S1 E8: Julia’s Story - A Tale to Learn From

Here we are at our final episode for Season 3 of An Equine Conversation. The months & months of recording & editing have all finally finished & you now have the whole season to listen to & what an epic season it has been too.

Stay tuned at the end of the conversation for some announcements.

I’m delighted to bring you this final episode with the 4th inspirational women in the horse world I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with this season.

This is yet another conversation I’ve been so looking forward to having and to sharing with you. Dr Dorothy Heffernan is based in Scotland, my favourite place in the world besides where I am in Victoria, Australia, but grew up in Ireland. I mention in the conversation, an Irish documentary that was on TV when I was a child about horses in Ireland and so I always wondered what it would have been like growing up horsie in Ireland. You’ll never believe it, but someone’s put that 53 minute and a bit documentary, which must have been made in the 1980’s or even 70’s onto YouTube. I almost fell off my chair when I thought to look and found it.

I digress…

Dorothy first came on my radar a number of years ago with her insightful responses to questions on some of the equine behaviour & positive reinforcement Facebook groups & it seemed Dorothy liked mine too & we connected over a like-minded approach.

Since then I’ve been following Dorothy’s journey with both her training work with humans & horses in Scotland, and with her own little herd of horses. I knew Dorothy grew up in Ireland and I wanted to hear what that was like & I love Scotland so am always happy to speak with anyone there.

I know some of you lovely listeners had really resonated with & appreciated hearing Julia Inglis story with her EMS horse and you wanted more information around EMS – a growing challenge for many horse owners. Dorothy has an EMS pony Rio – whose story I wanted to share with you as well, so we delve into the trials and tribulations of managing an EMS pony in Scotland.

It was such a fun conversation with Dorothy who is a great story-teller. Even listening back to edit the episode, I laughed and I almost shed tears at different points. I hope you enjoy listening as much as Dorothy & I enjoyed recording this for you.

Dorothy Heffernan:

Dorothy Heffernan, PhD was born and raised in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, where she was a horse and pony mad child. She moved to Scotland to study psychology and took her love of all things equid with her.

After graduating with a PhD from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, she chose to specialize in equine behavior and has been working as an equine behavior consultant for 17 years, helping people solve behavior challenges with their horses, ponies, donkeys and mules. In 2021, she joined with three other force-free equid trainers to launch Positive Equine Training Scotland, offering support and training to people in Scotland who want to learn about new gentle and compassionate ways of working with their equid friends. Getting to meet and work with a variety of equids, big, small, long and short eared has been Dorothy’s dream all her life, and now she’s living that dream.

As well as teaching and helping with equid behaviour issues, Dorothy supervises research projects for the University of Edinburgh courses in Equine Science and Animal Behaviour & Welfare. She has her own three lovely equid friends who take up either far too much (or not nearly enough) of her time, all trained using force free positive reinforcement methods.

In this episode we discuss:

1:24 - episode introduction

4:15 - introducing Dr Dorothy Heffernan

4:47 - Scotland: the Scottish summer, loving Scotland & accents/dilects

14:09 - growing up horse-mad in the suburbs of Dublin

16.29 - riding lessons in the middle of Dublin city

18:36 - making the most of horsie extended family

19.55 - eventually Dad bought the horse - perseverance pays off

23:60 - enter Rio

28.11 - enter Mal

30.18 - enter Jackson

25.41 - how studying & teaching in Psychology has informed a change in horse keeping & training

43.56 - Rio’s EMS: the background

52.10 - the laminitis diagnosis, the management & the recovery

54.16 - round 2

56:52 - Rio’s current status: ditching the fat pads & ‘the knife edge’

57.59 - Dorothy’s insights: forage/feed importance, what exercise does

59:28 - a positively trained, EMS pony, the need for exercise & how that was managed

1:00:53 - the positive ripple effects of the exercise training

1:03:16 - Rio’s living set-up & management now - balancing behavioural & health needs

1:05:38 - exercising ‘relatively hard’ - what is hard enough to have a positive impact

1:06:52 - the broader impacts of exercise

1:09:27 - the evolution in the herd dynamics as Rio’s EMS has been managed, his living conditions have been stable & his training has progressed

1:10:37 - Rio & Mal’s earlier relationship & working to train that

1:16:19 - top tips for managing an EMS pony

1:23:57 - episode & season wrap-up

Link from Dorothy:

• Find Dorothy via her Facebook profile
• Or at Dorothy’s website: Light Touch Equine

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook
• Tell us what you thought about Season 3: CLICK HERE to share your thoughts via our short feedback form.

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: https://www.mbpod.com/

Let me invite you today, to come for a little journey into the wine cellar with me, which is kind of ironic, given I don’t drink alcohol, but hey, I can still appreciate the amazingness that is a wine cellar… so come on this little journey with me.

Why are we going to the wine cellar? Well, for very, very good reason: 

Because, we have a tendency to start training our horses on the ground floor or somewhere above it, so, in the middle instead of at the beginning, instead of starting down in the gloriousness that is the wine cellar. 

I think we do this for a variety of very legitimate reasons, but it often leads us into a pickle in lots of ways with training our horses where we get ourselves stuck or facing problems. 

I hear some of you cry here, ‘but but but, I am not a horse trainer, I am an owner and I work with a trainer so this episode can’t be for me’… and I’m here to tell you that anyone who works with or cares for any animal, anywhere is a trainer – regardless of whether we’re conscious of it or not. So yep, if you care for a horse or any other animal, you are a trainer & this episode, this visit to the wine cellar is for you. As if you don’t want to go to the wine cellar anyway!?

In today’s episode I’m going to speak to the training that comes before the training. Because that piece is inextricably connected to just how successful any training, which I say in inverted commas, is.

So let’s head down the stairs into the cool of the wine cellar together and get started.

In this episode we discuss:

1:22 - episode introduction

3:10 - we so often miss the (training) things that come before & start training somewhere in the middle instead of at the start (or in the wine cellar)

5:37 - there’s a whole lot of training that doesn’t seem like ‘training’ but IS training and has a direct impact on our ‘training’

7:37 - the things that come before the wine cellar - the ‘site preparation’

8:46 - problems in training: symptoms versus causes

9:58 - what’s falls into the category of training that doesn’t seem like training but is training, for you

13:19 - setting up the classroom for student success

14:19 - wine cellar foundations are not something most of us were taught

16:49 - the role that peer pressure (direct or in-direct) plays

19:34 - it’s not rocket science, but we mostly miss them and/or need permission to go there

20:23 - an activity you can do that doesn’t seem like training but absolutely is training

23:30 - another activity to think about how you’d approach in your circumstances

25:54 - episode recap

30.22 - episode wrap-up & what’s on next week

Links mentioned this episode:  

• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: https://www.mbpod.com/

From the age of about 10-11 years old, it was my dream to have my own children’s riding school. I started instructing at 16 and taught a lot of young people. Initially at riding schools & then at Pony Club where I often taught the youngest members, the more junior groups.

In my mid-to-late 20’s, I’d had enough of teaching young people, of dealing with their parents and so I chose to focus on working with adults.

I didn’t realise at that time, that part of the reason I’d had enough was because of the more conventional way I was having to teach people & that this just didn’t sit right with me. At that time, I didn’t know of or see another way. I wasn’t aware of alternative options.

Fast forward to a few years ago, and my initial dream started to re-kindle in a fashion, with sparks, ignited by the work of people like the lovely Bex Tasker from Positively Together in NZ. I started to see a handful of people around the work, having learning adventures with young people that looked absolutely amazing.

This, their approach, different from that conventional way, really got me & I started to have hope that my initial dream, could, in some way, happen in future. For now, this is something that’s still in my future, something I have bubbling along in the back of my mind, but now I have hope. I have hope for amazing alternatives for ways of working with young people and horses, and moreover, I’m so excited by what I’m seeing is possible to support young people learning about working with horses and other species in very cool ways that I wish were around when I was young.

I couldn’t go past inviting Bex to come and have a chat with me here on An Equine Conversation, to share about her own learning journey and how she evolved her career to working with young people & animals, totally busting the myth that it’s something that we shouldn’t do. Bex does amazing work with young people as the learn about training animals and in turn, that’s giving them a bunch of personal development, teaching them invaluable life-skills on how they engage with their peers, families & humans around them. This includes learning about compassion, boundaries, choice & consent. Hugely important life-skills for us all.

I find this work of Bex’s incredibly inspiring, as do others & Bex has more recently started to support other positive reinforcement focused coaches who work with and want to work with young people through her Shaping the Future membership.

This is an episode for anyone who’s involved with young people, not just those in the animal training space. I hope you enjoy and find inspiration in this conversation.

Bex Tasker:

Bex and her family live on a small farm in beautiful Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. Under her business Positively Together, Bex teaches humans in NZ and around the world how to inspire behaviour change in their horses and dogs. Bex is a Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner and has been training with positive reinforcement for over 20 years, being best known for her long-standing passion and speciality in teaching humans about clicker training for horses. However, Positively Together also runs programmes in which youth experience the power of positive reinforcement and see learning and communication in action, as they work hands-on with friendly trained animals (currently there are sheep, horses, chickens, dogs, cows, pigs and rabbits!). The youth programs and multi-species focus have been growing rapidly since 2018 and have become a special passion for Bex and her team.

Positively Together offers a "Junior Animal Trainers" programme, and “PupStars” classes for kids and their dogs. The flagship “Next Gen Trainers” membership for tweens and teens remains the heart project, with the monthly workshops and strong community providing a safe anchor for kids during the challenging teenage years. The focus for all the youth programs is on animal welfare and trainer skills, and the underlying values of compassion, consent, confidence, resilience and respect – for animals, and for humans.

Over the years the videos of these kids classes posted on Positively Together social media pages have prompted enthusiastic enquiries from trainers around the world wanting advice on how to design and launch similar programs. Bex has guided many people through this process one-on-one, but as a firm believer that, as Dr Friedman says, “All of us are smarter than one of us”, a new idea was born. "Shaping the Future" was launched in early 2023. It is an online coaching collective and community where those of us who are passionate about teaching kids and animals can come together to share ideas and advice, gain support, get inspired, and ultimately get started with changing the world! If you have a special interest in this field, in any capacity, Bex and co would love you to join in!

In this episode we discuss: 

1:24 - episode introduction

4:40 - introducing Bex Tasker

7:30 - Bex’s horsie start & the realities of paying your own bills

9:21 - reflections & learnings

10:19 - dogs & the return of horses to the forefront of life

11.39 - the disconnect that can exist in how we train dogs versus horses & how Bex started training with the same approach with both

15:43 - the beginning of a career working with training animals

19:44 - a challenging time & a change in career away from animal training, into Criminal & Fraud Intelligence

20:09 - shifting back to training with humans & animals full time & the similarities this has with Intelligence work

24:24 - starting out & forging a new path

28:12 - the advantages to having minimal outside influences

30:06 - building a new community/tribe

32:55 - the irony of the isolation leading to dedication enabling creativity & a better training approach - which led to the creation of community to enable a better training approach for more people (so they don’t feel lonely or isolated) & finding your tribe

34:54 - ‘good training is good training’, the importance of understanding how behaviour & learning works

35:45 - the difference between true isolation & isolation among a group of others when you have different ideas & views, the need to at times create your own community

38:22 - the importance of us being visible so people can see an alternative - ‘just doing what we do & being who we are is actually enough’

41:43 - starting to work with young people in the animal training space - finding what makes your heart smile

44:13 - a collaboration, creating ‘Mane Priority’ events including ‘Dream It, Be It’ - an animal careers expo to show young people & their parents options

46:13 - mentoring teenagers & developing ‘Next Gen Trainers’ in collaboration with a Youth Worker friend

47:15 - trying other things to see which worked best & finding what lights Bex up

48:19 - evolving to add in more species, beyond horses (including the ‘wool puppies’)

51:32 - the learning we can gain from working with multiple species & taking best-practice from outside of the horse world & cooperative care

55:57 - developing young people into nimble trainers: the difference (or not) between training sheep and training horses & learning to adapt training to different species (humans included)

59:49 - we humans are ‘training’ one another all the time, consciously or not & learning to do it well is a great thing - the world would be a better place with more compassion & kindness - bringing the influence we’re having on others to a more conscious level

1:04:00 - animal training teaching young people critical thinking skills

1:05:55 - importance of young people understanding choice & consent & how animal training supports this learning - respecting every species right to say ‘no’ & having your own boundaries

1:11:17 - feedback on the program from students, parents & other observers

1:17:15 - a run-through of Bex’s programs - both for the young & the young at heart (see links below for more information)

1:22:33 - Bex’s top tips for you: have compassion, stay curious, just be you, follow your gut & look outside the horse-world for learning

1:26:26 - resources that Bex likes right now

1:30:23 - episode wrap-up, notes & what’s on next week

Links from Bex:

• Website: www.clickertraining.co.nz
• Virtual communities and courses: www.positivelytogether.app
• Facebook: facebook.com/positive.reinforcement.training
• Instagram: instagram.com/positively_together

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: https://www.mbpod.com/

Today’s episode is a really short & snappy one, dare I say, a mini-sode.

Despite being short, it’s an important one, where I’m sharing 2 valuable training tips that I’ve been talking about with my students for more than a decade: farts & unicorns. These are two training tips you can take away immediately and incorporate into your training.

A short episode, but one I hope you find really helpful.  

And now I best explain just what I mean by farts & unicorns. Listen to find out.

In this episode I discuss:

1:17 - episode introduction

1:55 - brain farts

2:14 - what are ‘brain farts’

2:53 - why talk to students and you about this

4:01 - what to do about it

5:36 - unicorn moments

6:02 - what are unicorn moments

7:00 - why should we beware of them

8:10 - what to do about it

9:53 - episode summary

10.16 - podcast wrap-up & what’s on next week

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: https://www.mbpod.com/

It was a few years back now when I first heard about Dr Michaela Hempen’s Masters Research on Crib-biting, which, for those uninitiated, is a stereotypic behaviour that horses can develop. I heard about the research and then had the good fortune to see some of the timeline film of the project thanks to Alexandra Kurland.

There is not much now, after so long in the horse world that really captures my attention strongly, but wow, Michaela’s research blew my mind – it still does. I was captivated watching the footage, absolutely glued to the screen to see it all in as much detail as I could take in.

I think the findings from Michaela’s work are absolutely game-changing in terms of how we view, understand and then manage crib-biting in horses. I am so moved by Michaela and the broader teams work in this space and the implications it has for the welfare of cribbing horses. I look forward to further research happening on crib-biting & other equine stereotypies.

Since I heard about this research, anyone mentions crib-biting and I vomit excitement about Michaela’s research all over them… so I was itching to have Michaela come and speak with me to share this with you, our An Equine Conversation listeners so I could point people to this conversation instead of trying to explain the research and findings myself.

There is so much to talk about & this is a long episode… but we still ran out of time & need to talk again.

Dr Michaela Hempen:

Dr Michaela Hempen has graduated in Veterinary Medicine with a PhD in Veterinary Public Health. She works at the European Food Safety Authority as a Scientific Officer in the area of biological hazards (bacteria, viruses, parasites) and animal welfare. 

She also has a Masters's degree in Equine Science. Her thesis was supervised by Dr Jesus Rosales Ruiz from North Texas University, that we’ll be discussing today. 

Michaela has been addicted to horses since early childhood. Her first horse Asfaloth is still with her and has since been joined by Graya and Blondie. Michaela’s training with horses has been most strongly influenced by: 

Horse trainer, author and podcaster Alexandra Kurland of The Clicker Centre,  

Anja Beran, head of the internationally renowned ‘Gut Rosenhof’ training centre in Germany who uses classical dressage as physiotherapy for horses, and

the Feldenkrais method which has been integral to the improvement of Michaela’s riding and interaction with horses. 

These 3 things have been to a lesser extent, all part of my journey too, so I resonate with Michaela’s journey.  

Michaela has been involved in organising, hosting and presenting at various clinics and workshops for and with Alexandra Kurland & also involving Dr Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, and Mary Hunter. In 2021 Michaela co-presented with Alexandra at Clicker Expo Live, and the year after, both Michaela and Alexandra hosted an online workshop that combined dressage and clicker training with Anja Beran as a special guest.

Also, in 2022, Michaela taught students of a German certification programme for horse-assisted interventions. 

Michaela offers personalised online coaching for horse owners, which is based on learning from Alexandra Kurland & Anja Beran. You can find more information on Michaela’s Clicker Training Pferde website, Facebook page, YouTube and Instagram – links we will share with you in the show notes together with her science-related profiles for those interested.

In this episode we discuss:

1:30 - episode introduction

3:20 - introducing Dr Michaela Hempen

6:39 - Michaela’s early horsie life

9:12 - enter ‘Asfaloth’

10:00 - starting with classical dressage & a turning point in Michaela’s journey leading to clicker training & Alexandra Kurland

11:57 - continuing with classical dressage & Anja Beran: discovering her work & just how beneficial it is for horses: ‘riding horses back to health’

12:49 - the connection between Alexandra & Anja’s training

13:28 - enter ‘Graya’

14:15 - enter ‘Blondie’

15:02 - Anja’s influence as part of my journey

16:43 - Alexandra & Feldenkrais also part of my journey

17:53 - What prompted Michaela’s Masters in Equine Science & research study in Crib-biting

20:17 - What is crib-biting

22:14 - What do we know about why crib-biting happens

27:03 - a key piece to understand about crib-biting

27:23 - what do we understand the physical effect to be on the horse & how do humans feel about it

31:15 - what made Michaela passionate about crib-biting & why research

32:54 - how do crib-biting ‘collars’ work

36:37 - a further management intervention humans take

38:28 - another impact that people dislike

39:21 - why a single-subject study design

47:13 - how did the research experiment begin: surveillance & data and what that revealed.

51:37 - the living situation of the study horse(s)

55:07 - narrowing in on Blondie - testing hypothesis of link to feeding & making an important discovery

58:35 - further testing to narrow down what is the main influence

1:02:04 - deciding on interventions & the main takeaway points from what’s been learnt already

1:03:27 - a constructional approach, how this differs from a Veterinary approach & what Blondie needs to learn

1:07:20 - changing the context & routine to create a training condition

1:09:14 - the context/environmental change

1:10:25 - being mindful of the human influence in the training condition & building the behaviour

1:14:03 - describing what it looked like

1:14:41 - teaching the focus on consumption & the importance of having experienced animal trainers involved in scientific experiments involving animals

1:19:32 - how the training progresses over time - shifting to the 2nd part of the study, the routine described & maintaining the behaviour with environmental changes

1:25:39 - the big spanner in the broder study works

1:29:16 - further discoveries when broadening the experiment due to a changed condition

1:30:38 - building a relationship beyond the cribbing project, the impact of Covid & prioritising welfare

1:34:29 - a drastic change of environment & the impact on the cribbing behaviour

1:40:45 - the desire for further research but the pressing need to write-up what’s been done already

1:44:05 - the challenge of bringing two sciences together

1:46:46 - Michaela’s top tips for those with a cribbing horse

1:48:41 - cribbing during training with positive reinforcement (R+)/clicker training

1:52:27 - podcast wrap-up & what’s on next week

Links from Michaela:

• Website: Clicker Training Pferde
• Facebook: Clicker Training Pferde
• Instagram: Clicker Training Pferde
• YouTube channel
• LinkedIn
• ResearchGate
• Dr Jesus Rosales Ruiz & Mary Hunter: Behavior Explorer
• ‘Tactics of Scientific Research Evaluating Experimental Data in Psychology’ - Murray Sidman

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future
• Book a discovery call for From Green to Growth (available when new intake dates are announced)
• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm

Having young and or green horses is awesome. But also, it can be confusing and overwhelming. We hear conflicting information on young horses – that we shouldn’t start them under saddle too early because their bodies need to develop. But then we also hear that they need a job to do and we often see that in the busy, exploratory behaviour we see from them. For many people it’s a rock and a hard place and we too often end up with young horses started under saddle too soon because they need a job to do.

There are absolutely other things we can do with young horses to give their busy minds and bodies things to do that will be beneficial now and into the future.

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I have been super interested in working with young horses since I was a teenager at riding school… so we’re talking for maybe the last 30 years. In this episode I chat about why I’m so passionate about working with young and/or green horses. So passionate that our first Abbey’s Run Equestrian program, From Green to Growth is targeted for that cohort of horses and their owners.

In this episode we discuss:

1:31 - episode introduction

2:32 - where my interest in working with young horses comes from & my journey

3:47 - the highs and lows of breeding

6:19 - how special working with youngsters is

5:56 - it can go wrong

7:58 - our current youngsters & where they’re at

10:50 - advocating for students starting with youngsters

11:27 - never assume with any new horse of any age or ‘experience’ level - treat all as blank slates

12:55 - there are lovely mature horses out there, there are always many shades of bay ;-)

13:47 - ‘From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future’ was a natural progression

14:29 - participant feedback

14:54 - next intake & all about the program

19:24 - podcast wrap-up & what’s on next episode

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future
• Book a discovery call for From Green to Growth (available when new intake dates are announced)
• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm

I am ridiculously excited to have Hannah Branigan as our guest on An Equine Conversation this episode.

If you don’t know Hannah’s work, you should make a point of getting to know it. Hannah’s education programs and content in the animal training space with a focus on dogs is next level excellent. Her podcast, Drinking from the Toilet that I’ve mentioned a couple of times in the past on An Equine Conversation and have recommended to many people, is one of my favourites for insightful training information, looking at all the shades of grey in the training space and the best part is that it’s presented in a really authentic way. While Drinking from the Toilet has a dog focus, so much of the conversation directly relates to training horses & other species.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to do an episode on An Equine Conversation about the differences & similarities between training dogs and horses. I know the vast majority of horse people also have dogs. And I see regularly a really fascinating thing happen where people will train their dog with positive reinforcement, yet they don’t apply the same training approach with their horses. There seems to be a long-held belief in a large part of the horse-world that we can’t train horses with positive reinforcement, we can’t train them using food. That using food would be bribing them, will make them muggy, yet we’re often comfortable to train our dogs using food. FYI This isn’t the case – we can train horses using positive reinforcement and it’s super effective & people around the world are doing it with awesome success.

I wanted to unpack the differences but also the similarities between training dogs and horses. I’m a huge fan of Hannah’s and I know that Hannah is not only amazingly awesome in her work with dogs, she also has horses. I reckoned Hannah might be the perfect person to unpack this conversation with me.

I was beyond delighted when Hannah agreed to come and chat with us & I managed to restrain myself from fan-girling at her too much. We had a super interesting conversation where Hannah shared some of her lesser known story with horses.

It won’t surprise anyone who knows Hannah’s work to know that we got into some training weeds and a more in-depth but totally awesome conversation than maybe I had planned. ….  A conversation which I’m so excited to share with you. Enjoy!

PS. We did have some technical issues with this recording. Thanks to Hannah for bearing with as we worked through them at the time and thanks to Matthew Bliss for working as much magic as possible to improve the sound quality.

Hannah Branigan:

Hannah Branigan, the author of Awesome Obedience, is a self-proclaimed training nerd. With the belief that everyone (dogs and humans alike) learn best in an environment free of criticism, Hannah breaks down complex skills into bite-sized, accessible pieces, and develops practical techniques that leave her students with a sense of achievement and success.

She is on a mission to make training fun and enjoyable for dogs and their handlers, which means optimizing positive reinforcement techniques across species. She is fascinated by behavior and learning, and passionate about bringing innovative, science-based solutions to the dog/human learning space.

Hannah has a background in both human sports and biology. Now she applies that knowledge and experience to the world of animal training and canine competitive sports. She enjoys training and competing with her own dogs in a variety of sports. Her competition obedience DVDs, Obedience FUNdamentals and Beyond FUNdamentals, have received rave reviews from trainers all over the world, and her students have earned advanced titles and in multiple countries.

Hannah is the host of the popular dog training podcast, Drinking from the Toilet, which focuses on the (often inconvenient) intersection between positive reinforcement philosophy and reality. Her mentorship program, Zero to CD, gives trainers a complete, step-by-step blueprint for earning their first level obedience title with curated support along the way.

In this episode we discuss:

1:31 - episode introduction

4:32 - introducing Hannah Branigan

6:20 - Hannah’s background with horses

10:28 - where did the dogs come into the story

14:32 - shifting career trajectory

15:16 - the current animal family

15:45 - the weird thing that is dog-owners seeming to know how to train by osmosis

16:46 - the dog chicken and horse egg - which comes first

17:51 - how we categorise horses through a different lens to dogs

19:41 - the biggest difference between the two species

24:02 - other differences: the rhythm of movement horses need versus dogs

26:51 - re-setting a dog in training versus a horse & different work arounds

30:02 - different ethology in how dogs & horses consume food (and humans too) & implications for training

36:42 - impact of the environment on our animals & our training

44:06 - switching from training horses with more conventional, pressure/release methods to R+

53:13 - onto the similarities between training dogs & horses using R+: the left and the right-hand sides

54:50 - discomfort of humans around working with reinforcers, the importance of training reinforcement procedures & predictability & certainty, and impact of balance on how we feed

1:02:46 - things taught the same way

1:09:35 - horses occupying a unique niche in the human mind & the impact of equestrian art on what we perceive as beautiful

1:13:32 - dogs & horses as inhibited species - process of domestication impacts

1:16:13 - top training tips: reinforcement drives behaviour so train reinforcement behaviours first & foremost

1:17:43 - next top tip: don’t think too hard on the ‘mistakes’ - get to reinforceable moments ASAP

1:19:17 - the little things: example of impact of reinforcement delivery

1:22:00 - the basement behaviours even before the reinforcement delivery & the impact of early learning history

1:24:43 - what’s coming up at Abbey’s Run Equestrian

1:27:14 - podcast wrap-up & what’s on next episode

Links from Hannah:

• Hannah's online program, Zero to CD
• Drinking from the Toilet
• Hannah's book: Awesome Obedience
• And also: Awesome Obedience: The Field Guide

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future
• Book a discovery call for From Green to Growth (available when new intake dates are announced)
• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm

This episode of An Equine Conversation is quite a different one:

In late 2015, Benn & I moved to the country, from the outer suburbs of Melbourne. Yep, we did eat a lot of peaches initially (we knew people with a prolifically producing tree), and have since planted 2 peach trees of our own LOL. For me, moving to the country had been a dream since I can remember (I can’t remember a time I didn’t want my own ‘farm’) and for Benn who grew up on a hobby-farm but then moved into town for study & work, returning to a more rural lifestyle was something he always intended to do. Here we are, almost 8 years on (sometimes it feels like 5 minutes, other times, forever) & while it’s an awful lot of work, for the most part, we absolutely love it.

Inspired by our friend and Podcast Producer Matthew Bliss & his wife Bernadine & their podcast ‘From My Home To Yours’, Benn (who had volunteered to come on a podcast episode) and I thought we’d take a moment to reflect on our experience of moving from one type of lifestyle to another. Something we haven’t really stopped to do like this since we moved almost 8 years ago now. It was an awesome opportunity to reflect on some of the challenges, some of the awesomeness & some of the differences we found in moving to the country, to live on our 40 acres. We thought you might enjoy listening in and sharing on our revisiting some of the most memorable changes.

Benn Sheffield:

Logistics and tech extraordinaire, things would grind to a stand-still at Abbey’s Run if it wasn’t for Benn and his breadth of skills. From fencing to fixing the tractor, tech support to website updates and video editing, Benn forms a vital part of the Abbey’s Run Team.

Benn grew up on a hobby farm in the Yarra Valley when the Valley was a quieter place than it is now - focused on sheep & cattle farming before becoming more trendy with the growth in the winery industry. Life on a hobby farm was in many ways idyllic: growing up with dogs around & regularly having orphan lambs or calves to raise and have around the place. Benn moved into town to study and while starting his career in the environmental field.

Benn was not horsie growing up & is one of those partners who is horsie by default now. He and Sarah found and moved to Abbey’s Run almost 8 years ago - getting Benn back out of town and into a country lifestyle, something he’d always felt he would do.

In this episode we discuss:

1:29 - episode introduction

3:42 - introducing Benn

4:18 - why move to the country

6:53 - what we were looking for & the process of finding our property

19:56 - some of the challenges we encountered when we first moved here

46:52 - some of the awesomeness we encountered when we first moved here

1:11:41 - differences we discovered in the local community culture

1:20:30 - differences in costs

1:25:05 - in summary

1:28:15 - podcast wrap-up & sneak-peek into what’s on next week

Our links mentioned this episode:  

• Reliable Recall Challenge (for horse & pony owners)
• From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future
• Book a discovery call for From Green to Growth (available when new intake dates are announced)
• Sign-up to our email list
• Abbey's Run Equestrian website
• Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm

Hello lovely listener!
We are delighted to be back with Season 3 of An Equine Conversation, a podcast brought to you by Abbey’s Run Equestrian. I’m your host, Sarah Nickels.

Just like the previous Seasons, Season 3 includes 8 episodes (plus this trailer). Episodes will drop on a Wednesday morning, Melbourne/Sydney time. We’re dropping our first episode next Wednesday, October 4th.

Check out this trailer for a glimpse of what’s coming up this Season & to find out about the free challenge we have starting next week (October 5th) and our next intake of our young and/or green horse program, From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future.

Our links mentioned this trailer:  

Reliable Recall Challenge (for horse & pony owners)

From Green to Growth: developing positive partnerships for the future

Book a discovery call for From Green to Growth (available when new intake dates are announced)

Sign-up to our email list

Abbey's Run Equestrian website

Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm

I’m delighted to welcome our good friend, Julia Inglis back to An Equine Conversation. We first met Julia in Series 1, Episode 8 ‘Julia’s story - a tale to learn from’. If you want to hear Julia’s story, you can jump back and listen to that episode.

Julia & I talk so much about training, so we thought we’d start to share some of these conversations with you.

In this episode, we start by catching up on how Julia’s horse Maddy, who has Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) went over last Spring and Summer. Then, we get into the weeds of talking about the challenges of the English langauge, particularly the use of labels, in the horse world…. but because this is Julia and I, we quickly end up down various rabbit holes due to what we’d both been seeing in the months before we spoke, including talking about what you do when you remove labels, the challenge of addressing the actual problem when that impacts your plans and what the movie ‘Frozen’ has to do with horses and training.

Julia Inglis:

Julia grew up in the UK and was animal mad from a young age, catching her first pet when a rabbit wandered into her garden. She learned to ride at school but stopped for many years when she went to university in Glasgow before moving to London for further studies. Julia completed her PhD in neuropharmacology in 2004 and went on to establish a research career in the area of pain mechanisms in arthritis.

After completing her studies Julia started riding again at a local riding school, and around this time she met her now husband at a conference. He lived in Perth, Australia and in a bid to persuade her to move there started sending adverts for horse properties and horses. Within months Julia moved to Australia and they bought their first horse, which soon became 2 then 3, and is now a small farm full of animals.

Julia rode traditionally for close to a decade, bush riding and dressage but when her horse refused to move under saddle ended up learning about alternative ways to train and positive reinforcement. This has now become her passion and obsession as it combines science and training geekery with animals - her two great loves.

In this episode we discuss:

1:39 - episode introduction

3:08 - an update on Maddy over last Spring & Summer (Julia’s horse with EMS)

12:26 - how we use language, labels & why they're problematic but also useful

26:35 - what you do when you unravel the label & then have to do something about what’s going on

38:04 - back to labels - 'boring'

41:21 - so what even is a 'bombproof' horse or pony & what the kids film ‘Frozen’ has to do with ‘bombproof’ horses

53:11 - where to now - body language again & building a common language & labels as short-hand

59:08 - summary & the need for a new shared language / labels in the horse world

1:02:33 - the influence of history & present art on what we label 'beautiful' & see as desirable

1:06:06 - top tips & then some

1:13:14 - important end-of-season announcements

Link from Julia:

While not mentioned in the podcast, Julia has requested we share the link for the Western Australia (WA) Equine Clicker Trainer group so that those in WA who are interested can join and share.

Our links mentioned this episode:  

Sign-up to our email list

Abbey's Run Equestrian website

Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email info@blissery.fm