Welcome to the Animal Training Academy podcast show. I'm your host, Ryan Carledge, and I'm passionate about helping you master your animal training skills using the most positive and least intrusive approaches. Here at ATA, we understand that navigating the vast challenges you encounter in training requires a comprehensive base of knowledge and experience. It's common to face obstacles and rough patches on your journey that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
Therefore, since 2015, we've been on a mission to empower animal training geeks worldwide. We've aided thousands in developing their skills, expanding their knowledge, boosting their confidence, and maximizing their positive impact on all the animal and human learners they work with. We are excited to do the same for you. Simply visit www.atamember.com, join our vibrant community, and geek out with us.
And of course, in the meantime, enjoy this free podcast episode as we explore new ways to help you supercharge your training skills, grow your knowledge, and build your confidence so that you can craft a life that positively impacts every learner you encounter. But we will start today's episode where we will talk to one Sarah Fisher. Sarah is a canine and equine behavior advisor with nearly 30 years of experience.
She co-founded Animal Centred Education, aka ACE, alongside her two influential canine educators, Cookie, Doe, Dynamo, and Henry. Sarah teaches ACE courses for trainers, groomers, vets, and animal behavior professionals, focusing on ACE observations, ACE free work, gentle bodywork, and methods inspired by animal welfare and education professionals. ACE free work empowers dogs to become the pilot of their learning experiences, allowing them to reorganize their bodies more efficiently.
This method has been transformative for dogs of all ages, helping them respond better to their environment. Sarah is experienced with a wide range of breed types and has taught workshops for animal welfare organizations, including Battersea, and in Europe, South Africa, and several other countries. She also delivers online courses, webinars, and presentations at dog training and behavior seminars globally, including the annual Dog Behavior Conference.
So without further ado, it's my very great pleasure to welcome Sarah Fisher to the show today, who is patiently waiting by literally on the other side of the planet from me. Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to come and hang out with us at ATA. Thank you so much for inviting me, Ryan. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm super excited to share you with our audience and get to learn a little bit more about you today. So let's dive straight in to the first question, Sarah.
For this one, I love hearing about people's behavioral odysseys, as I like to call them. So I was hoping that you could take me and the listeners back to where you first started, where you first learned about animal behavior, animal training, positive reinforcement, and share some stories with us from your personal journey. Wow, how long have we got, Ryan?
Well, you know, when people ask me about that and I think about my first experiences learning about some of the stuff I share today, it actually goes right back to my childhood. And I was really lucky that I grew up with family who valued animals as part of the family. And my paternal grandmother had rescued dogs. She had two during my lifetime, so they lived forever. Two dogs, one called Peggy and one called Susie.
And I remember as a child going to visit with my sister and my parents, we were not allowed to stare at the dogs. We were to keep away from them, not touch them. And she would, my grandmother would sit with them and they'd be by the side of her chair. And it was impressed on us that this was their space. And we didn't have any issue sort of following that guidance.
So understanding that staring at dogs that can be very intimidating and they're not there to be touched because the human has the need was an integral part of my childhood. But then my mother's sister, my aunt had a labrador called Kerry and he had a hip issue. I think he'd had an accident and he had known arthritis in the left hip. So we were allowed to stroke him. He came up to us and we were allowed to engage with him, but we were absolutely not allowed to touch him on that left hip.
And if we did, and he growled, we were the ones that got into trouble for not honoring the space that Kerry needed. So all of that knowledge was just part of my life with animals. And we used to go on holiday to Portugal and I would be adopted by some of the community dogs. And I have such amazing memories of spending my summer holidays exploring rock pools in the company of the community dogs while my sister and my parents sunbathed on the beach.
And I didn't have food, reward-based training wasn't a thing. I didn't have any dog toys with me. It was just the joy of a shared space together and the joy of exploration. And I'm sure that influences how I connect with dogs today. And so much of my childhood, I think about all the lessons I learned, my father's obsession about making sure all our animals had access to fresh, clean water all the time. Always saying, the animals didn't choose you.
You picked those animals to come and share your life. Therefore, you have to put their needs first. And friends at school having dogs that were worried about unfamiliar people and we weren't allowed to go in the kitchen. That's where the dogs had their space.
All of that knowledge that somehow I think has become diluted over the decades and we're almost having to reteach people or teach people information that was kind of, yeah, fundamental to the way I connect with animals from a really early age. Do you think there was common knowledge for your parents' generation or that was just your parents were unique? I don't know, but it was on both sides of my family. So that could be unique.
But like I was saying, I remember friends at school who had somebody had a rescue beagle and they knew he was super sensitive to unfamiliar people. And it wasn't something that, you know, we felt we had a right to engage with him. He was in the kitchen and we weren't allowed to go in the kitchen because was his safe space and we didn't. And so it wasn't just my family that had this understanding. And I was like obsessed by animals. I was crazy from the earliest age.
I rode horses from the age of four and I bought my first dog when I was 11. And I remember that first night with my puppy and he was crying. And that first night I knew that a display or discovered that a displaced puppy sleeps best tucked up against the body of their new caregiver. And a lot of that in a way went against what was being taught in terms of dogs not being allowed on the furniture, not allowed in beds. They'll take over the world if you sleep with them.
You know, today I've never met a dog that wants to rule the world. And plenty of dogs that share spaces quite comfortably with the people that help them feel safe and content. And we did go to puppy training classes and we were given a choke chain, but that ended up in the drawer pretty quickly. And also he was a miniature Dachshund, Ryan. He wasn't a dog that was ever going to need controlling by a child, by giving an aversive tool. And I obviously, my parents weren't into that at all.
So, so maybe there was something unique about the way my parents viewed raising dogs and raising children, because I think we were kind of brought up with the same ethos. And, and I remember that when I had my children, you know, it was before reward based training.
And I remember very clearly when my first daughter was quietly playing with something, the desire to go and catch up with other stuff, you know, kind of life admin that has to be done like laundry and organising shopping and all of the stuff that takes you away from spending time playing with your child.
And I remember overriding that need and that desire to sort of catch up with stuff and, and going and sitting and connecting with her because I knew, and I guess that's from my upbringing, that if I didn't engage with her while she was actively engaged in something that was rewarding for her, there was a chance that she would then choose to disengage from that meaningful activity in order to try and connect with me.
So I was absolutely aware of reinforcing that behaviour and joining her in her play and her explanation, exploration, instead of trying to lead that or taking advantage of the fact that she was quietly engaged on her own. So there must have been that element in my upbringing as well, of reinforcing and rewarding behaviour, rather than trying to stop behaviour that's become difficult or challenging, if that makes sense.
And that's what we do with ACE, we engage with the dog, we take their lead, we join them in their activity in the free work setup. So I'm quite confident that most of my inspiration came from my childhood, and it was just kind of natural learning. And I feel very lucky. And I didn't really think about that until people started to ask me what my learning history was around behaviour. And yeah, it goes right back to childhood, I feel blessed.
So you actually have a good memory of the first night your new dog at the age of 11 stayed at home with you. Yes, I have a very strong memory of that. I have very strong memories about lots of really pivotal learning moments, even if I wasn't aware at the time that it was a pivotal learning moment, I was 11. And I remember him just crying, crying, crying in my bedroom.
And then me just getting out of bed and picking him up, like didn't make sense that he should have to sleep in a basket and, you know, all the stuff that people with knowledge were telling you was the right way to raise a puppy. And he always sat on the furniture with us. He was an amazing dog. He lived until he was 20. He was quite extraordinary. He was raised by a Burmese cat as well.
And I had to take him for a walk first thing in the morning, every night before I went to bed, and obviously during the day, longer walks as well. But I was dog obsessed, so I'd borrow any other dog available in the neighbourhood where we lived. And I used to walk an amazing border collie called Duffy, who was just extraordinary. And he was always off lead. And I lived near Epsom Downs, where one of the big racehorses, Derby, is run. So big open expanse. And I was just free to roam with dogs.
It was amazing. And just being in awe at Duffy, this border collie, hurtling off as the local running club overtook me on the track, and kind of bringing them back to me, successfully working this group of local runners, who obviously weren't very impressed that they were being worked by an amazing border collie.
So yeah, that was another pivotal learning experience that, yeah, okay, we need to be responsible when we're out and take care and pay attention to a dog's natural needs and drives, because it might not be so beneficial for other members of society. And yeah, I had a life filled with connecting with animals. I was animal obsessed, crazy about art. And all I would draw in art were animals, horses, dogs, and points of the horse on my wall as posters, the skeleton, learning as much as I could.
But interestingly, that wasn't available for dogs. So it wasn't that kind of learning that we were exposed to as children that were learning with horses. There was a lot more anatomical knowledge. If you rode horses, knowing the points of the horse, what the skeleton looked like, saddle fit, although it's very rudimentary, that knowledge during my childhood, for sure. You're learning all the different equipment and the names of the equipment.
And that's something that struck me when I was older, that that kind of knowledge wasn't available. So much later on, we started to integrate canine anatomy in the courses that we were hosting at Tilly Farm. But that's later, much, much later. So yeah, I mean, I also remember at school, I loved most of their languages and history and geography and biology was my favourite.
And nature was my favourite when I was, you know, very small and studying nature class and getting to draw pine cones and beetles and hedgehogs and stuff like that. But I remember a lot about the playground during maths, because the teacher wasn't inspiring. And so I spent a lot of time looking out the window. That was a very tedious class for me. And again, I remember that vividly.
So I remember sort of challenging some of the phrases that are used in canine education about dogs being distracted. And I was thinking, I wasn't distracted by that external environment during maths. I disengaged from the learning experience, because it wasn't a meaningful and rewarding experience for me. I disengaged. And that's what I see in dogs. I don't see them distracted. I see them as disengaging from whatever the caregiver might be inviting them to do.
Or they're hyper vigilant when they're out because they don't feel safe in that environment. So yeah, some really strong memories from childhood 100% influences how I think about canine education and how I connect with animals from a learning perspective as well. So we've gone back to 11 and disengaged Sarah in class at school, looking at the playground. Only during maths. Only during maths. Biology was my favourite subject too. I love biology. And then take us forward. What happens next?
What are the next pivotal moments? Do they happen after your teens, once you finish school? I mean, I've always been blessed to have animals in my life. But I suppose the next really big learning experience was as a young adult. And I had my first daughter when I was 24. And then a friend I'd met through a mutual friend who was involved in acting, my partner's an actor. I became very good friends with this amazing person, Cynthia. And she had a daughter in between my two daughters.
So her daughter, Erin, was born when I think my first daughter was two. And about a year before I had my... No, my daughter must have been one. And then Erin must have been born. And then my second daughter arrived. And this has to probably have a bit of a trigger warning rhyme. Actually, I'm going to talk about the death of a child. And I remember spending a lot of time with Cynthia and Erin, with my two daughters as well. And we were really close. And I also remember meeting Cynthia.
And I remember how clearly I remember what she was wearing and what we were talking about, and even what car she was driving. And when I have those sort of moments of real clarity, I kind of think, wow, this person or this experience is going to be really meaningful. So anyway, we met. And we had our daughters. And we were close. And I had this absolutely horrendous dream one night that Cynthia's daughter died.
And it was such a shocking dream that it catapulted me from those shrouds of sleep into the early morning light. My heart was pounding. So I thought, is this something that's actually happened? And I couldn't wait to ring Cynthia. Couldn't wait for 8 o'clock in the morning to come. It was a Sunday morning. And I was desperate because the dream was so vivid that I actually thought something had happened to Erin that night. And I phoned her at 8 o'clock in the morning.
And she said, why are you ringing? I said, oh, you know, I've been up with Emily and Daisy. And I was just thinking about you. How are you? How's Erin? She said, oh, no, we're fine. And we just carried on. And I just pretended I'd been up for a few hours and just thought I'd make an early morning phone call to check in with my friend. And then many months later, I was woken up about midnight by the phone ringing. You know, we were kind of pre-mobile things.
And I shot out of bed, answered the phone. And it was my friend Cynthia screaming, it's Erin. It's Erin. It's Erin. And she said, oh my God, what's happened? And all I could think of was that dream. And she said, she's got a brain tumour. I'm at Great Ormond Street Hospital. And I knew then in that moment that my dream was probably going to come true. Of course, I never shared that with Cynthia. And I went up and down to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Spent a lot of time. She was a single parent.
Spent a lot of time visiting her while Erin went through major brain surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy. It was brutal. She was 18 months old when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. And at that moment, what can you do? What can you say when someone is facing the absolute worst? There's nothing. There's nothing you can do. All you can do is be present. All you can do is offer support. And that's when I thought, you know, I'd always wanted to work with animals.
But I didn't like any of the routes that were available from a therapeutic point of view. If I was going to study animal physiotherapy, I had to work in the human field first. I had to study human physio. And I didn't really want to do that. But bizarrely, while visiting Erin and Cynthia at Great Ormond Street Hospital, I'm thinking, what can I do? What can you offer someone who's facing the worst nightmare of their entire life? Well, you can hold them. You can touch them.
You can help them feel safe and connected through massage. So actually, although I was a bit hesitant to study human modalities, I actually did go and study human massage. And I did a very in-depth course. And it was an amazing course. It was really light, gentle massage. It was really looking at that link with how much motion we hold in our body.
And there was another really pivotal learning experience for me during that course, where we were also looking at other modalities like muscle testing to see if the food you eat and other things that you might integrate into your life are beneficial for you. It was just an interesting exploration. And I remember being partnered with this girl. We knew each other. We'd been turning up to the practical workshops together for some time at this point. So there was a degree of trust between us.
And I was muscle testing her. And whatever she was holding at the time, I don't even really remember what it was. Her arm was really weak when I was testing the muscle strength while she was holding whatever it was we were exploring. And she completely broke down because there had been a time in her life where she hadn't had control over her body. And I remember that so clearly. I was maybe 27 at that stage, 26, 27, and thinking, my gosh, we really hold the memory of everything in our body.
And that was a huge learning moment for me and something that I 100% carried into the animal world. You never know what memories you might be releasing. And that also made me question some of the discussions around displacement behavior, because one of their explanations for displacement behavior is a behavior that appears out of context. But from my experiences, particularly from that moment on that massage course, nothing's out of context as far as the nervous system's concerned.
It's relevant to that individual experience. And again, when people would talk about horses, oh, it's a disproportionate response. They'd say it about dogs. But it isn't. It's based on the experience of that individual. And just because it's not something we can understand doesn't mean it's not relevant and appropriate for that individual being. So I studied massage. It was an amazing course. I had an amazing experience with another guy. I don't remember why I was connected with this person.
I don't remember if it was part of the course or just a shared experience with someone that was going down a similar path. I remember him doing some amazing body work on me, particularly around my shoulders. And I remember this feeling of lightness that I hadn't had for a long time. Because we all carry tension just through being human. And we all are on levels. Nothing in nature is symmetrical. And we're all one-sided.
And all those little anomalies become more exaggerated as we age and carry children and go through quite repetitive movement patterns through the course of our life. And for the first time, this guy was really working in tiny detail, connecting to emotions held in the body and stuff. And it was amazing. And afterwards, I just felt light. And what's incredible is I can still connect with that feeling of lightness. So I was having all these extraordinary experiences.
And I remember walking through the corridors of Great Ormond Street. So I'd go in and I'd massage my friend. And I'd sit with other parents who were sitting by the side of their children's bed. And it was possible to offer a massage then, because there was a parent's common room. So we could hang out there and stuff. And it was quite a meaningful experience for me and for my friend, and hopefully for some of the other parents, too. Because you just don't need to talk.
There's nothing you need to say. There's nothing you can say. You can touch them and hold them if they feel safe enough to have a stranger's hands on their body. And I remember walking through the corridors of Great Ormond Street. And my friend, Cynthia, would bump into me. And I'd get sort of slowly pushed towards the wall. And I'd have to stop and step back and move behind her and walk on her other side. And I remember thinking, gosh, you know, we say horses are dominant and clumsy and rude.
And we have all these awful ways of interpreting the behavior that we don't understand or we take personally. But actually, it's stress that's affecting the physical balance. It's emotional stress that's affecting the physical balance. My friend's not dominant. My friend's not clumsy. She's just distraught. And the emotional overload is impacting on her ability to move and balance. She's not trying to dominate me.
And that was another of all these amazing experiences where really questioning a lot of the belief systems. You know, like I said, I started riding when I was four. And I had my first dog when I was 11. And you hear that kind of language from people outside of my family that was in complete contrast to how I'd been brought up, but also a complete contrast to how I viewed the world to all the stuff that I was starting to learn from a human therapeutic point of view.
And I remember as well having an amazing friend visit. She was an extraordinary woman. And I drove her home after she'd been spent the afternoon with me, Cynthia and Erin. And I remember driving across Waterloo Bridge in London. And I said, do you have any feeling about the outcome for Erin? And she said, no, I can't connect. I can't see outcomes and things like that. And I said, you know what? I know she dies. And I said, but I still have hope.
And she said, my darling, she said, always remember, even in death, there must always be hope. And that's something I've always carried with me as well. That whatever, however difficult something is, there is always something we can do. There is always the chance for a possible peaceful outcome, regardless of what that outcome might look like. Anyway, fast forward, Cynthia did lose Erin. She died. And it was only then that I shared my dream that I'd had.
I never told her before, because I never wanted to say, I'm here supporting you, but kind of think it's all in vain, because she tried everything to save her child. By then, I was learning more and more stuff from the human field. We'd moved from London down to Somerset. We needed to leave London. You start to look at life in a very different way. And Cynthia and Erin came and spent their last Christmas together with us here in this beautiful old house.
And I started to explore a bit of Chinese medicine with an amazing acupuncturist. And also through my amazing acupuncturist. His name was Dave Pierce. What a great name for an acupuncturist. Took me on this amazing workshop with this incredible Chinese doctor, Dr. Shen, who was absolutely a master at movement. And he knew that I rode horses and I wasn't a human therapist in line with all the other therapists who were trained acupuncturists.
He was fascinated by some of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, but also that I connected with horses. So he was relating everything back to animals and the health of the spine. And it was just adding more layers to everything I'd learned from my human training in massage. So some of those principles I also carry. The principles of deficiency and excess.
So when I see an excess behavior, maybe a dog digging or needing to dissect toys at a furious rate or maybe pulling on the lead habitually or barking at passing cars, we see that excess. I don't try and influence that at all. So I think as reward based trainers, we have to be honest that we can suppress behavior through reward based training as well. I look for the deficiency. Why does the dog need to move that way? Why does the dog need to respond that way?
Why is the dog overwhelmed in that environment? Why can't the dog find peace? Why can't the dog find balance, emotional and physical balance? And when we find that deficiency and fill that in, guess what? That excess behavior naturally subsides. So I was having all these extraordinary experiences and Erin died and I shared with Cynthia, obviously the dream and the outcome.
And I'm really glad I did because I wasn't sure whether to ever share that, but I'm really glad I did because a few years later, Cynthia ended up living in France. It was very difficult for her to rebuild a life in a familiar environment without her child. She needed to change everything. She lived on a boat for a while in France and she phoned me and she was really excited and she came back to me and she came back and stayed with us.
This house is such a welcoming space and we obviously stayed in touch. She was waiting to inherit some money. It was just starting to come through, but she had this dream and she said, I had a dream about me last night. She said, I don't. I died. She said, no, I'm sharing it with you because of what you shared with Erin. She said, and I am so excited because I know it was more than a dream. And she said, I dreamt I was in this deep sleep and there was this alarm going.
And I think maybe my boat gets loose from its moorings and drifts out into maybe a channel where there's bigger ships and maybe it's an alarm from the ship bearing down on my little boat. But I'm in this deep sleep. There's this alarm going and I know in that moment I can be reunited with my daughter or I can wake up and life carries on. And obviously she didn't need to tell me what she had chosen in her dream. I knew what she would have picked.
So anyway, so some months later I get this phone call. By now I'm working with animals. My horse has come down from London living here. He has an injury. I'm looking for a therapy that has the same kind of approach from all the stuff that I was learning about humans with regard to animals. And that's where I came across Tellington Touch and the work of Linda Tellington Jones in the middle of the 1990s. And she was influenced by Feldenkrais.
So her work introduced me to the work and concepts of Moshe Feldenkrais. And the bodywork and the in-hand leading exercises were life-changing for my horse. I'd been on a very progressive yard with my horses when we were in London. So we had an equine dentist who certainly wouldn't have had the skill sets that we have available to us now through equine dental technicians. And we also had one of the only veterinary physiotherapists for animals available who'd come and treat the horses.
So I was utilizing that with my horse. Got back in touch with the veterinary physio who'd helped my other horses when we were in London. When my younger horse came down from livery in London, we realized he actually had at some point sustained a massive pelvic injury that had somehow gone unnoticed. He was living out. And I don't blame the people at all for missing it. So we can't always spot injury. So I wanted to find something that I could do to be part of that rehab as well.
So I went to America and learned body work and some of the in-hand exercises that were hugely beneficial for my horse. And then while I was out there, and well, I was actually, sorry, I was on my way back from being out on one of the courses and got this phone call to say that Cynthia had fallen off the back of a horse in France. And she was unconscious in a hospital in Rennes. And that I was listed as her next of kin. And I needed to speak immediately to her neurosurgeon. So I phoned.
And at the moment that I rang, her consultant was in her private room with her. She was in a private room because the injuries were so catastrophic. And she was in a coma. And her life support machine, I could hear going off in the background. And I just thought, that's the dream. She's in a deep sleep. There's an alarm going. And she died.
And I discovered, much to my amazement, that she'd left me the money she'd been waiting to inherit because she'd obviously lost her child and some other bereavements. I don't want this to be like a real heavy show, right? And I really wanted that money to go towards something that was of value to other people. I wanted to make something positive out of a very distressing few years for her. And that's where Tiddy Farm came into my life in 2001. We inherited this money.
And I actually felt really uncomfortable inheriting that money. I contacted some of her other relatives and said that I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to inherit this money. And they were very kind and said, if Cynthia wanted you to have it, we want you to have it. But it was something that I felt was a gift. And it wasn't something to be fritted away. It had to be used for good. It had to be something positive. It had to provide the hope that is always possible.
If we are able to do something meaningful in a very difficult situation. So that was the down payment on Tiddy Farm. And my amazing assistant, Shelley, has been a part of my life for over 30 years. She found this property a mile from where we live, a mile from where our horses were here at home.
And that became this amazing centre for learning for people that wanted to connect with animals in the way that I was learning to connect with them and influenced hugely by my interest in Chinese medicine, not just from a deficiency and excess point of view, but from really detailed observations. And Linda Tellington-Jones had made that connection of how you can influence behaviour by helping the horse lower their head, for example.
There's a saying, if the horse is high headed, they're high strung. And actually, that's true. It's indicative of the sympathetic nervous system being engaged. We see that in dogs as well. You think about what that next position is doing.
But because of my Chinese medicine interest and fascination with the amount of detail they could glean from looking at a person's colouring of their skin under their eyes and the shape of their tongue and the quality of the saliva and the nails and hair and all these amazing details that I had learned through just exploring TCM through my amazing acupuncturist, I was applying to the animals and I was starting to see some unbelievable details that actually
were clear patterns that absolutely linked to quite specific behavioural responses and discomfort. And I started to volunteer at a local shelter so that I could just watch dogs more and to see where we could maybe identify from improved observations how we could best support animals that might be struggling. And it was a dog named Sandy in the late 1990s that switched me on to coat patterns. I probably need to give you the opportunity to jump in.
Well, I'll take this opportunity just to say, as a father, it hurts to hear the stories that you just shared. I can't even imagine the experience that you shared and that Cynthia went through. And I'm sorry for your loss of your friend as well. And thanks for bravely sharing that. I was expecting you to burst into tears, but I appreciate you sharing that and the sense that it's something you've processed as much as you can process that.
And talking about opportunities, it's not just something that you process and it's actually become an opportunity. Yes, absolutely. To, through processing, learn from, for one, and then to take that money and do something with, that's quite remarkable. Tell us about Tilly Farm and what, can I say, Erin's legacy is and Cynthia's legacy is. Thank you for your very kind words and connecting. Because, yeah, I mean, it's the worst, isn't it?
Parents thought about living a child, it's just beyond horrific. And that's why, for me, it was really important that we did something positive, because it's never okay. It's not about saying, oh, well, I'm glad I had that experience because look at where we are now. It's not that, it's saying, my goodness, this terrible thing has happened. But that doesn't have to be how their story ends. It's a part of the beginning of other stories for other people. And that's a part of their story too.
And we kept looking for a property. So saying, this has to, oh, sorry, I just got my earpiece. This has to go on something meaningful where we can really improve lives of others and help people and animals that are struggling. We kept looking for property and nothing was suitable. And then, and I was just about to give up and say, okay, well, we have to invest the money. We haven't found the right place. Maybe we put it in investment for a year because property prices are starting to go up.
And I don't want to get to the position where we can't find anything suitable. I feel really passionate about finding a base where we can offer these learning opportunities for people. And my amazing, amazing, amazing assistant, Shelly, said, oh, she came into work. She said, have you seen that place in Farnborough, Tilly Farms? I said, what? I've driven past it every day on the school run for years, Ryan. Never noticed that. And I said, let's go and see it. So it was upscale.
Shelly and I went and it was a terrible day. The weather was appalling and we clambered over rusty barriers to old, through old cow sheds, low calf sheds that were really depressing. And looking at, you know, just the amount of work that was involved, we walked through all these outbuildings and up this track. And we turned and we looked at this incredible view. It's a 90 acre old dairy farm and it has the most amazing atmosphere. And it was pouring with rain.
And Shelly and I just looked at each other and we just both went, this is the place. And in my head, I'm thinking it's insanity. This is a financial suicide because what it is and has been successfully isn't going to be beneficial and conducive to what I am looking to create and the work involved to dismantle some of the buildings and planning and converting some of them. And, you know, it's huge. It's immense. It's going to be a lifetime project, but it feels right.
It feels right that we found this place. So I asked a friend of mine is an amazing building contractor. I said, look, I need you to go and look at this property for me. I need you to tell me I am crazy to even think about taking it on. Had a little three bedroomed farmhouse that had been built in the 1950s, had stabling and then had barns, but a dairy and a lot of buildings that weren't appropriate. And they'd have to come down in order to create the teaching spaces that I kind of envisaged.
And I said, I need you to tell me that it's financial suicide. It can never happen. Not without a lot of money. And tell me to walk away. And he said, oh, sure, I'll go and see it for you. Of course I will. And I remember him. It was also pouring with rain when he went to see. I think it was a classic English spring, constant rain. I remember him falling through the door in the kitchen here in this house. And his hair was plastered to his face. Water was running off his face.
And he said, I've seen the farm. And I said, and he said, I love it. And I need somewhere to live. So if you let me live in that house, I'll help you build it up. What can you say? More connections. You know, my life, Ryan, has been filled with amazing connections. And since he was killed in that riding accident in France, the owner of the horse, she fell off, it wasn't one of hers, was just destroyed. This older Breton gentleman who ran the local tobacco, he was destroyed.
And I didn't speak French. I've got some working knowledge of French from school, but woefully inadequate, certainly not enough to be able to say, please don't carry guilt. She had a dream that this was going to happen. She's liberated from a lifetime of pain. I really wanted to convey that to him. And I happened to have a French student staying with me that week that this awful event happened. And it was just, again, somebody said, oh, we got a student.
And she can't get back from boarding school to Switzerland because she has a horse here. Would you be able to take her in and her horse? And I said, sure. Just felt right to say yes and help her. Anyway, so how amazing was that? So my life was full of all these amazing connections. And here was, you know, someone who's my best friend saying, I need a place to live and I will help build Tilly Farm. And we've had it for 20, where are we now? 20, 24 years. Yeah, 25th year. This is our 24th year.
And my best friend still lives there. And he's helped create this amazing space. But the atmosphere of Tilly Farm is quite extraordinary. And people come through the gate and they just feel that they've come home. And I hope we add to the feeling of that incredible land. But I don't feel we own it. I just feel we're guardians of it. And people, we've saved lives. We've saved animal lives. We've enhanced human lives.
The feedback we get, the friendships we've made, people that we're still so close with decades on, really has turned Cynthia and Erin's story from one of tragedy and loss to something incredibly empowering and rich and life changing for so many people. And obviously for me as well. And I think of my friend every day. Because without her and without Erin, we wouldn't have that space.
And without her and without Erin, I wouldn't have learned and discovered everything that I've learned and discovered because we came to Somerset because of connections that I had made through Cynthia and Erin. And that really did set me off on this really incredible, enriching, empowering, mind-blowing life experience. And I just hope that I have many more years where we can touch more lives and meet more amazing people because every single person I meet teaches me something.
Every single animal I meet teaches me something. And all of those learning experiences 100% influence how we connect with animals and people through our courses. And we run online courses, but we also have practical workshops at Tilly Farm. And the feedback is always the same. What a unique and special, peaceful space it is. Well, I have more questions, but I just feel like that is a great place to leave it for episode one.
And then we can dive into episode two to learn a little bit more about what you do at Tilly Farm, what you offer through your courses. So let's leave it there with gratitude to Cynthia and Erin. And before we do that, can you just share with those listening who want to learn more about what Tilly Farm is and what you offer, where they can go online to find you? Of course. Yes, tillyfarm.org.uk. We have a list of all our courses there, but we actually also use www.
You probably don't even see that anymore, do you? It's showing my age. Animalcentrededucation.com. That's our online school. And that's got the list of courses there as well who do online only. We do modules to become an ACE practitioner, and we also do in-person at Tilly Farm. And if you want to learn some of the techniques and become certified in ACE, you know, the online element is a really fun way to learn. And that's with my co-instructor, colleague, Sarah Whiffen.
She teaches the online element for part two for the courses for people that can't get to Tilly Farm for the practical, and she's amazing. You know, I've just met amazing people. I'm lucky. I'm blessed. Well, for those listening, we're going to link to all of us in the show notes. And we will be diving into what ACE is and what Sarah does and what you can learn at Tilly Farm and through the online courses more in episode two. And you're not going to want to miss that. Sarah, this has been real.
And so gratitude to you for being willing to share those parts of your life with us on this episode. And we really appreciate you coming on and hanging out with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for listening as well. This is your host, Ryan Cartlidge, signing off from this episode of the Animal Training Academy podcast show. We hope today's conversation inspired you and equipped you with new tools for your trainer's toolbox.
Remember, every challenge in training is an opportunity to learn and sharpen your animal training geekery. Embrace the rough patches, learn from them, and keep improving. And don't forget, the path to growing your skills and expanding your knowledge continues beyond this episode. Visit www.atamember.com to join our supportive membership where you will find a community of trainers just like you. Together, we're making a huge positive difference in the lives of animal and human learners worldwide.
Until next time, keep honing your skills, stay awesome, and remember, every interaction with an animal or human learner is your opportunity to create ripples. We're here, cheering you on every step of the way. See you at the next episode.