if they are worth $1,000,000, then they shouldn’t be kept together with other horses because we’re afraid of them getting injured? I mean, where’s the ethics in all this? Yeah, I, I don’t mean to cut you off, but it, it is interesting because I had on a woman who specializes in positive reinforcement training and that I, I kind of asked her a question of, you know, do you believe we should allow people to compete horses and, or what do you think needs to change in order for competition to be more ethical? And I don’t know what I was expecting from an answer, but her whole thing was current and she was like, the horses cannot be kept in stalls.

They cannot. And it is interesting because I’m an event rider and so I feel like a ven riders kind of just treat most of their horses like horses and they do try to get them out as much as possible. And even if they’re in individual turn out because of shoes, they’re kind of all together. Yeah. And you know, but then I watched a barn tour of a top show jumping barn and he was kind of praising his light system in his barn because his horses don’t get turn out and so they do like all of these things in the barn to mimic light.

And I was like, yeah, what do you do when your horse is worth $3,000,000? Yeah, yeah. Except, you know, I’ve never been in that position. But. And also you’re not the owner, right?

Like a lot of these people are riding horses for investors, you know, So it, it’s such a tricky line because even if morally you want the horse outside or you want the horse to have this or you, your dealing with people who could lose a pretty substantial amount of money. And, and it’s a, it’s a tricky conversation because a lot of people don’t want to talk about it. But yeah, the, the ethics around the, the daily life of horses, I think it’s something that needs to be explained it. And actually, that was one of the things that I thought of when I read into this horse voice stuff was I had a client who swore their horse did not like Trump. And granted, all of their stalls had runs.

So the horse still had outdoor access even when he was, you know, quote, inside. But when he was out in his field, he he would pace and, you know, but part of it was I think he learned that if he performed this action, my people come get me and bring me into the stall with food. Yeah. And it was less about not liking turn out and more about wanting the food that was in the stall that he knew he would get. And they, they ended up selling him and he now lives.

I get updates from them about his current situation and like, he lives outside 24/7 and he has a shed and he has a body and like, no issues being in or outside. Yeah. And I go, well, if the horse can tell us, you know, if they can touch a symbol and say, hey, I’d like to go outside or hey, I’d like to be inside, or you know, hey, my buddy’s gone. Can I come inside while my buddy’s gone and then go back outside or whatever it is? Yeah, we can use this for that as well.

But, and I think that’s the main aim of it all, is just to change the attitudes towards the whole system. How, how do we view horses, How do we talk about horses? And most of all, how do we keep horses or accept horses being kept? And obviously there’s rules and regulations and they differ among countries, but I think when they show these behavioural problems or stereotypes, there’s always an underlying reason for it. And even though the horse has been the most domesticated for around 6000 years, we have not domesticated away their need to be social together with other animals and their need for movement.

So when you you get this very clear expressions of and not faring, well, if you want, we should take that into consideration and maybe maybe if we could use like a simple method to just get that established. What do you want as an individual instead of the whole horse population as a whole? Because I know that there are individual differences and as I just said about the age thing playing a very vital role to thermal regulation and how much blankets they want on and off and stuff, They need to to learn how to be social. I mean, some of these sources are born and bred in a barn and have almost never been outside the other than in our arena. So it’s very artificial.

Yeah. We need to think differently about welfare, behavioural needs and what the horse actually is. And when we have a regulation that says that it’s not allowed to keep horses only indoors, whatever the price tag, then we have moved in somewhat the right direction, I think. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s such a, it’s such an interesting thing because I I’m I’m constantly thinking of what we can do in sports, in equestrian sports to move the needle more towards a more horse centric way of doing it. And whether that means the top level is no longer the top level because you can’t get forces there ethically or, or whatever.

But you know, one of the things that I’ve been really thinking about is this idea of like continuing education for the athletes outside of the saddle. Like they almost shouldn’t. They should have to go to, you know, 2 lessons a year that have nothing to do with riding and. Definitely. You know, because I just, I don’t know how many horse trainers, like, I’m in such a great spot for learning because of the podcast.

So I’m always looking for new things to learn or whatever to improve my horse’s life. But there are some trainers who are riding sixteen horses a day. Like, they literally do not have the time or capacity to, like, get home and then do research into something they they might not even know exists. Yeah. And so if they could, if they were, you know, forced or made mandatory that they needed to do, they needed to go to two of these FEI sponsored classes or whatever that had to do on positive reinforcement or, you know, I don’t even know.

But anything that had to do with training horses, that’s not riding. How much quicker would we move the needle towards a betterment for the horses where riders are actually being made aware of? You know the I mean, how many riders are actually aware of the fact that horses can tell them whether or not they want to wear a blanket? Yeah. You know, and so these are just always the sort of things that I’m thinking about.

But so as I rant on, but going back to sort of the how this could influence high performance or performance sport, what do you think besides sort of turn out, what do you think would have to change in order to give horses more choice in sport overall? Yeah, more choice. I don’t know, but I was just thinking judging, judging the competitions should be more goal directed especially. Well, there’s dressage as an example though, because then the horse and and the rider is extensively judged, right? Looked at from every angle, they should give points to horses that carry themselves and are not expressing all this discomfort, discomfort signs like facial expressions.

And I mean, they’ve moved some way on the tight nose bands and the blue tongues, but still, they demand a lot of equipment that potentially can do harm. Yeah. And they constantly say no to less equipment, if you know what I mean. So. Yes, if you.

Want to you want to compete you. You must have this and that and you cannot compete in higher level stressage without a double bridal and stuff. Wouldn’t it be a better view of how good an equestrian you are and how how good a job you’ve done if you were able to do the same things without all this weapons? Yeah, no, it is so true. I this just happened.

So I’ve talked about it in a couple of the other podcasts. But I was on Facebook and I saw a post of a girl, like a young girl, like 9 years old or 10 years old or something. And she decided she wanted to take her pony to address all the competition. And so she learned her test. She did all the things, she goes to the show, she goes down center line and 30 seconds into her test she gets eliminated by the dressage judge for using a bit less bridal.

Yeah. In that was in New Zealand and you know it. I always. Same here. It’s the same here.

You’re not allowed. It’s the craziest thing because I go, especially at that level, you know, it’s like, can you not walk and draw on a circle? The amount of times I can, I’ll get on my horses because I’m feeling lazy in a halter and lead rope. I still have steering, you know, like it’s like, it’s not like like if you’re relying on the bit only to make corrections and yeah, then you would be really afraid of losing that. But it’s it’s just so weird because it’s like, also, no one’s saying that because this one person uses it, every horse now needs to go and use it.

No. But the horses who like it should have the ability, yeah, to use it. And so, so yeah, like the and, and going back to the double bridle thing, I have a horse in training who goes in a, a Mace, but she likes that sort of thick bit. And I made a comment to the owner and I was like, I think this horse would like the feel of a, the two bits in her mouth. Not because I’d ever even used the curve ring because she’s so soft and naturally sort of uphill, but the way she holds the bits in her mouth.

I just think she would like that feeling. And, you know, the owner immediately got defensive because she sees, you know, the bad stuff about it. And I go, well, that’s not one, necessarily the way we would use it. And two, like in its proper use, you know, those curb bits should not be used at the angle that we see them used at. And that there’s all of these nuances to how we’re properly supposed to use these.

Are you familiar? You you’re kind of in the same neck of the woods, I think. But are you familiar with Angle Wolfram and her work? Yeah. So I had her on the podcast a while ago to talk about she did these judges like I, she could see where the judges were looking when they were judging horses in the dressage test.

And most of the places that they were looking at where the shoulder of the horse, because you can see is the horse lifted, is the horse, whatever. But there are so many, I mean, there are so many signs and signals that a horse puts on, on their face, on their tail on the way the the angles of the feet like line up when they’re doing extended trots. And there are all of these things that the judge literally, because they’re human, can’t see everything all at once. And so it’s, you know, how do we start to get into the frame of mind of like what is actually important when we’re putting ourselves and our horses in these situations to be judged? Yeah.

And so there’s. There’s a lot of conflict behavior that we could actually get a lot better at identifying and looking at and not giving so many points, you know? For expressive movement when it’s not correct or at the detriment of the horses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it’s such a tricky time we live in because, you know, although it’s great that we’re finally having these conversations around how to make life better for horses, it’s hard to get it to reach the people who are the ones doing it and the ones in charge of it. But I think a lot of owners, just owners of horses, are in a place where they want to do right by their horse.

And maybe they don’t necessarily even know what that means, but they’re in a place where they go, yeah, I don’t really like seeing these horses, chins tucked to their chest. And I I don’t really like seeing these horses who have to get, you know, even in cross country, there are some riders who you see go around and before every big fence, they’re whacking their horse with a whip or a crop or whatever. And it’s like, OK, we’re we’re at least all getting on to the place where we go. How necessary are these modalities in in the the competition process? Yeah, so and yeah, go on.

It’s, it starts at Pony Club, you know, and that’s what scares me the most. So I have a few horses myself. And as you know, if you have a horse, there’s always someone who wants to ride them. So I thought, what the heck. So we have a small riding school and there is a lot of children coming to me.

They’re very old. They’re of course, in their own opinion, very experienced since they’ve completed a lot of courses in other places. But they’re so scared of the horse that they stay there and shout at the horse, stay still, no stop, you know, and, and I get really scared. Where did you learn to just have that kind of attitude towards an animal? And again, they come fully equipped with spurs and whips and whatever and, and, and still they don’t know how to handle a horse from the ground, much less perform their backs.

It’s kicking and screaming all the way. And I mean, this is an attitude they have learned. They’re not spoiled with that attitude towards any animal, and definitely not to the horses. But this is, yeah, it’s going throughout the whole system. But I’m sad to say it starts already at Pony Club.

Yeah, It, you know, I always think I, I was so lucky the way I grew up because I was kind of just one of those kids that got dropped off at a barn, right? Like I, I was at a big barn. There were like 70 horses, like hundred 100 acres of land. And you know, although it was a in a venting facility, like there were trails and kid camps and it kind of just tell you to just like be around horses and like you can’t be around horses all day every day as a kid in that like angst setting. Eventually you’re just going to go find a quiet corner and divorce is going to come up to you and you’re going to be like, oh, we can like exist quietly in, in this world together.

And you know, I, I had this experience a few years ago where I was out of barn and I was going to a competition and this girl, I think I was like that 1819, maybe 20. And this girl who was in high school also needed to go to the competition. Our ride times were similar. So I offered to bring her to the competition. She spent the entire competition screaming at her mom, like raising her hand to hit her horse to the point where like we literally had to sit her down and be like, listen, I don’t know what goes on in private, but like when you’re in these settings, you cannot act like this.

And but like the fact that the people in the barn all turned a blind eye to when this person acted this way with their horse. And, and everyone knows it’s out of fear, right? Like no one who’s comfortable either in their own skin or around horses or whatever acts like that. And so it, it just, you know, you go, there are so many things in the, in the human aspect of the sport that really has to change because yes, you know, we’re the ones that like, if you go to a horse show with your horse and you’re just grazing your horse, you know, maybe you give them 1520 minutes to settle in because when they get off the trailer, they’re in a new place. It’s exciting.

Whatever that horse sees grass, they just go to the grass and they start eating. Yeah, like the drama’s over. But then we’re carrying this pressure of we want to do well at the show, we want to impress our trainer, we want to maybe our boyfriend is coming to watch and we want them to think we’re cooler, maybe, you know, whatever. But there are so many pressures we put on ourselves that then we’re not equipped to handle the emotional side of that. And then it gets taken out on the horses.

And yeah, that’s that’s kind of what I found funny when I was reading the the sort of metadata of the project was when I saw every single horse successfully learned, you know, how to say yes, no, or I’m good to blanket changes. I go, how many times have you put humans in studies and been able to teach every single human to successfully perform the thing? Yeah, because. I don’t know. It’s a very good question because I just think our, our brains get us into so much trouble, right?

And like horses are just like, they’re just there and they’re just, you know, but they’re not there lifeless and no emotions and no feelings. They’re just, they’re experiencing the world the way the world is coming at them. And they’re so adaptable that they just kind of take whatever we can write. Like that’s the, and you know, I, it’s funny because I, I’ve been in the process of deworming my horses this last week and I had one horse who needed, she had a really high shedding count. So she’s needed to get 5 days of dewormer and night one, it’s night time.

When I did night check, I decided to deworm them because I was so smart. And I go out, no halter, no nothing. And I’m able, all my horses live outside in pasture. I go out, every single one of them come up to me. Every single one of them let me deworm them in at liberty basically.

And they all saw what was going on. And but the amount of times people go, Oh my God, my horse needs the lip chain and they need this and they need to get twitched and they all just to get blood drawn, you know, and I go, that’s where we need to start. If your force needs all of these things, it doesn’t matter if you’re a top rider. It doesn’t matter if you’re a backyard rider or a trail rider. But like if your force can’t be relaxed, rented, I know people get squeamish around needles too.

So I’m not saying all forces will love getting blood drawn or whatever, but you can get them to a place where they can accept without force these modalities that happen. And so I think getting the sport to a place where, OK, if your force can’t be civil without force in these situations, then they can’t go and compete because they can’t, they can’t handle it. But the cool thing is you can teach them to handle it. Yeah. Without excess force, so.

And I, I think the trainers nowadays actually don’t use the entire learning theory paradigm. They don’t even know what they’re doing with pressure and release and positive punishment because they have decided that positive reinforcement is is just for the crazy old lady next door, which is me. And they, and they laugh. They laugh at people like me for coming to a show with a a Fanny bag full of carrot. Slices right?

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so I’m the strange one. But then again, my horse is load and the other people’s horses are forced to the trailer when they’re finished. But but many trainers, I mean in a high level of of trainer education in Norway don’t in practice at least use the whole learning theory.

They don’t know No, they they they can’t define to me when I ask what is a reinforcement for Sir, what is positive reinforcement? What is negative reinforcement and what did you just do and how does that affect the animal and the animal’s emotions? If we could do something there, I think we will come a long way because I’ve stopped going to trainings with my horses because I can’t stand it anymore. I think my horses are better off not being pulled and kicked on at the same time, if you know what I mean. They wouldn’t understand and it’s not fair to them.

Yeah, no, it’s, you know, it’s such a good point because I actually had an experience with a saddle fitter not too long ago. I was dealing with this horse who she had completely shut down and we were kind of trying to figure out what the cause was. And I was like, well, it could be saddle. So we have the saddle fitter out ahead. I I am a Fanny pack full of treats wearer.

And you know, she just kept making comments. Oh my gosh, how can you ride with that thing? How can? And I’m like, it’s just attached to my body, you know, like I don’t even notice it anymore. I just haven’t.

I’m just tired of getting crumbs in my jacket pockets and end of the summer I can’t wear a coat. So, you know, the Fanny pack is a good but yeah, I’m like, I don’t even notice it. But. And then, you know, the horse would do something and I’d stop and give her a cookie and and I could tell it just like drove this woman mad the way that I was handling this horse. And, you know, but then The funny thing is she comes back six weeks later and she goes, oh, my God, this is a different horse.

And I go, yeah, because we gave her, you know, the the experiences that she had, although maybe not always easy, made her feel good. And so it’s like if but yeah. And that owner, she’s come a long way as well. But when I first started giving her horse a lot of treats, she goes, Oh my gosh, I just hope she doesn’t become a biter. And I go, do you say that, you know, every time you give your dog a treat?

Oh, he better not become a biter, even though I’m going to hand him like, no, I don’t know why we’re so afraid of horses. They’re, they’re relatively cool to hang out with and, and deal with. And, but yeah, and, and I too, although I have high performance goals, I kind of had to step back from going to competitions because, you know, you go to a competition and it just feels horrible. Like, I can’t even focus on my own horse because I see all of these other horses that are just screaming for release, you know, And but the switch that I’ve kind of made this year is OK. Well, now that I have these tools and the ability to communicate with my horses in a way where it may really hurt my soul to go and spend $600.00 on a competition and have my horse show up and be like, I can’t do this today and me have to honor that.

That’s better than not going out there and showing people that we can do this in a better way overall, you know? And so, but I do, you know, hope that the tides are changing with people understanding learning theory and having access to learn about learning theory. But I think, you know, it is a long road to change cultures and society around the way we currently do things because it’s just so ingrained in how people handle horses. But sort of as we are winding this down, what advice or observations or anything like that do you have for horse owners who maybe want to start allowing their forces to have more choice? Or maybe they just want a better relationship with their horse overall?

What would you sort of give them to start doing with their horses? Yeah, first of all, go take a course and it could be a dog course in positive reinforcement or clicky training or whatever and just get your hand around all the the fine tuning of the stuff, right? Because you need to practice. You could practice on a chicken that’s relatively harmful or the neighbour’s dog or whatever, but but that was an eye opening open air for me at least to try and introduce the positive reinforcement in the training of my horses because I got a complete difference. What can I say?

I didn’t differ or change my attitude towards them, but I mean I got better at looking at them and reading their signals and that you can use every day even if not training them. But we need really need to be better at reading. Their signals, yes. That will save us and that will save them from illness or whatever. We can take it.

You’re early, but I think it’s a good idea. And then we need to grow a bit thicker skin when it comes to introducing these methods also in the regular training. And then just ask your trainer, why do you want me to kick and used to crop? Why can’t we do it another way? And why can’t you accept I am actually stopping this now and giving him a treat because he was really good.

Yeah, there’s, there’s so few trainers nowadays, the acceptor and just as you said, they go crazy if you come with a Fanny pass. I know it it, it’s funny. I always just, I’m at a level where a lot of the people I ride with have gone to the Olympics or ridden on teams or whatever. And I always preface when they start working with me. I go just so you know, I’m going to show up.

My horse is going to have multiple different types of treats because each treat means something a little different. And also sometimes I’ll have a nose band and sometimes I’ll have no brow band. And sometimes I’ll decide not to use a bit and say you know, And it’s, it’s always, I’m like, I’m sure I drive people crazy. But when you find the good ones, they really are super accepting. They’re like, you’re paying me the same that everyone else is paying.

Maybe I need a little bit more patience, but you know it. I think the more we as the riders and owners of these horses can be the advocates for them, the more the sport will change. But it starts with us asking the trainer, why do you want us to kick? Why do you want me to carry the whip? You know, that sort of thing.

So that’s a great point. Well, this has been such a great and fun conversation to have. Thank you so much for joining me. How do people kind of find out more about horse voice? Maybe find out more about you All of that good stuff.

Yeah. So I can send you the link to the web page that we have. We’ll try to update it. We’re still in the process of teaching the students to teach the horses. Well, we are already on television in Sweden, so it’s in Swedish, but we aim to share as we go along, both videos and pictures.

And so we have a web page and we’re also in LinkedIn. Yeah, excellent. You can share with your listeners and hopefully we can keep in touch. Great. Yeah, definitely.

Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. One more thing before you go. I’ve put together a course called From Stiff to Supple in 28 Days. It’s six ride along audio lessons.

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