The Neuroscience of a Calm Horse - Shawna Karrasch & Jessie Hillegas

All right, so I typically kick the episodes off by having the guests tell us who they are and what it is they do. OK, I’ll. Start, my name is Shawna Karish and I have I was a very mammal trainer for 10 years at SeaWorld in San Diego in the 80s and early 90s, so long time ago by now, but that’s where I learned to train was all positive reinforcement with, you know, sea lions, walruses, otters, orcas, blue whales and dolphins, you know, all those things. And so I looked into how horses were trained and realized that they weren’t Nobody used to that. You know, it’s all science based, it’s all proven principles.

And it’s really the free mammal community who pulled it out of textbooks and truly put it into a big an application. So as I started as I was well versed in it. Thanks. I was there for 10 years. I didn’t understand why horses weren’t doing it.

So I started looking into it. And then I met John Madden. It was BZ Madden’s husband. And he heard about it and said, that’s amazing, you must come here and to come start a business. Let’s do this.

And really what he did, he went home that first day because he was just entrenched in taking it in and he, BZ had a horse. So you could not have a stick around and he like you couldn’t, your neighbor couldn’t under saddle on the ground, none. And so then he called that first day and said I not only got the horse to touch the stick, I can’t get him to stop. So if they could change that big of a no to that big of a yes as quickly, then there’s a place for this in Grand Prix show jumping. So that’s where I started.

And that was way back in the early 90s, you know, so I then started taking it to the the horse world little by little and nobody knew what I was talking about and, and just kind of kept going. And now it’s 30 some years later and it’s finally getting more understood than and well known, but still a lot of a lot of pieces that aren’t understood. So little nutshell kind of how I got there. And me, I did not start with horses coming through positive reinforcement, not at all. Most people don’t.

And I had just done the growing up in my backyard thing and I started to ride with different trainers and then eventually I started working for different trainers. I went to college for English as an English major and that got out of there as fast as I could and did horses. So then I had gotten Shawna’s book somewhere along the way, like, I don’t know, not too early 2000s or something. My mom had gotten it for me and she got me the stack of books. Actually it was from a sidewalk sale and there was her book in there.

And quite honestly, like it just looked like a easy read. I like the title. It said you can train your horse to do anything and I read it and had a lot of pictures so that made it easier too. And by the end I was like Dang, I really feel like I could train a horse to do anything with positive reinforcement. So I then later on she was at an Expo in Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA and I met her in person.

She doesn’t remember that now, which I think is super rude. Just kidding. And we didn’t really, I guess we and then, so I think 2017 ish, I had a young horse that was struggling. I had sold her. She went away for a couple of years.

Then the owner had her with the trainer. The owner didn’t have her with her and the trainer like that situation just was, it ended up really bad for her. I bred this for her so I knew her really well and she was sold when she was almost 2 and she just said the owner figured out that it was going really badly and sent the horse back to me and it she just was dangerous. She was biting, kicking, spinning in her stall, nailing you kick. She’d be eating it.

She’d be eating hay in her stall, start cantering in circles like. And it just seemed like there was no rhyme reason to it to me. So I, I don’t know what made me think about Shawna again, but I just by this time now we have the Internet and I googled her and I found I’m kind of going into the story of how we met too. So. There you go.

But meantime, I had before all that I had, I had started hundreds of horses by then. By this time, by the time I contacted her and I could not figure out what to do with this horse. I just couldn’t figure out how to help her. Sometimes I would stand there and watch her and just cry because I just could not figure out how to help. And I know I knew, too, that she was one of those horses that would have ended up being slaughtered, you know, going down that pipeline because she was just very dangerous, very unpredictable.

And, you know, the hard part, too, is she is just stunningly beautiful, like an elephant. Yeah. So anyway, she, it was the reason why Sean and I got connected and she, I, I had gone and met the horse again, got the horse back and she just like I said, she was really struggling. And then I got coaching calls with Shawna and she ended up walking me through basically the science and she was having me have her touch. Her name was Addie.

She was having me have Addie touch a target. And I was like, I don’t really know what the heck this is going to do, but I’m just going to listen to her because I have no other answers. And sure enough, Addie started to change and I couldn’t if it could not figure out why. But that is how we met. And from then on we just, we would talk now and again through the years and then take it away.

Yeah, and then and and then I bought one of her horses that she had bred because she’s really good with the hunter. So she they’re talented, they’re beautiful. She does all the things really well. And so I, you know, so we kept in touch and did all that. But I think Jesse’s a really good example because like a lot of people, she dabbled in it, you know, like she did some trail loading stuff, but didn’t know where to go with it.

There weren’t enough resources to really support people through the next phases. And so I think it leaves a lot of people going, yeah, there’s something to this, but I, I don’t know how to fade the food or I don’t know how to get this into my busy day, or I don’t know how to do this in the show rig or I, you know, whatever those pieces might be. So she was kind of the same thing until she had Addie, who was a problem. And she’s like, I don’t know what to do. And really what we did is we sat out and changed her neural pathways so she felt unsafe with everybody.

She’s presenting like PTSD. So she would out some things, had a trigger that you could see if you touch your chest, you’re going to get bitten or kicked if certain things. But other things would just be she’s standing alone eating, and all of a sudden you couldn’t see anything happening. So it was pretty extreme. But she turned in back into being the sweet, sweet, kind, trusting horse and really let it go.

You know, it didn’t. I could come up when I first moved here and I’d forget because she was so good. And I would just do stuff that used to be a trigger and she’d just be like, yeah, OK, Like, you know, she had. So that’s where we kind of started. And the more I look back at what I knew with the marine mammals and since that day, I mean, since back since then, it we continue to learn more neurobiology and neuroscience is giving us so much more.

We just continue to learn and learn and learn. And even the four, almost five years Jesse and I’ve been together, it’s still learned a lot. So we can you to grow and learn more as we go. And it’s really exciting and more what we’re learning about is the state of our brains, but also the state of any brain, you know, and that leads our horses and how we can help them to get out of that fight or flight or that get, you know, out of the sympathetic into the parasympathetic, the rest and digest space. So that’s kind of where we go and we go help people.

Really what we try to do is take the practical or take the science to the practical. That’s really our big thing because no, there’s plenty of people can know the science inside and out and that’s really important, but but it’s not really helpful if you can’t figure it out for your horse and your situations. Yeah, that’s focus really. Yeah, for sure. So I guess to start what when you’re working with a horse like Daddy and there’s clearly this, this trauma that’s triggering any myriad of stuff.

Yeah. What is happening when you take that horse and start doing something like a target practice? You know, and that the first thing we’re trying to do is give them autonomy, because if you think about it with the horses, by and large we say we’re going to tell you what to do when you do it. Every decision is made for them and through traditional training, we say don’t do anything until I tell you what to do. So there’s not a lot of what do you have to say about it.

So or something Addie, who by this point, her perspective on people, she was sweet. Jesse does a fabulous job raising the young ones and really avoids the the early, too early weaning, which can cause separation and fighting struggles like that. So she does a really good job. So Addie left here a bold, confident, bright, sensitive, all the things we like. And then she got out in the world and she did suffer trauma.

And there’s very few horses we’ve met that haven’t had some sort of trauma. Some you just see that you see the results of it. But is she is she her perspective has changed from humans in the world isn’t really good and safe. It’s all unsafe. So we would make sure that we started teaching her to do things that put something in it for her that she values.

So we’re immediately reaching a different part of the brain when we start utilizing food. So we have found that it the neurobiology has has found that instead of the fight or flight part of the brain were activate, which is what traditional training activates pressure and release. We’re activating the seeking system and that’s things they like want desire. It’s endorphins and dopamines. A good things come out of that repetition and so we are activating a different part of the brain, but we’re being very careful not to trigger things and give her autonomy where she can do it or not do it.

We’re like, it’s OK, you don’t have to do it at all. And we make it super easy. So we start creating success. So pretty soon she’s like, I’m good at this and I like it. I mean, because think about what’s in it for your horse to do finally change, you know?

There’s. A lot. So we put something in it and it changes the try and the effort and the horror. And so you start little and then you just kind of keep building. But it really is you’re changing the brain at at a much, much deeper level.

And that’s for Jesse. At that point, I was just rattling stuff off to her. Just do this and do that. And I’d be trying to tell the sides, but I had so many ideas and things and she would just be like, OK, Yep, it worked. And then she’s like, wait a second, this is something.

So we really are starting to change the brain and the neural pathway now. So at that point Addie had developed really deep defensive neural pathways. It all came out of fear. You know, aggression really comes out of fear. And so it was all out of fear.

But you know, something would happen. She think I’m unsafe and so she would, she had deep neural pathways for this was an automatic response almost. So we had to slow her down and get her to think and get her to choose to think, to get her to feel safe, to get her have some skills that that become, you know, that feel good for her. And really with repetition, we get to classical conditioning, which then is they just love the behavior or that they love whatever it is that they’re doing, you know, the state dollar or whatever that gets weak. I can get geeky as could be on you, but I’ll try to stay in line a little.

Yeah, well, it’s, it’s really interesting because I remember like 20 years ago, I was at a big boarding bar and there were like 70 horses there. And there were, we called them the boys fields and they were like 10 acre pastures were like 10 horses are out. And then and this one woman, she likes released this horse there and she never felt like going and getting him out of the paddock. So she actually clicker trained him. When he heard, you know, this hauler, he would come galloping up to her.

And I remember being like, you know, why, why do all I was so young. I was like, why do they all come running? And my mom was like, yeah, she clicker trained it like a dog. And that was like my first time ever hearing about clicker training. And then it wasn’t really until like five years ago I realized clicker training is just positive reinforcement training.

But the narrative around positive reinforcement in a very classical barn setting was very, oh, she’s, you know, crunchy granola sort of person. And but she never really had performance goals. She was kind of just someone that enjoyed being around horses. And so as a person who grew up competing, that was really my only interaction with that type of thing and, and sort of the stigma around the people and the the horses who do it. And it wasn’t until I had a horse who also had very severe aggression problems and I was like, God, what can I do to help this horse?

And I sort of stumbled into it. I’m a big cookie giver. So she would do something good. I’d just stop her and give her a cookie, not even realizing what I was doing. And I think a lot of people, if they understood what it could get them, they, they would be a lot more receptive to it.

But they hear. Oh, yeah. Well, you, you know, my horse can tell me to get off or my horse can do all of these things and, and they get defensive about it. And so I think having a conversation around it and Jesse, I think this is actually where you probably really shine because you were this person in this normal, you know, training routine. And then even though you had a horse that kind of made you be like, I’m just going to throw stuff at the wall and, and see what what works.

You were able to do it with success, but what happened in your mind as you’re sort of going through this process of realizing what positive reinforcement has to offer for horse trainers? Yeah, it’s such a good. Question and honestly I kind of don’t. It was such a long term process that it’s a hard question to answer because when I first started, I was so not committed. I wasn’t even going to buy this target thing.

Wasn’t even, it’s not even expensive, but I was just like, I don’t know, I’m going to use a broom. She’s afraid of brooms for a reason. She Beth’s choice but. No, not what she do, just. Start.

She wasn’t afraid of brooms. So I was like, I’m going to use this, why not use this? This seems smart. Might as well turn her big no into it. Yes, I remember the John Madden story of the crop and I was like, yeah, let’s do that.

And the by golly, she was confident about brooms in a day or two and that was great. Yeah, I just, it was a it was a long process to the point where I’ve been working with Shawna. Now we’re coming up on five years and the 1st 3 1/2 four years I was, I’m still committed to positive reinforcement. We’re traveling around teaching this everywhere. But still sometimes I’m like, Dang, I just want to crack him one because I know, I know that I could.

But after now having started hundreds of horses the other way, and now having started not hundreds yet a large handful of horses, positive reinforcement and knowing what I know about the brain and science, there is just I would never, ever, ever go back because it was far easier, far safer, far better for the horses in my mind. So, yeah, it had to be a process though, because in every different scenario that we have with horses from vaccines to trailer loading to getting a bath and riding and can I use this for a lead change, this is like, how do you do that? Like all a process of things that I needed to trial and error for myself. Now we, since we have a membership and we’re dealing with people having those same questions all the time, we’ve gotten much better at dialing it in. Like, OK, how can we express to everybody that there is an answer in here somewhere?

And that’s what I believed when I got done reading her book. And the book is older, but it’s still super valuable. We have come a long way, like with our knowledge of the science since then. And we’re working on 2nd book. Yeah.

But when you have that belief and you can go with it and you choose, it’s you. You have to choose to stick to that. When you make that decision, I feel like the horses know it and your world changes and the horses worlds change. That was a good answer to say I don’t. And I think it bark because it is people learning something new and we have our own reinforcement history, you know, and it takes a bit to trust the training because you’re like, yeah, OK, oh, I know what’ll work, you know, And, you know, and, and as opposed to realizing that if you really do it, though, you have much more resilience in that behavior.

Especially when you are talking about people who train horses for a living, it’s really hard for those of us having done that who have had. I felt I was almost to the point where I was getting a little bored with my training because not to like pat my own back or anything, but I felt like there wasn’t any challenge anymore that was too big that I couldn’t kind of work through with negative reinforcement. And with positive reinforcement, I was like, oh, actually, most of the time the horses had no idea what I was talking about. Yeah. Now when we have a way to tell them, yes, I can see very clearly where their lack of understanding is at.

That to me as a trainer and to someone who has raised a lot of foals, is super important to me because I care. I want to be on the same page with them and I want, I want them to feel like, you know, we’re walking together. And as a partnership, I don’t want to feel like we’re lording ourselves over them or, you know, I’m dominant to them or I’m their boss or whatever. Yeah. I think, you know, there’s so much there because I do think a lot of the times horse trainers find themselves starting to use positive reinforcement because of that one horse that really challenges the negative reinforcement ability.

And I know I have the same struggles of like, OK, I know if I just give this, sometimes it’s an extra 2 days, the answer is so much better with positive reinforcement. But I know I can just like pick up my whip and like get this thing done. And, and you know, like I, I know the process so well with negative reinforcement that there’s so much questioning of myself learning positive reinforcement and then applying positive reinforcement. And then, you know, the typical like they’ll start to give me an answer or they won’t give me an answer and then I get frustrated and I know, OK, it’s just ‘cause I’m also learning this thing for the first time. So I can’t, you know, get get frustrated and have my ego get all up in there.

But it is so hard when you were very competent in this one area to then become a beginner again. That’s something you already, you know, know. Definitely was I, I look back on at the stuff that I did with Addie back then and I mean, I wasn’t even doing 90% of it right. And still I got huge results. My, my point in all of that is, is if you, if anybody listening does decide to dabble in positive reinforcement, do your best to be as open minded as you can and to try and trust the training and the people who are teaching it.

And, and it, it’s hard to find good ones out there, but they’re growing. We’re growing. And I think it’s, I think a lot of times there’s, there are problems you can get into a positive reinforcement just like any other training. You know, you, it can be coercive if you’re not careful and making sure they’re part of the the plan or you can, or part of the thinking process. You can make them kind of this is a, you know, an anthropomorphic term, but it feels entitled, you know, versus how we going to fade the food and move past it and build duration or that it’s people think it’s all without any progress, you know, or without any.

But you know, it’s all permissive And no, you know, because I think the initial people really gravitated. I started with the Olympians, you know, I started with jumping, but then I think the people that really gravitate to it was more of your recreational rider. But then it becomes classified as this. But it is the things we see. We’re taking our young horses to be show horses.

You know, they’re, they’re learning to do it all because we, I think it’s really, it’s great. You can teach them to love showing and love the show environment. And we say something a lot is slow down, you’ll go faster. Sometimes it takes a little bit more in the beginning because you’re saying, aren’t you on board? Do you get it?

But in the long run, what you’re teaching them to do is be problem solvers who show up and are ready to do and figure out. So they’re thinking through things as as diligently as you are. So now you have two of you ultimately working together when they get a little further down the road. So it’s it’s fun to watch. Yeah.

And I do also think so many people don’t want to be dominant over their horses. You know, they really do want the partnership. They just sometimes lack the communication skills to to have that relationship. And then but you kind of mentioned, you know, you’re taking these horses that you’re working with to be show horses. How do you do that without negative reinforcement or do you still you know have some pressure and release?

So how does that? Work yeah, and that’s a super good question because a lot of times and and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sometimes in the positive reinforcement world, people can be what quite judging me. You’re doing something like and you’re like, OK, easy does it. Nobody just jumped all in. But the so people don’t understand that, you know that they would.

So what we tend to do is teach the same cues, but we teach them with positive reinforcement as the impetus behind the cue. So we still want what we put leg on means go forward, but instead of it being it’s going to be increasing pressure until they finally respond correctly and then we take it away. So the reward being or the, you know, the reinforcer being that we take the pressure away, so the aversive goes away. Instead of that, we say leg on, go to that target out there. And so then they Start learning leg on means go forward.

So we start bridging not or we start using the clicker, not when they’re touching the target, but we then fade it to just when they’re moving forward. So they start getting the idea leg on, go forward, leg on till it’s really solid or opening rain and really simple things first. And then you kind of as each of those components is strong with a strong positive reinforcement history, it means we’re having different emotions that come into the training. So then we just build that up little by little to each of those things. You can start putting them together, but you have the basic foundation laid in in positive reinforcement and using the seeking system.

Here’s that little part that I think is really kind of a big part is what they found with the, the neurobiologist is they found that with traditional training, it tends to light up the part of the brain that’s responsible for fight or flight. So with positive reinforcement, it tends to light up what’s referred to as the seeking system. So the seeking system is things they want, things they like, things they desire in these two different parts of the brain. Now the brain produces all sorts of things in all areas, but the, the, the fight or flight part is heavy in your cortisol. So when we trigger that, we have a flood of cortisol.

That’s your higher end thing going out there in the seeking system. We tend to have more endorphins and dopamines and then resulting in, in oxytocin and the bonding in the long run. So what happens is when they’re learning through either the removal of pressure or the seeking of the, the reinforcer, the food primarily they we have a different emotional experience. So as we teach them to go forward, like I love going forward as opposed to you, I better go forward or else I’m going to have escalating pressure. So what we get is them every time we ask them to go forward there.

Oh yeah, I’m good at this. I love this. So then as you start putting the pieces together, we haven’t triggered that defensiveness that can come with it. So we ideally want to go in that Bay, but then we have people riding our horses that are right, that are traditional people can ride our horse because they already know who the cues and we’d use the same cues. So the horse doesn’t think, you know, that’s like, Oh yeah, go forward, I get this.

And so it’s how we kind of have have built that up in that way. And and while we choose to use positive reinforcement, we also work with plenty of people who, you know, are still figuring it out, you know, so not judging the people that are still learning and trying to adapt. And I think that’s important to recognize that the more you learn, the more you go to it. If anybody says I don’t do positive reinforcement and they’re, you know, that kind of attitude that they either don’t really know what it is, they’ve seen it done poorly or they’ve done it poorly themselves. So they haven’t had the results or they’ve seen somebody who’s, you know, done it and gotten the poor results or they don’t really know what it is because it’s all, it’s just science, you know.

And so, and then the other part that we prepare them for, for the show is making sure that the show environment itself is something that they like and are good at. So we don’t go immediately say we’re going to the show with all our attention. We’re just going to ride and perform. We say, let’s go walk around. We go down to Ocala in the winter.

So we go, oh, let’s go to the shows and walk around before there’s anything else where they can kind of absorb that piece. So when they get there, when it’s time to be doing written work, they already are settled in that environment, which helps to keep them more relaxed. Our basic lot behind everything is relaxation. We want. If we want to pee, pee off, we want it with relaxed energy.

If we want them jumping, we want relaxed energy, but relaxation. And that means keeping them out of that fight or flight part of the brain, because that’s ideal learning. It’s keeping them in that seeking system and that place. It feels safer and calmer because that’s ideal learning place. So it means how do we keep them there and so we can learn those things.

So that is always our goal is working towards the relaxation. So before we decide to go ride at a show, we’re going to make sure that the performance part at home or in the back part or in the indoor ring and the outdoor ring are all relaxed and confident and good. And we’re going to be sure that when we go to the show, they can go to the show and go, yeah, there’s a lot to see here, but I’m pretty relaxed and confident before we start putting those two together. Yeah, the, I think the the showpiece is a really fascinating piece because we get nervous and so it’s how do we manage our emotions and also have these things that can feed off of the energy we’re putting out there and still create a positive or relaxed, you know, situation for them. And this is where I find it gets really fascinating because there’s like some quote about when you’re basically at some big competition, you’re going to be the worst version of yourself underneath all the pressure.

So the habits that you have sort of on your daily basis, if those are done out of tension, you’re probably going to show up in this pressurized environment with tension versus if you’re practicing relaxation on a daily basis, you’re just more likely to probably show up with that as your sort of baseline. And that’s great. But I’ve met a lot of horse people and I think a lot of us really struggle with our own relaxation. We tend to be a little bit more on the neurotic side of things, I think. But so when you’re working with these horses on a daily basis, and I assume you have goals that you’re working towards, how do you set yourself up for success in this situation of, OK, I’ve signed up, I’ve gotten my horse to a pretty confident, competent place that I feel like I can sign up for this horse show.

What do they look like in that moment? Yeah. And I think that because it is the two sides of this equation, you know, it’s you can’t just expect your horse to do it all when you’re slumbering mass over there, you know? You know, I think that the one of the things that we really do and this was a really big thing at SeaWorld because SeaWorld, they got all their food regardless what they did or didn’t do. So they were doing the training for the food.

They’re doing it because it’s fun. We made it fun. We made it enjoyable. We’re playing the game. You know, we’re raising the criteria.

We got big things done and it’s kind of needs to be the same way with our horses. So we practice ourselves to be sure that it is fun and light, but yet we can get big things done. There was a, a person who was professional and said he was being, he was making fun of somebody for using positive reinforcement. And then he came to a demo. Then he started doing it and they started making fun of him.

And he said, you know what, I feel like I’m 12 years old again, yet I’m getting serious stuff done. So I think when we start using the positive reinforcement, we start being more in the moment with our horses and we, we let’s the rest of the world melt away. But a lot of times of the positive reinforcement, we’ve also taught or reshaped these behaviors. So if it goes a little kablooey, then you’re like, OK, I know the building blocks we got to do this. And if I have to go back to the beginning and get get my priority, who’s my horse back in the right place, I can do that so I can let the rest go and do that.

But I think there’s also, do you, do you know who Kip Rosenthal was? She did a lot with equitation kids up in that Bedford area and, and she one time had a little girl who was riding her, She was going to equitation finals and she, her horse started stopping, her horse stopped. She lost her confidence. Then the horse lost his confidence because she lost her confidence. They lost and they were, they were, they couldn’t jump anymore.

And So what we did is we sat out and we taught, she had us do a clinic and we sat out and taught the horse to just to free jump back and forth with just to jump in the middle of the ring. So now the little girl got to see the force knows how to jump without me, with or without me. And, and the girl was on and then just called over the jump. So the girls just sitting at 2 point. Now she’s jumping with her horse, but she’s not, she’s not doing any of it.

The horses. So they got to kind of have their confidence together. And I think that’s a lot of times what we do with the positive reinforcement. I’m confident in what you’re doing, and they’re confident in what I’m doing, and we can communicate better in that realm. It’s not some big, giant, unknown science.

What would you add to that? Yeah, I know. I deal with a lot of like off the track thoroughbreds and you know, they come off the track with just so much tension, tension for tight muscles and they’re fit and they’ve never been out and heard before and there’s all this new stuff. And so I know like when I start teaching them to jump because usually they’re pretty game for anything. You kind of point them in a direction and say, OK, go.

And they go cool, hold my beer. And but I always say when I’m working with these horses, you know, one of the big things is that they’re confident over so much small stuff that when it gets big and I have a miss, there isn’t all of a sudden they can’t do it anymore. A lot of the training becomes about creating independence with the horse. And you know, to some people it’s really scary because they that need of control and really wanting to make things good riders tend to get tight because if they’re trying to make it a good experience for themselves and their horse, it just can become so much when. And this is where I think the positive reinforcement is interesting because you almost just never allow that tension to creep in.

Where with a lot of the negative reinforcement, sometimes I almost think we’re seeking out that tension because we then know what to do with it to get the result we’re looking for. So it’s so hard to become that 12 year old working with the horses. And so for the average competitor, someone who has goals and they want to do well, right, they don’t want to just show up and spend $2000 and not get anything out of it. But maybe they’ve never used positive reinforcement before. Where would you suggest someone like that starts in order to start building in some of that natural relaxation?

Yeah, I think that it’s a first you kind of need to be sure that your horse because we deal a lot with some show people that are kind of micromanaging with their own sense, every step, everything. They won’t let them go. They’ve got the, you know, everything Is, is it partly defensive? I think, yeah. A lot of times with some of the amateurs, it kind of is ‘cause they’re a little uncertain and then their horse gets up.

And then that only helps the horse get more tense. You mean, like, you know, the more they start spooking at something, then they get corrected with their mouths and then the horse just like, well, then, you know, and it just, the tension just mounts as opposed to going, OK, let’s just take it easy and we build in. We try to teach people exercises where the horse knows relaxation is part of the criteria. Just giving them their head and letting them walk around and maybe letting them go up and smell things a little bit like as an exercise that they do at home. They know it and they’re like, OK, everything’s right with my world.

And it’s a way we can get a reset on that, on the escalating adrenaline, so we can get there, you know, them out of that sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight or flight and get them back to the rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic. So we need to get them to fight a lot of horses. If they can get out of that state, they will, but they don’t know how to because we have never let them. So what we try to do is with some of the ground things we do, we work on the downward transitions with energy. You know, we we work on them go, but then relax so they can adjust up and down and we can take it back to those settled places so they can find their way back out of it.

We really work on teaching self regulation of the horse. So the horse themselves go. It was just, you know, the other day somebody got spooked at something and there’s like, oh, OK. And then they got themselves right settled back in without anybody having to do anything. And that’s the ultimate because they, they’re going to get startled, but then they could get themselves back to that settled place all on their own without us even having to interject.

And that’s a really ‘cause they don’t want to be in that fragile, but they don’t know how to feel safe enough to get back out of it. Or they don’t have neural pathways, you know, that are trudged out to, to find a bat. So we’ll use some of those exercises. And if it’s the first time we’re going to show and we decided we’re going this with this new thing, I would say go to a schooling show somewhere, you know, where you can kind of go through the things you can throw away the class, you can you can go through the schooling environment, but it’s all for you and your horse and you’re not feeling that pressure. I’ve known now I’m at, you know, a big show, a serious show, one that counts.

And it gives you a chance to practice those things and really kind of get back to those basics for both of you, because it really is that team working together. And we do want them to be where they know how to do it and they have confidence in themselves. So even if we make a mistake that we can go like working with stoppers, you know, or judgement in the water. You remember judgement story. John and BZ had a horse in a judgement and he was owned by Iron Spring Farms.

And Michael Matz wrote him first had a huge open water issue that they use positive reinforcement to get him over the open water. And now they pulled him out of training for a year and work the basic baby steps that built up and built up until he was winning. And George Morris said that’s the best I’ve ever seen that horse jump. But it took kind of practicing away from there and teaching the horse to do it themselves. So if you get yourself in a pickle, you can go.

You know what, you got it. You know, working with stoppers and the person like I’ve got, I got nothing to do with it. You know how to jump, but I’m just going to be here. Sega doing it, then as we come up, I might start going, OK, slow down a little bit, OK, now you’ve got it. And now we start kind of working together with both of us getting more confident.

And I think that is the important part. And I think Clarity’s also, as Jesse touched on earlier, clarity tends to bring relaxation. So when we’re micromanaging, oftentimes it’s a muddy mess. You know, we don’t, we’re not as precise and succinct and you know as we would like to be. So it often adds to the the chaos in a way.

Yeah, a lot of people do really worry about their horses energy going up too much. You know where it’s like, you know, everything’s about keeping them quiet. We use something called a reverse round pen. So I saw the videos. Yeah.

Well, for for anybody who doesn’t know, it’s 16 cones and they’re in a circle. It’s about a 20m circle. And then they have something called cone bars on the top that just connect the cone. So it’s a circle and the person’s on the inside and the horse is on the outside. And we do a lot of practicing letting the horses, they’re working on the perimeter, on the outside of the perimeter, and we’re teaching them how to stop and walk.

Trot Canner on when we asked on cue. And when their energy gets up too much sometimes as it does, and they run and Bach and carry on, maybe leave the circle a minute and then they come back and then they settle back down and we start reinforcing them staying with us longer. They’re they’re staying settled for most of the time and just reinforcing their ability to settle back down. Like Shawna said, the self regulation is hugely important and it’s a skill that they have to learn. So just want to make sure everybody really learn knows that.

A lot of times people think that self regulation just means quiet lation, means going up and being able to come back down. So we have to take it up to come back down so we know that if it gets big we can go kick and settle. There was a time I was riding Mint, which was a horse I got from John and BZ and I normally he was a thoroughbred because I love my thoroughbreds, but I know that they have, I love all that energy because I like them to slow down and get confident. But I would always turn him out first with the others, you know. So he played before I rode and one day I couldn’t, so I just rode it.

We’re jumping, doing our thing, it’s cantering, it’s all, you know, gone great. And then I went and I turned him out and I took his halter on. He stood just like he does. And I said OK, which is the release. And he went and, you know, I bucked and played and I thought I was just riding that and who are the criteria working with me was not to do that there, you know.

And so that really showed me how much self regulation he had that I didn’t even quite recognize way back then because that was a while ago, but. Yeah, it’s, I know. I, I, I event primarily and I was working with a very old school trainer up in New England for a clinic and I was on this, I had this really, really tough horse. She was a failed dressage horse and she was trained with Roker. So I’d be out and then all of a sudden, you know, she would just tuck her chin to her chest and I’d have no brakes and no steering, which can be quite unnerving.

And I, she actually was the most relaxed on cross country. So I was like, I guess we’ll event, you know, I bought her to be a show jumper, but I was, I guess this is the only face she’s really rideable in. So this is what we’ll do. And I took her to this clinic and the instructor set up this coffin, which is a jump to a ditch to another jump. And she had us ride it on the buckle.

And at the time I was like, I don’t even have freaking breaks when I have contact with this thing, you know, never mind. And her whole thing was she’s like, you want to know that your horse knows how to jump. You shouldn’t have to get there on the perfect distance to the perfect thing. And she’s like, they need to have the ability to like scramble and problem solve and, and all of this stuff. And that horse was, I always think back because I actually found out she was fully blind and I think about all of this stuff and she made it up to the preliminary level of eventing with like no penalties ever.

And I always think back to, you know, when I got her, I had just suffered a head injury so I couldn’t ride. And I would just take her out in hand and I would like lead her over all of the cross country jumps cause what else was I gonna do? And she’d go over the ditch and I’d give her a cookie And she would go over the little log and I’d give her a cookie thinking this is good bonding. And the more I looked back, the more I go, oh, no, I was just setting her up to be relaxed in this environment. And you know, I never did that in the show jumping or the dressage and it showed.

But in the cross country, I always was like, God, she’s just so ridable. Where is this everywhere else? And I think it’s just because I set up the conditions accidentally for her to be relaxed in that and confident in that environment. And the regulation piece, I think it’s really important as well because I watched this photographer on Facebook and he does these like wild. He goes and watches the wild horses and he takes videos and like they’ll all be chilling.

And then just randomly two horses will decide to like run at something or do it. And it’s this quick thing where they react and then they go, oh, OK, cool. And then they all just like shell back out and it’s like, oh, OK, like horses are made to up regulate and then pretty quickly down regulate, you know, they, they run away from the lion and then they’re like, OK, cool, no lion grass. I’m great. And but never are horses just 100% dead to the world.

And we don’t want them to be. I think that and it is kind of that we, we try to build relaxation into the criteria of our behaviors. So let’s say we’re working on a Cantor transition and we’re on the reverse round pen. So our young horses out there and we say Cantor and they carry on. And that first Cantor transition, you’re like, we’ll take it a couple times because we’re like you cantered, we’ll take that, but then we kind.

Of 2 bucks but. Yeah, we’ll take it to make the point. And then pretty soon we say, well now what we want is we want it to be going and we want you to be doing it in a relaxed way. So part of the criteria is actually to do it in a relaxed. So then they and they get, and then pretty soon that we click when they’re settled and going.

So pretty soon they start realizing the way I do this behavior is with relaxation. The way I do this, you know, and it’s physical relaxation. We don’t know what they’re thinking in their mind, but we can see when their jaw looks softer, their eyes look softer, their necks look softer, they’re, you know, and all those things. And so building that in, I think, helps as we move into new behaviors because they realized there’s this theme that runs through everything we do, which is energy. But relaxed energy.

So as when you’re working with horses, how say they’re they’re full competition horses, they’re in, they’re in full work. What does the work look like on a weekly basis? Like how often are you refreshing things in hand? How often are you doing the reverse round pen? How often are you leaving the property?

Like what does that look like? Are are you meaning for our own horses? Yeah. Professionals, yeah. Well, for our own horses, admittedly, we don’t work with them as much as people might think that we do.

They’re like the Cobblers children and we do travel a ton. But right now, for example, we’re home and we have a stretch where we’re able to work with them more and it looks like a mix of sessions and a mix of riding and sessions within the riding. But then we’ll have little parts where we might go a little bit longer without reinforcing, at least for the horses that are a little bit further along. A horse that was is very green, we’re going to be reinforcing pretty heavily throughout the ride. It isn’t, you know, Santino for example, he’s kind of my main horse that’s starting to show a little bit and stuff.

He one day I’ll have him do the reverse round pen. One day it might just be a session. If it’s raining, he might just do something in the barn. He might. I try to ride him several days a week right now.

And then sometimes I might put him on the lunge line, which without a whip, we don’t typically lunge our horses all that much. And it wouldn’t be for tiring him out. It would be for working on something like a canner transition. I could do it on the reversal on pen too. It’s just to give him some variety and some like because I can move him a little bit more easily on the the lunge line that can further one end of the ring or the other.

Or, you know, can you do it in this corner, whatever. So just like little a lot of times too. I think here’s an important point that we’ve been discussing a lot lately, Sean is like, what is it is when we take the time to really spell something out for them, they seem to grasp it and hold on to it rather than it being just something thrown into a session. So for example, take the Cantor transition Santino his were like OK, they weren’t very solid, especially like going from the walk and. And that’s normal learning.

And there could be the, it could be that he wasn’t physically ready to do it or whatever. But we have to, I think it’s important to ask the question, is it really that you’re not physically ready, which I felt like he was, or is it that you’re, there’s something that I’m not relating to you that you’re not quite getting? So I took it back to the lunge line and asked for the Cantor transition. And there were a couple times where he just got up and big and I just just settled him back down, asked for it again. And pretty soon, because he knows positive reinforcement so well, he was just stepping into it from the walk from the walk, and I was getting more and more lovely relaxation.

So then I was able to take it under saddle and he just knew it. And so like when you break something down like that and really kind of get it solid, it’s not that I drilled it or anything, but I really tried to spell it out as clearly as I could to him. That’s something that we’ve been implementing in with our work lately that has helped a lot. And the positive reinforcement in there, right, creates a big desire to do it. And it’s, it’s like the most salient, the most valuable reinforcer we have because they needed to survive partly.

Oh, it’s very, very. So they hang on to it. They remember that, you know, if you think about with, with negative reinforcement, pressure release, they’re constantly working for the pressure to go away. Everything is about escape and avoidance because everything we really taught them is through pressure, which is aversive because otherwise if we put the leg on, they wouldn’t care if it was on or off. We couldn’t change behavior now.

So we put the leg on. If it’s not working, we put it on more until we get a response. Then we say now to go away even though it’s just mild. But with the with the sinking system and positive reinforcement, they’re then thinking how do I get it? What do I do?

And they get really engaged in that, that thing. Now let’s just quickly then take the horse who isn’t here in our our place, the traditionally trained horse and who is in a traditional program. We still work with those people, of course, because there’s it’s a process, like I said was for me, it’s a process for everybody. And if we were just like, no, we can’t do that. You don’t, you’re not like a purist, a positive reinforcement, we wouldn’t get very far for one.

And we do want to help the horses. So those sessions look like for us, they’re doing their traditional training and not really bring it sometimes, often not at first, honestly all that willing to bring in positive reinforcement to their riding, but they’re willing to like let us fool around with them on the ground. And those sessions, all the sudden they see that there we were working with one in Florida who was stopping and he actually wasn’t afraid of the jumps. He was afraid of what was outside the ring. So he would go to the jump great at home, no problems.

He’d go to the show and he was spooking at things that were on the outside of the ring. And he just, we just did simple things with him and we took him to the show and we let him. Went on the Monday, you know, walking. Where it was quiet and let him look at all the things and just target, click, reinforce, click, reinforce and through some exercises that we specifically had chosen for him. And it didn’t seem like it was even they weren’t doing it that much in the riding.

So it was like, how does how did they cross? But they still do really well. And then then it gets the person on board and they’re like, well, wait a second, We’ve been having this trouble for five years and now all of a sudden he’s jumping within this week. And you know, it’s just, of course, every horse is different. So it may take longer, it may take less time, whatever.

But it is hugely impactful to the horses because all of a sudden they do have a voice and a choice and someone is listening to them and they I think it brings so much safety to them. And I think that also goes back to there was a horse were working down there in Florida too, that she was tense. I mean, like she wouldn’t she would not make a decision. She’d walk away and it looked like and she’s a liberty. She’d walk away and it looked like she was disinterested.

We’re like, that’s fear, That’s worry. And and you know, you see, they’re like, OK, whatever you do your thing where it would say we don’t care, whatever. And then pretty soon. Come back later and check on you. You know it’s time.

They wouldn’t. They won’t even, they’ll watch you at first ‘cause they’re interested and then they’re like this feels like look. Yeah, bye. And so then pretty soon we’re like, OK, well, we, you know, we’ve gotten, we broke through this little barrier which she was tougher than most. And then so now they’re riding her a little bit and we’re doing it under saddle with the trainer.

But we’re saying all we’re going to do in the saddle is have a relax. So because she would win the ring and she’d spook at everything in her own ring because it was avoidance, you know, it was her way of not having to do the thing that was more scarier, which was more vague to her or something. But so whenever she got a little tense, you’re like, and give her the ring and let her walk, you know, And then she would get, she would take deep breaths and she would relax and then she could get back to working again. And so we kind of gave him exercises. And you’re always trying to move forward.

You’re not trying to just stay there, but as you’re building duration and and she got where she went to the show was great, you know, and so it’s you’re kind of meshing it with what the people are doing. And this is an interesting thing that very first week I went and worked with John and BZ I it was the first time I ever worked with I was riding by now had my own horse by now, but I hadn’t target trained a single horse. But when John said come here, live here, move here, let’s do this. At the end of the week, I had, you know, they had picked horses I was working with. I did 3-5 minute sessions a day.

So those horses saw me for 15 minutes a day. How? Many horses. It was probably 10 horses, and a couple of them were too young to be ridden. So they’re, you know, probably seven were ridden horses.

And she said at the end of the week, And also all I did was a bridge conditioning, teaching the clicker. And that’s just classic conditioning. It’s really repetitive. And then I taught him to touch the target. That’s it.

Beezy never came in and watched. They watched from outside. I never interacted when she was riding. And yet at the end of the week, and if anybody knows Beezy, Beezy’s not effusive. She wouldn’t say, I love your hat.

You know, it’s just, you know, what you got to do at the end of the week, Beezy said, every single one of those horses you’re working is remarkably better than the arena. And I was like, I don’t know. I don’t know why because the trainer didn’t didn’t blend yet, didn’t quite understand. And this was, you know, 30 some years ago. But now we recognize it starts to bleed into so many different areas.

It’s kind of exciting in that way. Yeah, I know. I was talking to Andrew McLean about the positive and negative reinforcement stuff, and he said there was a lot of science behind horses actually doing really well with a combined approach of both positive and negative reinforcement versus, you know, fully one or the other. And maybe that was because, you know, of a myriad of things. But I think that it’s so nice to hear someone who does positive reinforcement say, hey, you don’t have to be like 100% perfect in order to still have good results with your horses.

Because I think it’s the Internet can be a really tough place to be a horse trainer or horse enthusiast. Because you know, I even, I sometimes will find myself reading a post and I’m like. What is this? Person trying to accomplish you know, and and then I go OK, I don’t know their horse. I don’t know that whatever, it’s all good, but it’s I think for people who grew up us being classically conditioned towards negative reinforcement, that when all of a sudden people come, everything you do, you know, triggers this and you’re traumatizing your horse and all of this, it creates defensiveness where people are less likely to be open to the idea of positive reinforcement.

Or even I remember people even being weird about my rope halters, horse shows being like, oh, you’re one of those. And I’m like, this horses bolted 6 times with me. So I need something that’s not a chain. And I wasn’t one of those people where now I’m like, yeah, I’ve got my Fanny pack and my clicker and my, you know, all of the things. But but yeah, so I think for people to know, hey, you know, you can use this for trailer loading and still like leg yield, your horse adding leg and, you know, that sort of thing I think is a much easier introduction than no pressure whatsoever.

All of this because people are like the how do I even like lead my horse? Yeah. Or like, do you think Beezy is just going to go, Oh yeah, I forget the Olympics? I’ll just yeah, now that’s just not happening. But you do find that once you Start learning, like because everybody has a crossover horse mostly, you know, we’re getting more of these days that are raised through positive reinforcement, which has its own little struggles, you know, now.

Ripley bold, Confident. Yeah. But you, you know, mostly everybody has a crossover horse. So what we try to do is say you don’t have to retrain everything, but notice where are the, you know, hot spots, where is it struggle? Where do they and those parts will say, let’s break that down and change and make a new reinforcement history.

But typically when people start going and understanding positive reinforcement, they start embracing it more and more and more for learning moving forward. You know, so we kind of tried to build a stronger reinforcement history and horses don’t handle it as well. The mixing some of them, I think it really sensitive and had a really bad in their mind, a traumatizing experience. I think it can all be triggers that makes it just crazier. But like with BC, you know, she we we dealt with the things that were struggle and the other things were, you know, you could reinforce some and just move forward, but you didn’t have to go back and teach it like it’s a brand new baby.

You know, you couldn’t do what you did. You just tried to recognize where is it emotionally? Can we where is there not relaxation? I guess it’s part. So if you sidle up too the mounting block and they’re like this, you might go, OK, I got some pieces to deal with.

You know, you, is there something physical going on? Is it? But then you’re thinking, OK, I need to redo this. I need to understand what’s going on here. But let’s say they got no big deal, I’m really good.

And not that, not that shutdown way. You can move on and you just think, OK, you can reinforce it. But anyway, it’s yeah, the inventing wheel all the way around here. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I think the more people understand this application in more than just round penning and injections and you know, that sort of thing, the more because I know I definitely still use negative reinforcement, but I now when I approach things, I go, I wonder if I can do it with positive reinforcement to start.

And you know, sometimes I fail miserably and not all of them are my horses. So I’m only on a set, I’m on a set timeline with them. So I go, OK, well, I kind of have to get this done, but I gave it a shot at least stork and sometimes it works great and I go, cool, We didn’t even have to pick up a whip or add a, you know, bigger bitter or anything with that horse and and that feels really good as a horse trader. So as we start to wind this down, what is some advice you have for people who are trying to create a better relationship with their horses? I think.

I’m going to I’ll give it to you too, But the I think the first thing is look at emotions first. Are they engaged? Because we have two things. You either have the shutdown horses and learned helplessness. They’ve shut down.

They’re like, I’ll just. I will be obedient. But I’m not really here in that in some realm. Or you have the one who is highly reactive saying a big fat no is, you know, got their head all, you know, back all hollowed. So I think if you can really, really pay attention to the emotional state and it’s a tiny thing.

When do lips get tight? You know, for and for your horse, maybe that’s not an unnormal thing. You know, like Bugs had his little lips twist all the time because that’s how he was. If Minty did that, I’d be like, that’s not, you know, that sucks wrong now for you. So I think if you can recognize because those are the communications horses do with each other, it is just little things, you know, and the others go, OK, I got it.

You know, that’s they’re very cooperative group in order to survive and keep an eye out. So I think that if you can really focus on the little things and their emotional state and prioritize your horse’s emotional state above your agenda, and you’re going to get to wherever you want to go because you’re going to now be sure your horse likes going to the show. So when you win that ring, they’re like, yeah, you know, So I think if you can, you can put your agenda aside and prioritize them. It’ll, it’ll help you. It’ll help your horse feel heard.

And try not to micromanage your horses, you know? That’s a really great answer. I would add to it to learn about the science of how horses learn and think. Really try to like Shauna said, see the emotional state and invest yourself in what’s actually going on in the brain. Because if you really know your empathy just is it has to explode.

And what we have people at clinics all the time say, once I see it, I can’t Unsee it. And that’s what’s happened to me. You know where where I just at first I thought it was so nice of a trainer to my worst and. What she is, she’s adopted. Oh, trainer and I, I will always be, but I just didn’t know all the things out there that there were in positive reinforcement to get the same thing done.

And truly, especially with a horse who already knows positive reinforcement, like once you get through those early, what is it’s probably for most horses just a month or two of some really dedicated work. A little short time. On doing big time trauma, that’s a different situation, but for the average horse, probably a month or two of some dedicated taking a step back kind of training. And then once you get through that, everything truly does go a lot faster anyway. So, so really just learning the science, because it is not, it’s hardly taught out there.

And any horse person should know the science. Yeah, because it’s proven science. It’s not pseudoscience. It’s not because I said so. It’s not, you know, a made-up thing.

It’s their studies and studies, you know? If you think about it, most all of what we have learned traditionally has been pseudoscience. It has not been proven science. It has been what has been passed down and figured out because they were on the ranch and they had to learn it or they were in war or whatever. And, and that we didn’t have the ability back then.

We didn’t have the science. We didn’t have all the studies that were done and things like that that we have now. So now it’s becoming where we don’t really have an excuse anymore to not know things cause resources are out there and they’re out there for free. So that’s my $0.02. Yeah.

And I think that and if you’re going to start to and just to, yeah, just to learn more. Wait, I’m we’re really, there were pitfalls that people would fall in, like not getting relaxation. Now you have like this man, of course, kind of. And so we kind of set out to be sure we don’t get, we don’t let people fall into those places because they can. It can make it feel like it’s not going very good, but there’s a way through that stuff.

There’s always a way through whatever you are trying to figure out what positive reinforcement. Yeah, I think that Warwick Shiller has a quote in his Principles of Trading book that says horses know when you know. And it’s so true because the more I think the more curious we are about who they are and the experiences that they’re living, the more they go, oh, I can communicate with this person and I can trust this person and and they know. They know when you know. Yeah, and they know when you don’t.

Oh yeah, they do awesome. Well, this has been such a great conversation. How do people find you? Follow along with what you do, All of that good stuff. We are Shauna Karish Equine on all social media and then we are at www.shaunakarish.com.

Awesome. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having us, it’s been a pleasure.