Hello and welcome to the Animal Training Academy Making Ripples podcast show. The show where we share the stories of the ripple making extraordinaires with behavior nerd superpowers who make up the Animal Training Academy membership. I'm your host and one of the happiness engineers at Animal Training Academy, Shelley Wood from Drop Your Jaws Dog Training in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the United States. We're absolutely thrilled and grateful to have you here with us today.
Make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss a single episode. This show is brought to you on behalf of the Animal Training Academy membership. So if you like the conversations in these episodes, then we want to invite you to continue them with like-minded people in the ATA membership, which you can find out more about at www.atamember.com.
Within the membership, you can get access to twice monthly live web classes, the back catalog of previous web class replays, plus a huge library of videos and projects to help you problem solve your training challenges. And we're a sociable bunch with an exclusive private Facebook group and forums area. It's like a Netflix social media platform for animal behavior geeks. Today we are excited to welcome Samantha Rubio.
Samantha Rubio is a horse trainer on the east coast of the United States in Montgomery County, Maryland. She is currently working as a trainer at a positive reinforcement-based equine behavior and sports medicine rehabilitation facility. She also runs her own training business part -time taking in training board horses and teaching lessons. Samantha earned her Bachelor of Science in animal science and neurobiology and behavior from Cornell University.
Her equestrian background is in classical dressage. Samantha is passionate about three things in her work, bridging the gap between academic research and real life, lifelong learning through continuing education, and integrating a radical acceptance of human diversity into her training. Her greatest influence over the years has been both her non-human and human learners who consistently teach her how to be a better trainer. Welcome Samantha. We're excited to have you here with us today.
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. All right, well I am excited to learn lots more about you and I would love to just jump right in and get started by having you share with us about your story, how you started working with animals, and some of the work that you're doing with them today. Yeah, so I have always surrounded myself with animals. From a young age I was fortunate. My mother has always encouraged and supported my special interest in animals and behavior.
Since I can remember, I was at the library checking out books on training. My mother, bless her, was buying me endless books about animal cognition and behavior and ethology. She was always driving me, you know, wherever I wanted to go to engage in animal related things, including to the barn.
And some of the books I read when I was younger that I can remember in particular are Alex and Me by Irene Pepperberg, if you're familiar with that one, works put out by Temple Grandin, some of Alexandra Horowitz's first books. And those, reading those when I was younger really inspired my desire to go on to study behavior in school. So when I went looking for undergrad programs, I was really searching for something that would give me that same feeling that I had when I was reading.
And that feeling was that animals teach us how to be better humans. And I ended up doing animal science and neurobiology and behavior for my bachelor's. I wanted to do both because I felt both programs had separate strengths and little overlap, but I enjoyed walking literally from building to building, connecting the dots.
And it was also during my undergrad that I was introduced to clicker training because my undergraduate research project was in temp testing and BMOD programs for resource guarding and shelter dogs. And then as far as actually training animals, that has been pretty unintentional. When I was in college, my class culture sage mentor invited me to be part of his associate trainer program.
And then at the same time, some people at the barn started asking me to train their horses in exchange for some money. I needed some money. And that has been going on ever since. And that was 11 years ago, which makes me feel a little bit old that I started accepting money in exchange for training people's horses. And I just didn't stop. So that's where I am now. And, you know, that hasn't stopped, but I did try.
And that's what brought me to my current job at Misty Step Stables a couple years ago. At the time, a couple years ago, I was running my own business full time. I had another branch of my business that included saddle fitting. And short story long, I'm a disabled person, full time entrepreneurship in a job that I struggled to stop doing is not for me.
I needed something with hours, PTO, go home, you know, you're done for the day, benefits, insurance, etc. So I decided to apply as a manager at Misty Step. And then shortly thereafter was put in as a trainer. And then I have my part time business. And so here I am again. And so that's how the actual training has begun and evolved and kept going.
And it's really through my journey with my personal horse and continuing education that I've come to a more specific interest in applied behavior analysis. As my, you know, my academic background is in neuro bio and animal science, and then a training philosophy that strives to implement most positive least interest of effective interventions. Thank you for sharing all of that. What a fantastic background.
I love hearing about the support of your mom, running you around to the different places you could get that hands on experience. And also, it sounded like supporting all of your educational endeavors to and love hearing your shout out to some of your early introductions to animals, including Temple Grandin, and Alexander Horowitz. I am not familiar with Alex and me. So I'm going to have to check that out. Who did you say there was again? Irene Pepperberg. And yeah, so she has that Alex project.
And that's what the name of the bird is. And if I let's see if I can avian learning experiment, I think is what the acronym stands for. And I read that book when I was younger. And Irene Pepperberg is like one of the first women to study. At the time, I think it was called animal cognition or whatever they call it. It was like a burgeoning field at that time. And she went out scooped up a bird with a net and then decided to show how much birds were capable of doing it.
That's an African gray parrot that she has. And it's funny, one of my friends, one of my really good friends now, she I rediscovered later that she was also like inspired by Irene Pepperberg went on to work in her lab. And anyway, so yeah, that bird has done a lot of work for passionate animal enthusiasts. Very cool. Well, thank you for spreading those ripples here. I'm definitely going to get that book and give it a read. So thank you for sharing about that.
I am going to guess and we I know you have experience with a wide variety of species, but I'm going to guess we're probably going to spend a chunk of time talking about horses today. But I'd like to take a slight detour from that maybe and ask you if you would mind sharing a little bit with us about your that I think you said when you were an undergrad, you worked on a research project for behavior modification for resource guarding and shelter dogs. Is that right?
Would you mind sharing a little bit about what that project entailed and some of the things you learned? Yeah. So interestingly, the behavior modification protocol that we were looking at was positive reinforcement based. And the behaviors that they had employed in the shelter there was really a strong proponent of positive reinforcement training and clicker training. I was working with her. I was videotaping her. I was learning about her protocols.
And then I wasn't doing the same thing with horses at the time. I was just operating in a state of cognitive dissonance. And I have to say that cognitive dissonance that I was operating in at that time gives me now a lot of empathy for where a lot of my clients are at when I meet them. But anyway, so when I was, you know, I think I was like 19 or 20 at that time. I, yeah, I look back now and I think, gosh, I was so lucky to stumble upon the opportunity to start a project like that.
It was, it's still something that's looked at pretty heavily, whether or not the temp tests that are done in shelters are useful and have any sort of correlation to the animal's behavior when they enter the home. And that was one of the first things that we were looking at. And then what I was really interested in for, you know, some selfish reasons, because I had a learner at the time who was a severe resource guarder. And then also I grew up with a learner who was a severe resource guarder.
And then just like aggression is something that interests me in particular. As a trainer, I was interested in like the effectiveness of the positive reinforcement based BMI protocol that they were implementing in the shelter for dogs that were coming in and scoring as moderate to severe resource guarders in the temperament testing that they were bringing the dogs into the shelter for.
We didn't really get that far because most of what the initial portion of the project was, was understanding whether or not the temp testing that we were doing or that the shelter was doing when the dogs were coming in was, had any sort of correlation to the behavior of the learner when they were adopted. And the results there were that it was kind of all over the map.
There was a little bit of a relationship between the return rate, positive relationship between return rate and scoring a four or five, which would be moderate to severe as a resource guarder, which kind of was the, everyone's interest in implementing a BMI protocol, assessing the effectiveness therein. But it didn't seem like the temp test that was in place at that time ended up being related to owner reported instances over time of resource guarding behavior of the dogs that were adopted.
That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing a little bit about that. And I think there is a discussion in ATA right now about some different temperament testing and things. So I don't know if you have seen that or not, but maybe I'll tag you in that discussion if I find it. Yeah, absolutely. Tag me. Yeah. There's been what was, and that's what I was saying.
Like, I didn't realize how lucky I was to have the opportunity to, cause I was just a little baby and I didn't know what was going on in the like academic environment, you know, totally at that time. But there was a lot of academic interest in the field of, I guess, shelter behavior research in like assessing the validity, reliability of those temperament tests at that time. And so, and I was just like, like I said, I was just a little baby going like, Oh, like, let's just, this is cool.
Like, let's see what happens. And then later on there was more and more people looking into this and really finding, again, just things all over the map that some shelters finding that the temperament tests were really working for them and were giving them predictions of how the dogs were going to behave after adoption and, you know, able to give them information about the dogs and like giving them good matches or facilitating better matches to adopt potential adopters.
And some of them were finding that that wasn't the case at all. And I think it's still really up in the air and there's, but it's, it's always, I think, valuable to know what you thought you knew and didn't. Yes, I think I agree.
It is always valuable to know what you thought you knew and didn't, and probably always valuable in numerous ways, including by questioning our current, you know, including by suggesting to us that we should always question our current beliefs about what we know too, because those might be, might not be quite right.
I would guess that in a project like that, or studying things with shelter dogs, I would guess that it might be kind of challenging to, to know what happens with a lot of those dogs after they go into homes to kind of keep up with them long-term. Do you remember that being a challenge at all with this study? Oh yeah. A good portion of my time was spent like calling owners, following up with them, texting them, following up with them, emailing them, following up with them.
So yeah, getting that data was a big, is a big challenge. And I think it, you know, survey-based data, owner-reported data is, is always a challenge. So yeah, and I, and I think that's probably always a challenge in any sort of shelter behavior research.
Yeah. Something you said when you first started talking about the project that I thought was really interesting was the, the cognitive dissonance you had when you were involved in that project and involved in that work with the shelter as to how you were interacting with, with dogs and the, the ideas that you had about dogs versus those that you had about horses.
And I think that, I think that that's interesting to think about and something I think that even those of us who are more dog people can probably relate to as well. I know that sometimes we'll see different things happening with different species and it's easy to be like, oh, but this, this kind of species here, they're very different. And for, and for this reason, and of course, all species are different, but behavior also works the same.
The principles of behavior, of course, work the same across, across species. Do you still see that with in the horse community quite a bit today, people doing things very differently with horses than with dogs or other animals? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whether it's across species or it's in different aspects of their relationship with their horse, someone might be willing to use positive reinforcement in a cooperative care setting and unwilling to use it in riding their horse.
They might be willing to grant that positive reinforcement quote works with dogs and clicker training quote works with dogs and even use it themselves with them, with their dog. But they're not willing to implement the same principles or ethical framework with their horse. And I, it's challenging.
I'm not going to say that it's not challenging, but anytime I, I catch myself experiencing frustration in witnessing that dissonance or in witnessing actions that I am assigning that sort of distance to in, in a student or in a, a friend, even. I try to remember that I operated in that distance for years. And I too, the first time when it was one of my students actually, who said, you know, you can train that with a clicker about a horse. And I said, clickers are for dogs.
And, you know, and it took me, it took me some time to understand or accept or, you know, whatever was going on in there, or I was thinking to myself, like, because I think part of it is anytime you know better and recognize that you can do better, you have to also reckon with the understanding and acknowledge that you had been previously doing things wrong. And that can be okay, but it's more that you are unintentionally causing harm to an animal that you do love.
And it doesn't mean that you don't love them. And it doesn't mean that you are a bad person. It just means that you didn't know and that you, you know, have an opportunity now to do better. I love that. And I was just having a very similar discussion with somebody else who's going to be on an upcoming podcast as well, who is sharing something very, very similar there.
So I love that empathy and recognizing when we once maybe thought differently too, or were participate or having some of that cognitive distance ourself and also that empathy and understanding that when we know better, not only do we, of course, then try to do better, but we do then realize that when we didn't know better, we weren't doing as well as we wish we had been. So yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Thank you for, for sharing all of that.
All important stuff to remember for practicing kindness and compassion with ourselves and with the others that we're working with. So thank you for that. Could you share a little bit about the work? Let's see, Misty Step Stables. Do I have that right? Is that where you're working? Okay. Could you share a bit about the work that you do there? Oh, yeah. So I started out there, managing the farm. And which looks like managing the care decisions for the horses. I'm going to try to make this.
What does a manager of a horse farm do that someone who's not familiar with horses would want to know? So what my day-to-day looks like is not only just feeding the horses, taking care of them, bringing them in and out of the barn to the fields, et cetera, but also making the decisions for their care based upon how they're doing on an ongoing basis. We have horses that we bring in that have maybe have unique behavior challenges, maybe have unique medical rehabilitation needs.
And if you have worked with animals for any length of time, you may have noticed that behavior challenges and medical rehabilitation needs often go hand in hand, especially with horses who are large animals. And we ask a lot of them and a lot of their bodies. And they're often trying to communicate to us that they're uncomfortable in this way or that way.
So a lot of the horses that we have in our rehabilitation cases, and they might have wrapping of wounds, they might have rehabilitative needs if they're coming from a surgery or aqua therapy, which is a water treadmill from an injury. They may have had large competition histories in the past and they're needing rehabilitation from an injury they sustained in competition.
And they may at the same time need a lot of maybe cooperative care training, or they may need ongoing behavioral assessments as their pain improves. And we're implementing behavior modification protocols to try to help them with the behavior challenges that they came in with that are often related to the pain. So that's like a little bit of one and then a little bit of the other, a little bit of one, a little bit of the other, if that makes sense.
And I will say that because it's a rehabilitation facility, some of the idea there is that the horse would come in and they would receive like services from us, get better and then be on their merry way. However, many, many of the really wonderful clients that we have in, they maybe came in after their horse had a surgery and the horse recovered from surgery and they were in training as they were rehab and training board as they're recovering from the surgery.
And then they just stayed and now they're just permanent residents. So, and I don't expect that that's going to change. So we're just going to have to get bigger somehow. I don't know where we're going to put them, but that's what's going to happen there. I expect as we grow. And the owner of the facility is a veterinarian. Her name is Anna Boger and I met her originally because I wanted her to work with my horses that I had at the time.
And the way that I found her is I was just in a local cafe around the corner from where I was keeping my horses at the time. And I saw her business card and it said on there, equine reinforcement training and sports medicine. And I was like, I know what that is. That's clicker training that's coded in there because this is horses and clicker training is pretty new and people aren't familiar with it. And I called her, I called the number on the card immediately.
And I was like, please come over to my barn right now. Be my friend, train my horses, work with me. I have not found another person that does clicker training for years and years and years. And she was like, I'm in the Home Depot parking lot right now, but maybe tomorrow. And so that's how we met and the rest is history. I love that you found her like that, that you two connected. That's wonderful. And it sounds like you all are doing amazing work at the barn, at the facility as well.
I love that you're going to need to expand since people just want to stick around even after, it sounds like even after they complete their rehab, which is great. What are some of your favorite things that you do there? I would say my absolute favorite thing that I do, both in my job, my position has kind of shifted and my role at MISDSUF has kind of shifted in as I've been there.
And now this portion of the job is the responsibility of the new manager has come in since I've shifted more into a trainer role. But I also do this for my regular training board clients and also for some of my students that I just teach lessons to. But my favorite part of my job in general is facilitating collaboration between the specialists that are part of each individual care team for each horse. So you might have a horse who, let me think of an individual example.
I have a horse in training board with me, or maybe at the facility. We have one who has came in for rehabilitation after a surgery. And she's probably always going to have a little bit of a mechanical change in her gait because of that. And her owner is also in training with us. And she has some specific goals of taking care of her body in a certain specific way with the way that she trains her horse, so that she can enjoy her and maintain her longevity as an athlete for the rest of her life.
And she also has GI disease that's going to be ongoing for probably most of her life, unless equine medicine advances in such a way that there's a cure for the GI disease that she has. And so a lot of the time, those things, those pains that she has in her body, are impacting her relationship with the training and also her ability to do certain things, maybe at a micro level, but also as an athlete over time or as a ridden horse over time.
So a lot of the time, when she has a follow-up appointment with the internist, where we're looking at her gut, we'll say, this is the degree of discomfort that she's experiencing when we are feeding her this kind of food, or when we are implementing this management strategy that you had recommended. This is the degree, or maybe we are giving her this handful of alfalfa before a training session to help her with her gut pain. And this is how that's going. Should we make any changes?
Or this is the degree of discomfort that she's experiencing when we tighten up the girth, when we put the saddle on. Should we make any changes to her? Should we do a scope again for ulcers? Should we make any changes to her management to see if we can make any improvements there?
Or the chiropractor might come in and I say, these are the exercises that when I'm working with this horse that she's struggling with, or these are the goals that the owner has now that we've reached this next milestone. And I'm able to have a fairly detailed conversation with the chiropractor because the chiropractor is an expert in the axial skeleton, and she's able to talk to me about all of those details.
And then I can talk to the owner, and I can talk to my boss, and we can collaborate on the goals for the horse and the horse's well-being, and then how the horse is communicating to us how she's feeling. And over time, this horse has just blossomed. And she's the type of horse that if you end the training session too soon, she will just stop and say, no, we are going to keep going in the arena. I don't know why you're trying to leave right now.
That's wonderful that you have such collaborative relationships with all of those various players involved in the horse's welfare and care. It does a lot, I'm sure, to go, does a lot toward making sure that things are going well for them in all the different areas that you're working on. And that's something I think that can be challenging for people sometimes is developing those kind of collaborative relationships.
Were those already in existence when you joined the team, or were you a key component of developing those relationships? I think, yeah, that's a really great question. I actually, I'm not really sure. I think yes and no, or both. Some of the relationships were already there when I came in, you know, because people that maybe they had their horse already, and they had some specialists that they were already using for their horse.
And they were not in training board already where they were coming from. They were just working with their horse on their own and maybe taking lessons with us. And so they weren't able to have the same types of conversations about, you know, like they didn't notice all of those little details about how the horse is doing coming in and out of the field.
They didn't notice all the details about how the horse is communicating different levels of contentment or discomfort at feeding time, expressions of stereotypic behaviors, things like that. Or maybe it took time for the client to understand what degrees of, you know, pain behaviors are or aren't associated with different types of pain and what specialists to ask and things like that. So maybe some of the relationships were there, but the degrees of collaboration were not there.
And I would say in the equine industry as a whole, conversations between specialists in particular are uncommon.
And that is feedback that I've gotten from my students in particular, that it's something unique about MISTI-STEP is that we facilitate those conversations between specialists or were the liaison between different specialists or the client and ourselves and the specialists, or we might connect dots between, you know, a behavior that the animal is expressing in different contexts or in multiple contexts and how that might be related to something we can bring up in an appointment.
And then maybe that, you know, the chiropractor says, I appreciate your bringing that up to us, but that's actually a failure problem. So you need to ask the farrier, tell me what the barrier says. And so just continuing those dot connections and then making sure everyone stays in dialogue over time as the training of the horse progresses and as the horse's health improves is something that I think clients have expressed to me is unique to MISTI-STEP. I love it.
I love those ripples that you all are spreading there by developing those collaborative relationships that are so important. So that's awesome. Could you share with us now, whether it's about something at MISTI-STEP or something with your own private business or in your own private life or something else, could you share with us now about a training challenge that you have experienced, including a little bit about how you worked through it, maybe some of the things you learned from it?
Yeah. So of course I experienced a lot of training challenges, so it's really difficult to pick just one. But maybe my favorite is a case of one of my dear, she's a dear friend of mine and she's a client of mine, has been a client of mine now for some years. And her horse is also, you know, dear friend of both of us. Her horse is called Rum. And Rum came in to training board with me in, let's see if I can remember the day. I think it was February or so.
It was early 2023, if I'm remembering that correctly. And he had come in to training board with me after having been cleared by a veterinarian for full training board. And to his owner's everlasting credit, she had always insisted that she felt that he was experiencing pain and was expressing that pain in his behavior. And the main behavior problem that he was coming in with was reluctance to move forward, both on the ground and under saddle.
And that was a behavior problem that he was expressing and that he was struggling with for years and for the majority of the time that she had him. And he had been, when she brought him in for training with me, he had been cleared by a veterinarian and was told, and the veterinarian told the owner, put him in training. He just needs to be trained and he will be fine. There's nothing wrong. And training will fix the problem. And I really wanted to believe this to be the case.
I was really excited to get going, to work with this client, to get this horse moving in a way that worked really well for his body and develop as an athlete under saddle. This client is really, really wonderful to work with. She takes amazing care of her horse, really focused on ethology-based management, by which I mean, 24-7 access to hay, prioritizing stable herd and turnout, and is really, really diligent and thorough about taking care of the horse as a whole.
The feet, the back, the saddle, the gut, everything, you know, left no stone unturned. And so we, you know, carried on working on moving through, progressing in the training. And when it came time to introduce the horse to trotting on the ground, and that's one of the, you know, I teach the horse to groundwork before we get up on their backs. He was still, even with positive reinforcement-based training, even with quicker training, whatever, he was still reluctant to move forward.
And yet he still, he really wanted to participate in the training. It wasn't for lack of discretionary effort. It wasn't for lack of enthusiasm. He really wanted, he was gung-ho. He wanted to work. He wanted to get out there and go. And yet he was still really reluctant to move forward up into the trot, to build duration in the trot. He would, and I think the heartbreaking thing looking back now is that he would do it, and he was making progress, but I was pulling out all the stops.
It was so hard for him that I was grabbing for everything that I knew to build behavior. And it was just way harder than it should have been compared to how enthusiastic this horse was about training, period. And the owner, I remember the owner, her name is Caroline. I remember Caroline at one time.
She was, we were just chatting about training progress and thinking about next steps, etc. And she looks at me and she says, do you think, I really just feel like he's still so reluctant to move forward and build duration in the trot. Do you think he might be in pain? And I thought about it for a second and I said, no, you know, the vet cleared him. So I think we should just keep going with it. And, you know, we all have 20, 20 hindsight. And so now, of course, I regret, I regret this.
But I also, you know, as we were discussing before, I try to have compassion for myself and, you know, for, for Caroline too, in this moment, because she was, I mean, she was, again, to her everlasting credit, insisted the whole time that the horse was in pain. And it's important here, I think, to make a note that in the equine industry, there's a deeply entrenched culture of normalizing and dismissing clear behavioral indicators of fear and distress and pain.
For example, as a kid, you might be instructed by your trainer to whip your horse for refusing a jump, to whip them harder, they refuse again, only to discover later that they were suffering from navicular disease or kissing spine or an ill-fitting saddle. Dr. Sue Dyson's ridden horse pain ethogram describes 24 behaviors of the ridden horse in pain.
And so many of those behaviors like teeth grinding, reluctance to move forward, bucking and rearing, and they're all dismissed as normal, or they're blamed as character traits of the horse.
And growing up riding horses, we are, when we bring attention to those behaviors, the authority figures in our life, most of the time, dismiss those things as character traits of the horse, or they say, that's normal girthiness, or the horse is just being lazy because he doesn't want to do it, and you need to be a better rider, and you need to push him and make him do it. And from the student's perspective, you're experiencing social punishment or stating observations of pain or distress.
And when this happens for years and years growing up, it becomes really hard to observe those expressions of pain and choose to advocate for the horse instead of internalizing those learned dismissals or those internalizing that social punishment and saying, I just need to be a better trainer and push the horse forward, or that's normal, or, you know, it's somehow my fault, or it's somehow the horse's fault.
And I'm not, I'm not really sure what happened between that conversation that I had with Caroline. And when I did call Dr. Boger, who's now my boss, but she wasn't at the time.
But there were a couple more training sessions in between, and maybe it was Caroline's voice in the back of my mind, or it was some combination of Caroline's voice in the back of my mind and my desire to have a commitment to let go of that culture of dismissing, you know, clear behavior, behavioral indicators of fear and distress and pain in horses. But I called Dr. Boger and I said, Hey, I think I think there's something wrong here.
And Dr. Boger came out, and she did a lameness evaluation on that horse. And he blocked very clearly to the suspensory ligaments. And I have to tell you, she put that ultrasound wand right on the right hind suspensory proximal branch of the lateral suspensory on the right hind, and it was gnarly. And it was chronic, it was clear that it was chronic. And it was clear that this horse had been experiencing severe pain in that limb for many years.
And, you know, further diagnostics, reveal, you know, it was in the other leg as well. And we have, you know, another specialist come in and review the images and recommend some treatments, etc. And, you know, I guess from that training challenge, I learned a few things. One of the most important being to always listen to the owner of the animal. Because they are the expert in their animal. As much as I might think I know a thing or two about observing behavior.
No one knows as much as the person who loves the animal as much as the owner. No one knows as much as the person who's been caring for the animal day in and day out as the owner. And when somebody has, when the owner of a horse has the courage to say, I think that despite my veterinarian's advice, my horse might be in pain, it's really important to give them the opportunity to advocate for their horse and to believe them.
And I think the other thing that I learned in that training challenge is to believe a little bit more in, well, two things. One, my own ability to advocate for the horse and to say, you know, sometimes it's okay to advocate for the horse. And even when you're scared to, even when it feels like someone's going to dismiss you, it's okay to call someone that you think might believe you and say, hey, I think something's going on here. And because you're probably right.
And then also that my training is a little more reliable than I often give myself credit for. Because it shouldn't, like my behavior mod protocol was more reliable, I think, than I was giving myself credit for in that moment, I get should have been working. And it wasn't working because the horse actually medically could not do it. Not because the training wasn't good. Thank you so much for sharing that powerful story and the lessons that you learned from it.
Wow. Thank you for your bravery for one thing for sharing the story and then being candid about you saying to the owner, no, I don't think it's pain, you know, and then and then deciding ultimately that let's pursue this, I think it is.
And then the lessons that you learned, I really enjoyed those, you know, that the owner is the expert in the animal's experience, and to trust your behavior, knowledge, like you were just saying, and to realize that if that plan isn't working, there might be something else at play there. So I'm really glad that you, you did trust your what you were seeing what the owner was saying what you were seeing.
And I think another lesson there too, is the importance of developing strong support systems and networks with colleagues because you had the doctor to go to you had a relationship with the doctor to go to who was able, you know, who trusted you, and who was able to then come and diagnose the problem. So wonderful. Thank you for all of that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that does.
Yeah, just reflecting on like, that I have knowledge of behavior, but I don't, you know, I'm not able to look at a horse and say, like, Oh, I think it's this ligament or whatever, because I'm not a veterinarian. And so that really, I think, highlights the importance of it takes a village. And so we have to nobody in their lifetime can develop the expertise of every single specialist that's required to take care of and support the longevity of an equine ridden athlete.
And so we have to work together, no one can do it alone. So you have to be willing to and invest in those collaborative relationships. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for all of that. And would you share with us now and I'm going to guess you have quite a few of these as well, probably hard to choose one here too. But could you share with us now about a training situation that you have found proud and or reinforcing?
Yeah, so it Yeah, again, I do have Yeah, so many of them and it's really difficult to choose one. But when I think about and I have to say when I think about what makes training reinforcing for me, like what do I what's gonna increase the likelihood of my going back and doing more training or increase the frequency or duration or intensity of my training behavior? It's really it kind of goes back to similar to what I was talking about before.
It's this feeling that I get where I pull on this courage to advocate for the horse, and then rewarded for it, or reinforced for it. So, you know, growing up with horses, I grew up in that culture of the figures of authority dismissing my observations of pain and distress and fear and horses. And so I have that punishment history myself.
And it is it so for me, it takes courage to advocate for the horse, even when I know with what I can see with my behavior eyes, that the horse is expressing fear or stress or pain. And when I think about what makes training reinforcing for me, I think about this montage of moments with my students or with colleagues, where I have said, hey, I think that horse is in pain. Or hey, I think that horse is afraid. Or hey, I think that horse might need to do something easier right now.
And the horse is saying that this is too hard, for whatever reason. And it took courage for me to advocate for the horse in that way, whether it was like a large way or just like a small moment. And the student, you know, turned around and looked at me and said, Thank you so much for saying that I was thinking the same thing. But I was afraid to say it myself.
You know, let's address that right now and make it easier for the horse and make it possible for the horse or let's look into that if we think it's medical. And a specific scenario that I can I mean, I have I have a couple but I think the most salient one that comes to mind is actually a clinic that we hosted at Misty Step Stables. With if you're familiar with Shalma Karrish, who's a positive reinforcement trainer, she's yeah, she's been doing it for for a minute now.
And she's based in Pennsylvania right now. And she comes over and does clinics with us twice a year now at Misty Step. And I don't remember what year it was that we were doing this clinic.
But I just remember looking around and at all the faces of people who had come to this clinic who were students of mine or students of Dr. Boger, who I knew I had had a series of these moments with where like either they or I had said, Hey, I'm afraid to say this, but I think that the horse is, you know, needs something easier or is really stressed, and I want to make them feel safer. Or, you know, I think that my horse is in pain, can you look into this?
And not only does it take courage to say that moment to moment, but also to feel like you're the only one saying it is an isolating experience. And to be in, it was an arena, to an indoor arena, to be in an indoor arena, full of students and colleagues that I know, were also committed to that kind of effective advocacy for horses is, I think the most reinforcing experience I've had as a trainer. That is a great example of something that has been reinforcing to you as a trainer.
And I think that there are lots of us who can relate to both the experience of speaking up and being punished for that speaking up. And hopefully there are lots of us who can also relate to speaking up and having that bravery in speaking up, having that being reinforced, having been reinforced in some way.
I wonder if you have thoughts for people who primarily have the experience of being punished for speaking up, to work towards setting up situations where they might be more likely to be reinforced for speaking up. Um, how were you able to build that history for yourself of being reinforced for speaking up instead of being punished for it? Yeah, I think, and this might be different for, for other people.
Um, for me, my reinforcement history for, um, speaking up and, um, having a positive experience in, in so doing, um, came in my experience with my own personal horse, um, who demanded that I advocate for him, um, because he struggled for his whole life with pretty severe, um, human directed aggression. Um, and so the constant, the stakes were pretty high.
Um, if I did not listen to the, what he was trying to communicate, um, it was going to be a dangerous situation for either the person, you know, someone else who might be interacting with him or for myself. Um, so I had to learn pretty quickly, um, how pretty quickly and pretty effectively, um, how to listen to the horse's behavior. Um, and I would say in learning from that individual, um, I learned or I experienced that, uh, the horse is never lying. They don't have the capacity.
I mean, and you know, this isn't unique to this horse, no horses ever lying, no animals ever lying. Um, they don't have the capacity for a deceit. So if they're saying something, they're telling the truth. And if you can learn how to listen to them, um, by honing your observation skills, you can learn how to be their advocate, um, by saying, you know, I am just stating what I'm observing and the horse is not capable of lying. I'm just giving you observations. Thank you. Very good.
Very good advice. I think to focus on those observations and those objective things that we see when, when advocating for the animals that we live with, what was that horse's name? Legacy. Legacy. Oh, well, what a beautiful legacy. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you, Samantha, for sharing everything so far. Um, you mentioned clinics a minute ago, and I think that, um, that's something that you do sometimes I think is, is host clinics. Is that right?
Yeah. Um, so could you share with us now, like if folks wanted to get in touch, if they wanted to see what kind of clinics maybe you had going on, if they wanted to work with you one-on-one, if they're in that area and they felt that their horse could benefit from Misty Step Stables, Misty Step Stables, is that right? Um, how would they get in touch with you for any of those things? Yeah. So Misty Step Stables has a website. Um, let me make sure I get it, get the URL right.
Um, it's just mistystepstables.com. Um, we have some openings. So if you're in the area and you, um, are interested in training board, come on over. Um, and you know, we'll, we'll take you right in. Um, that is mistystepstables.com is our website, our contact information you can find through there. There's a contact form on the website as well. Um, and you know, you can email, um, call whatever you want to do. Um, we're on Facebook as well. Misty Step Stables is on Facebook as well.
It's just the same thing, Misty Step Stables. Um, no other social platforms right now, although that might be come relevant and we might be making up our council. We'll post about that on Facebook if we do. Um, and then if you want to contact me as an individual, I do have a page for my training business. Um, it is Ahimsa Equine, A-H-I -M-S-A Equine. Um, but my, the better thing to do is just to friend me on Facebook.
Um, my Facebook was originally a personal account and then, oh, you know, you heard my training, how I got into training, um, at the beginning. So, um, you can just friend me on Facebook. My contact information is on my, um, training business page. Um, my phone number and email and everything is on there. And then you can put it in the show notes as well. I don't have a website for my personal training, um, just the Facebook.
Um, and then yeah, people, people that know me, I actually don't know how people find me, but they do so. Awesome. Thank you. And, um, thank you again for everything else that you've shared so far. Before we wrap up, I do want to give you a chance. If there is anything that I have not yet asked you about that you were wanting to share about today, or if you have any last words that you want to leave folks with before we wrap up, I want to give you an opportunity to do so now. Oh yeah.
So you, I skipped over the part about the clinics that you asked about before. Um, so what month is it now? February. So we have, um, an upcoming, if you're in the area, we're in Montgomery County, Maryland, we have an upcoming lecture series on behavior. It's starting out with cooperative care. Um, so you're, you're welcome to attend any of those that we're doing. Dr. Boger is going to be the one talking on those. We'll have demos as well.
Um, the next clinic is going to be with, um, Rachel Dreysema and then she's collaborating with Tracy Thompson. Um, that's in April. And then we have Shauna coming, Shauna Kerish coming in June. The list of upcoming events and clinics is at the website, mistystepstables.com. Um, so you can find, uh, the list of upcoming events there. And then if you're interested in registering for any of those, you'll just want to contact, um, us through the website. Wonderful.
It sounds like you all are really busy. I have a lot of stuff going on. Yes, we, we kind of operate by the principle of if you build it, they will come and come they do. So we're happy to host. And if you, you know, if there's some, if there's an idea that you have, you're welcome to contact us and we'll, we'll see what we can do.
Well, thank you so much, Samantha, from myself, uh, for everybody listening and on behalf of ATA, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to share with us today. Oh, it's my, it's my pleasure. I have, I have plenty of time to talk about training all the time. We do, of course, appreciate all of you tuning in as well.
And if you have enjoyed this episode and are interested in carrying on the conversation about working with the animals in our lives and most positive, most fun and most choice rich ways, then as mentioned at the start of this episode, the Animal Training Academy community is waiting for you. Head on over to www.atamember.com and click on the membership button in the main menu to learn more about what members are describing as the Netflix social media platform for behavior geeks.
That's it for this episode though. Thank you so much for listening. You'll hear from us again soon.