Hello my name is Ronnie from equine voices and welcome to an interview with Bernadette Spillane from the happy dog ranch in Colorado. She can introduce herself and explain how she became the founder along with her husband John of the Happy Dog Ranch and how this idea came about through her own a horse. So she can explain all about it. Hi Bernadette and welcome and thank you so much for agreeing to do this little interview.
Thank you Ronnie.
Would you like to introduce yourself and just explain a little bit about yourself and also what it is you do and what happy dog ranch is.
I've always been kind of enamored with horses and had contact with them like once a year, kind of like on a vacation kind of basis, like dude ranches, things like that and then I hit the age of 48 and I said, I'm going to have a horse or do more, I better do it now, if not now, when would I do.
And so I started taking lessons and about a year and a half later, my husband as an anniversary present bought me a young Arab who was four years old, which if everyone knows it's like green or green, not a good idea, you know, green, blue, black, black, and blue and this young Arab was an amazing horse but had a lot of issues. And I wasn't capable of knowing how to solve its issues.
And so I started on this path of trying to check out different trainers, things like that, to see how I could become a better owner for this horse. at one point about a year after I had hurt his back really badly and when it was turned out and I started reaching out to an animal communicator and the animal communicator I'm not sure if everyone's familiar with them but this animal communicator was in evergreen, Colorado, which was about an hour and a half from where my horse was kept.
I was living in downtown Denver at the time or Lashley Littleton, and the horse was out by the airport. So we were all triangulated, nobody was close to each other. And she did this interview over the phone with this horse.
The information she gave me was so incredibly accurate I was kind of blown away because he had so many little health issues going on that we just cannot nail down, so we finished up this interview and she was remarking about how talkative he was and she asked him one last question, which was do you have anything else you want to add? And of horse said, well yes, she's going to move me.
Well, I'm living in a town home, there's no way I am moving the horse I don't have any place to move it to and he says, no, no, she's going to move me and he showed her a picture in her mind of a place that looked like golden Colorado, which is low foothills, kind of dry just outside of town. Okay, great you know, that was it. So lo and behold, six months later, we bought this property and this property looks just like golden.
So this horse six months before we bought the property, predicted that we were going to get it and move him and he started it. So his name is Zhum and he continued to have problems most of his life actually. And because of that, it took us on a direction and a course that we've probably would never have gone on, except we will want him to feel better, so that's the beginning.
Four year old Arab I like when you said green on green yeah, and that's amazing that you got communication from your horse thing that, where you was going to move to. so it looked like golden, but it was actually, yeah. The one that you're at now.
Yes which is about half an hour, south 30 minutes, south of golden, but same foothills, same general look to it that golden has and he didn't say that he just showed a picture
Wow so what happened then? You bought the place at Littleton was it 53, a acres that you had.
Yes.
So you moved in?
Yes we moved in, we had decided when our children moved out that we didn't need to have a shovel or a rake, we would live in a townhome. So when we take care of a yard and suddenly we had a ranch all kinds of implements, so one of the first things we bought was called a skid steer, which is like a Bobcat and they kept talking about a skid steer and I thought they were talking about another kind of animal.
And then I realized it was a Bobcat that's like a tractor to help us move hay and plow, things like that. I mean, it was a total reversal of everything we had known and done. And we also realized that because 53 acres, we couldn't have just one horse, I mean he didn't want to be by himself. So we thought we'd get like six horses that would be perfect. We could have two pasture your buddies and four, like ridable horses.
So he had kind of this quest to find horses and that's kind of how it started. So we started with six horses on one of them had wobbles, one of them, which was a neurological disease and then one of them was a abused Mustang. The others were horses that we knew were about 10 years old and we still have them and they're amazing. The two pasture horses have both passed now but the horse with wobbles lived to be about 18, which was miraculous.
I think that environment that we were able to create here, I think helps support them, made me feel good because again, because I was new and I didn't know what I wanted and I didn't know what to look for. I think I was more open to listening to the horses and I would watch how my horse soon was being trained and I think they were wonderful trainers. It just, that he didn't look happy. And so I'd be like, something's wrong, he looks.
Just this look happy and so that kind of got me on this path of what does that look like in a horse, when they look quiet and calm and receptive.
Like the dude ranch horses were always turned out at night on a pasture year and even though they worked hard during the day, they were pretty happy horses and they were very calm and I found out that most boarded horses just seem very agitated all the time and that was something I wasn't expecting either, I just thought horses were a were calm and I thought that they were indestructable, you know, and it turns out they're very fragile and very very sensitive and very intelligent.
Once that awareness came in, my quest then was to find trainers that would support that kind of training and people, body workers who would support the greater health and wellbeing of the horse. And so that's kind of how it started and again, it was because of Zhum
That's an amazing story and you use your intuition, like you said, when you was watching your horses you was just feeling what was going on with them and you sort of questioned things, which is what it's about. I know that you've done quite a few courses, you've run weekend workshops, you have some with mark Rashid don't you. Do you have the communicator? Does she come out to the ranch as well?
Actually the communicator comes out once a year now and she does like a whole, like a ranch interview and the floors really line up to talk to her amazing. So I'll have courses that I have questions about. If they're not, don't appear to be thriving, if they don't appear to be integrating into the herd well, then I just want to find out what do we need to do? What are we missing? Because the perspective the horse has is so different from our perspective.
It's very eyeopening and it adds such clarity and I want to say like humanity, you know, the horses are rarely judgmental. They're they say nice things. They say honest things and it's kind of life-changing to actually listen to their, if you could hear their words, listen to how they would put it it's fascinating. And it's funny because you're standing there with the communicator in your horses right there.
So the validity of what she's passing on to you is evident in the horse and the horse will literally look from you to her. Like she's the interpreter. Because she's accurate, that's why they line up. If she was doing anything to fabricate what you're saying, or not properly translated, then the horses I think, would not line up for her because they're very into congruency, that what you say is what you are. They want that in people.
Thats why horses are so good with psychotherapy work because they intuitively maybe because they're prey animals, I've heard explanations that they have a very large gut system. And as prey animals, they're constantly checking their environment and because of that, they are extremely sensitive to currents that don't match up because that could be dangerous for them.
So people that aren't cohearant I'm happy today, I'm happy, happy, happy but really everything you're doing is like they're angry, you know and the horses can't tolerate it. So one of the things we try to work with with our volunteers is how do we come to that place that we are, who we are and own that while we're with the animals and if we can do that for a short period of time with the animals, we can start doing in the rest of our life.
We have one woman who does workshops here and her live workshops called the Call of the horse. We have people who have never been around horses who feel drawn to come, to be part of our volunteer program. So there's something there that's very different from other work and the horses reward you for it because they're just amazing.
It's a lovely place I mean, I've only ever been once and that was through Sue Hill your dear friend that introduced me becasue I mentioned that I was going out to the states and I said, can you suggest anywhere and I think it seems from the post where she'd stayed at yours and she says, you know, happy to have ranch and to contact you and I was so pleased that I did because it was such a lovely and lovely place.
And I was really sad to go I remember I was in the pasture year and I think I was going back the next day and I was doing a little video with the horses and I felt really emotional. because I felt like I was at home, it was so and as I'm saying that now I can feel that emotion I'm tapping back into that time and I can really feel that connection and it was such a friendly place.
everybody there oh, it was friendly, especially yourself, Bernadette and John and yeah, everybody I met was so friendly and I definitely, definitely can't wait to come back again.
I mean, I think that you just integrated so well, you were so open to everything and then I remember you pitching in and I remember the day of the big snow, she's on vacation.
So excited I mean, I said to you earlier, it was so exciting to have dry snow and then when it goes, the ground dry, it was so exciting and the fact that the temperature was extreme one day, I'm sure it wasn't as cold as you normally used to it, but for me it was like, oh my goodness, that was cold but it didn't feel that cold. It was different, it's different to here. The sun was out but yet, it was still minus, I don't know what ever it was, I can't remember.
I loved it and then I used that base for a few days just to go out visiting a few places and I actually went to golden, I went to visit Golden. I went to see a lady that I'd met on Facebook when she was up in the mountains and my managed to see her in a horse, which was really nice. Anyway nevermind about me, let's get back to you. So how has, how has the last year been for you guys at the ranch, how was things evolved?
I think as Ronnie Knows we do a lot of workshops. So when our journey started with Zhum and tried to help him better and help me become a better, I think person actually but better horseman we started looking for people who could support them. And one of the things we realized is that with 53 acres, other people, veterinarians, some horse trainers, some body workers, we're seeing horses in distress who would probably be, have been euthanized, having not been able to come to the ranch.
So we started taking in horses and that pretty soon we had like 16 horses and we're like, we can't keep doing this and so thats we became a non-profit. So in 2011, we became a full flown 5 0 1 C three nonprofit. And what that allowed then was we could more openly let people come and volunteer or one thing, which was huge and taken donations to help support the animals but we also realized that if you have enough horses, it's like that thing of, if you build it, they will come.
All these people would come to help. It was like five or six horses and we didn't really need them. They didn't feel needed, now we have 40 plus horses and we need them and they need us and the dynamic has changed of this really supportive, I think synchronistic group of people that come, you know, all the volunteers kind of come and go because they can't always but we have some that have been here for years.
But because of that and because of the healthier homes to get and horses coming in and out, we don't adopt her horses out every once in a while, there was a horse that comes in and someone bonds with it instantly like that was it and then sent that sense we would adopt before they become part of the herd. What we were finding was that the horses. I felt like the sense of, expectancy. They couldn't relax.
They couldn't make friends because in their lifetime they'd already seen heard members taken away or they removed and horses are herds and they're very familial and ,they kind of needed that to feel good again, especially the horses that we were seeing and they know they understand that that chance of them surviving was not good because euthanasia was on the table.
So we chosen early on not to adopt horses out that this would be a sanctuary and so our herds tend to be very stable and the herds within the herd, there's a main herd, within the herd, there's little pods and they look after each other. I mean I've had a horse come up and get me to go look at another horse that I couldn't see it was having a problem.
I've had an off the track race horse tell me that 35 year old Hannah Varian had fallen down and couldn't do it and when they put the halter on her and to get her Swartz, grabbed the other end of the lead rope to help me walk her in. The things that these horses know their sense of connection, it's beautiful and it's powerful and if the herd is stable and balanced, and we look for that I mean it's beautiful.
That's why I think you can walk in the herd and feel safe, you have this blanket of like you're wrapped in something, you know, and I realized that everyone gets to live with the horse in their backyard. I feel like that was my 12 year old self got it's best biggest dream come true. I have all these horses here I think I'm getting off topic though. Yeah so what happened was in this question to do all that. We realized if we had enough horses a number of things would happen.
So we've had Bodyworkers come Tallgrass, animal professional massage comes and does it at least one, maybe two workshops a year. We have people do cranial sacral or horses, which is all these modalities are amazing and they will come and train people how to do craniosacral but they use our horses, so our horses benefit from humans getting the chance to have a new skillset of vocational skillset.
Linda Tellington has been here to do a number of different workshops sometimes with horses, sometimes with dogs and then mark Rashad comes and we love how he integrates the concepts of Akido with horsemanship. It's a very energetic, It's a very deeply felt kind of horsemanship, it goes way beyond technique.
So once you get kind of your technique down, there's this other place you can go to and what you really connect with the horse and that's what we love and we try to follow his principles Linda times has principals. We have other people too, Anna Twinney a 20 is amazing, so we try to follow their principles and how we handle all the horse here at the ranch.
I think that the result is that the horses are quiet and calm because they're quiet and calm and had been used and the volunteers see them, every horse gets seen at least twice a week, groomed, walked, feet done ridden if they're rideable. we can use them in psychotherapy work. So we also have Denver university here in. Colorado has a special sociology department called the Institute for the animal human connection.
They're studying how animals help humans in every way, in every sense of wellbeing, how animals support human beings and they come out and do longer workshops with therapists. And it's like, I think it's a master of certification program.
There's gestalt equine Institute of the Rockies that comes here four times a year to do intensive, to train therapists, how to integrate horses into the horse, into their workshops because horses can break through all the talk therapy where we get to the point where we can't get past anything and breakthrough.
And last weekend, we had hope held by a horse, which is a breast cancer survivor group and the horses just know, and now, you know, come and touch your shoulder, put their head in your chest, or just hanging out with you and then everything breaks, loose, all the things you were like holding onto that we don't need anymore, the horses help us let go of that. And they don't believe in stories and the horses that have bad backgrounds, they don't want us to keep telling their story.
Things have changed now that really we'll let it go and move forward and that's a good lesson for all of us so yeah.
Absolutely I was just smiling a minute. My horse was having a feet trimmed by a barefoot shimmer, she's recently become pregnant. So she's stopping until she's had a baby and I didn't know but she was doing my horse and Toots kept touching their belly really, really gently.
And she complained about her back I think the previous time she said, so I've just got to be a bit careful because I've had a bit of a backache and Toots it was just really gentle and had a nose on her tummy while she was doing it and then she was nestling into her neck, which just sometimes but it was really sweet uh she was leaving. She says I didn't really want to tell you because I can't do anymore because I'm going to have a baby.
And then I thought, oh, she knew she was pregnant but she was so gentle with her and it was the fact that she was touching it to me the whole time.
Oh my goodness that's amazing.
So sweet but also I know if my emotions are getting the better of me. because there's a few changes going on with me so I'm really trying to stay focused and when I'm not doing that, Toots almost says go away and sort yourself out because your energy is too much. I'm really aware of that and I tried to do that but every now and then I forget but she will show me physically as well that something's going on, I mean, there are things going on with her but she will show me.
Especially if I'm blocking myself and I'm not wanting to move forward and I do want to move forward but there's something blocking which is me obviously and she will show me that physically and I'll go, okay, okay I'll do it I'll let go and just go with the flow. They are amazing, amazing creatures and they are so sensitive yeah, more sensitive than people realize, more sensitive than people realize.
And I think they are big animals so people don't realize they're afraid of them. That fear for projects itself, I think cruelty at times, not because they mean to be cruel but in their head, they think this is a big animal. I've got to be big about my movements. I better be, you know, strong about this when actually it's actually very subtle things they are picking up and we can actually be somewhere smaller and quieter than we thought and I think that's, what's different.
That's I think good for us too, because we have to realize that bringing energy up doesn't have to mean bringing emotion up because I got to swing a rope harder to make a point doesn't mean I have to be mad and swing it harder. You know these huge life lessons and not just around be with them but how to be with people. And I think that's the biggest change we see, is it's an eye-opener because we so want to be with this animal.
If we do it correctly and they enjoy being with us, then we have to change, in a good way.
Absolutely and I think a lot of people, if they had to do that with a person, they might not necessarily put the effort in, if it's with a horse and especially their horse, they do it because they really want to make a change and sometimes it can be because they actually want what it is they dream of to come back to them. But as they go through time and as they realize the let go of that side.
So it's not quite as what I'm doing this because of and I don't think it's always intentional because I've done that myself in the past, you know, you do things because you have something you want to do.
Yeah.
I get so much pleasure, just sitting with my horse and not doing a great deal, but just being in her company and that's what I'll do. I'll tell my clients is the same thing, it's not the same doing, it's not the same as just being with them. You can go three times a day, you know you can be busy, but just being in their energy for no reason and to seeing what comes is really different and you notice when you don't do it.
So it's not always a tangible visual big thing but when you stop doing that, there's something you sent something different and that's any way I can expect explain that to people.
Yeah. so where does John fit in? For a long time we didn't tell John, we wouldn't let him count how many horses we had and we'd be like, oh, that's the same brown horse, John. Well, he retired about two years ago.
So now he knows how many uh you know, none of this would have happened without John I think that maybe I started us on the path but John is the one who supported it because there's times when really the monies, the funds aren't coming in, and we have to first really dig deep and support the animals.
And that's where John has been amazing and now he's retired, it turns out he's an awesome ranch hand who knew he's actually a lawyer by training and he sat behind a desk for how many years and now he's out, using the tractor and the skid steer and cane and riding and in some ways, I think this is his 12 year old self, also getting a chance to show up because I think every little boy probably had a tractor at some point and they had the, the cowboy and the horse thing and now he's gets to do all
of it. It's been really cool and we get to do it together, which is really nice and our son helps us at the ranch too. So that's, it's kind of a family affair yeah. So that's been, that's been really good.
You both contribute to running the place but it's a passion as well, so it's retired and obviously John's retired is completely different.
You might want to be a lawyer,
probably keeps he's mind active and yeah he's not a sitter home and sit on the couch he's an outside person. What we've got coming up at happy talk ranch for the rest of this year and going into next year?
What's exciting there was a couple of workshops that we couldn't do because of COVID and they still have some restrictions. We were working with a group from Canada up ledger, Sandy Howlett, and she was doing some amazing craniosacral classes and she hasn't been able to come but she'll be back I hope next year. Mark Rashad and Jim Masterson, who does Masterson method which is a really quiet hands-on healing method. That is just phenomenal.
They'll be back next year in conjunction with Dr. Steve Peters to do the horse's brain and so you see mark and Jim analyze a rider and horse, and then Jim, does body work on the horse to show how much can change when a horse can release pressure or tension and then at the end of it is the brain seminar where Dr. Peters has been studying the neurology of the horse to understand how horses truly learn and that has been fascinating.
So next year, they're going to expand into an extra day for the brain seminar. It's fascinating and it's like, we were talking about intuitively, we know that the horses respond to these things but we kind of override that and so we go to more harsh methods I think sometimes harsher sort of bit harsher saddle, a bigger movement and the brain seminar points out how horses actually learn by much more subtle means and that's really good.
I think what's nice about it too, is that when you come to see mark and Jim and Steve worked together for one thing, they collaborate, which is awesome but we realized that a lot of us override our own intuition that we see something happening with a horse or a trainer but we kind of disempower ourselves. And because we were like, I don't know, no, there's a trainer, I should do what they say because they're the expert, actually we probably do know.
And I think it's the idea is if more people could see a different way to do it, they might be more inclined to speak up on behalf of the horse and stop doing some of the things that are pretty prevalent out there still for horse training.
One of the things we get a lot of our horses with behavior problems and the behavior problems go away when you're treated differently but they're fighting for their life they feel like they have to defend themselves because so many methodologies are very harsh and again you watch these clinics with these people when you go I thought that but I let go of it because who am I, when you actually, you know, more than you think.
If you let your heart guide you and kindness guide you in quiet, you're almost always right, that's the crazy part, even if you don't know what you're doing, you're probably right, because you did it quietly, calmly, and again with love so.
I think sometimes when you get a horse, you have a dream and you see how it works for everybody else and you see what the norm is, that's supposed to be norm, you go down that route when you green, you just go where you think the knowledge is and you trust and you think, well, they know what they're doing, you know, and yes, they may have results but the foundations are not there and you have the problems later on.
Whereas if you can do it sympathetically and kindly and as a partnership with your horse, that's nice because I think it's not about telling them what they have to do because they don't have a lot of choices but if you show that this is what you'd like and you're in a communication with each other, they're more able to show you what they can do and can't do physically because sometimes they're not able to physically do that but they'll still try.
Then they have problems down the line does that make sense? Did I say that correctly?
Yes you did and we have a really fascinating vet who comes who retired from her other practice so that she could just do wellness with horses. Yeah you would be surprised how many horses have ulcers and the ulcers, any kind of stress and how quickly they can get them. I think sometimes back pain is actually ulcer pain.
That's been one of the biggest things we realized and that anytime we get a new horse in now, we immediately started our ulcer medications because changing a stall in a barn, into a different orientation, different horses can create an ulcer and you think you're doing a wonderful thing for your horse but for the horse, they knew what their life was. And now you just upped and moved it and I think that was a big one because they are that sensitive and just like people, it kind of turns inside.
They're not allowed to show it they're stoic and they're prey animals. So it becomes a stomach issue and that starts attitude for them. They start to bite they might kick, they don't want to be cinched now it's sore to riding because depending on where the ulcers are, it creates a lot of other issues. So now I'm kind of like, let's check ulcers right away. That's check their teeth completely right away.
And so there's a whole bunch of things we go through protocols that we didn't used to do before but we've learned that those are important and definitely good dentistry is enormous.
I'm not sure if this is a popular view or not, but we have found that power floating is really Harbor and horses and the effective power floating shows up about six months after you power float and you'll come up and lameness issues, head like cranial pole issues back issues and there's a whole of line of thinking around that. So I thought I was doing a great job. So when I first started, I was getting the power floated and then I found out luckily pretty quickly and sure enough the horses.
I was power floating, had issues down the road, and now we don't do any power floating and it has to do with what's happening, you have to really open their mouth up and look at the back and check their incisors. There's a lot to it. Even though it's a hand float, it's a very thorough hand float and so that's another big thing we've learned so yeah.
If you think about their vibration, just on that level it's hard going, I don't think most people like the dentist yeah do they
No we avoided at all costs.
I was going to ask you a question now it's totally gone out of my head. Have you been to the UK Bernadette, have you traveled over to the UK?
No I haven't and we've talked about going and then COVID kind of interrupted our plans too, so no, but I would love to come over sometime. I'm sure I know one person that'll be organizing that trip and thats Sue I would love that if you did that, that would be great, put a word in okay.
Yeah I'll reminder, I'll reminder. so what have you got coming up so you've talked about your workshops coming up. Is there any like fundraising or big events that you've got planned to help with the ranch.
Oh thank you actually not this weekend, September 11th, we have our big fundraiser, once a year we do a big fundraiser and we're not very good at raising money. I mean in terms of asking for money, we're really bad at it but obviously we need a lot of money to care for this many animals and in the united states this year, we have a really hard time getting hay because the fires in California, there's droughts, we're out of the Southwest other places are getting inundated with rain.
So that combination has, has made hay scarce this year so it's shot the prices up. So feeding this many horses yeah, it's going to be exciting. So since early July we've been trying to find hay and we're kind of cobbling together, normally we have a couple of sources, we get it from same place every year and they're just like, I don't have it.
So that's, that's probably the biggest thing and so this fundraiser is huge for us to be able to afford the hay once we find it so yeah it's expensive to run the ranch, to have this many animals.
The same thing happens here in the UK but not the fires. If it's dry and they don't get a second cut or too much rain and it's wet. So we have a similar in the thing but I think, touch wood, it's not been so bad here. it's devastating when you see all the fires and the horses and the animals and have how they're gonna support them and how they're going to feed them.
Right it's a hard year. I thought last year with COVID and United States, there was just so much unrest and a lot of people were just angry and tense and frightened. I know when we talk about being quiet, I think there are a lot of people shouting, suddenly to be heard that no one was talking in quiet voices anymore and there wasn't a discussion.
It was like my opinion, I got to override you and I feel like that's kind of settled down this year, maybe people are becoming more cohesive again, that they're working together and I think that hopefully for this fundraiser, people will look around to see there's so many things to support. So we're so happy that they would look to us as well as one of the places they might support, because obviously there's so much need out there.
There's lots of things going on in the world, lots of strange and interesting things but that's that's another story. I was just trying to go back to your conversation. Zhum was your Arab the four year old that you got, who is the second horse that you ended up with you?
So we actually got four horses. One horse came from the same stable work zoom had been and that person's name was rain, we still have rain and then we found comment and comment in Indy, coachees and cloud were our first ones and they're amazing indie still hear comments, still hear rain still here. Both cloud and put CISA passed and soon was soon passed about a year and a half.
That's amazing that you still got those horses and I remember when I came, when he was talking about the herd, you've got the big herd and then there's lots of little pockets or little herds.
It was lovely to watch them because I think you let them out in the big pasture, they were in one side, and then you said, we're going to open up the huge pasture and they would all go out, just walking out and then the next one come and then they'd be running around to the side of the field and then they'd all start grazing and it was so lovely, so lovely to watch and just really, really therapeutic.
Yeah I can't wait to come home and visit can and Linda Tasker, there's a lady called Linda Tasker who I've recently been introduced to because we doing some work to get and she put a picture up, it's a memory on Facebook when she'd been to see you.
I said it oh my goodness I went then I think we must have just missed each other Linda Tasker is amazing and so is Ruth amazing, Sue amazing. So we've had some lovely people come from the UK and you feel like you're instant friends. It's so much fun to have them come and I was just thinking about them thinking, gosh hopefully they'll come back soon. I know it's been crazy. So yeah. Lovely, lovely people.
That's what she said that she wants to come back out, it's such a small world when you talk to people, she was introduced through a lady introduced to me and I ended up doing a little bit of work with her and a horse and then I found out that she'd been to your place and it's such a small world and Sue such a lovely lady as well.
Yes. your fundraiser, is it a dinner and dance?
Actually a dinner and concert who is actually, he's a full-time park ranger at Rocky mountain national park, one of the back country Rangers, but he's also a musician and he looks like John Denver and he plays a John Denver tribute and it just happens in mark rashad is also a musician and so they do this great concert where they do a John Denver cover of all the songs and it's so much fun and we can do it in early enough we can do it in the backyard off the big the main house and so that's what
we're doing in a BBQ. So it should just be fun, you know, I think it's good to have people get back together again and I know it's a fundraiser but I really, really want people to have fun too. We'll be back together seeing each other. So we're actually really looking forward to it.
I've seen some videos of mark and I think the gentleman you've talking about one of his ranches there was playing together, I think it's the same person. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about Bernadette because I'm conscious of time and I don't want to take up your day cause I know you're busy.
You know, I could talk all day so. No actually, thank you, you asked such great questions and you talk about all different things. I think that looking forward to a happy dog is, is actually seeing each of these programs that we do evolve and that's what we like so much about them, even the psychotherapy work is evolving.
And I think because of their work with horses and that excites us, that we're taking on new directions and because we're listening, we're hopefully we're going to have better answers and better techniques to help people, you know, solve problems, mental health, that kind of thing, PTSD and then treating the animals better. It's a ripple effect you know, the more you get exposed to it, the more people who were passed along and that's really what we're hoping for so that does feel really good.
Have you ever tried, you do communicate with your animals and you pick up intuative TV and you're very intuitive I'm not just saying that because of what you do but it's obviously that you're very intuitive. Have you ever tried doing animal communication for yourself
You know, it's funny every once in a while I don't actively do it but every once in a while I hear a very clear message and it's like, okay. And otherwise, I feel like I'm picking up, just a few things here and there, but every once in a while, it's a very clear message. And so I do tend to trust that, especially if I think I'm being quiet and I'm not, I get very reved up.
I go very fast, I talk really fast, slowing down is my major obstacle and so when I slowed down and I'm quiet, It's funny, the things that come up or the things that you notice that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. And I always liken it to Harry Potter. There's that thing where they take that special potion and he had this idea. He was gonna go one way and do something but instead he did something totally different.
That's kind of what it's like, that if you're in that place of listening and going quiet and slow enough, you were aiming for one thing and then you just go the other way. And that's where you're supposed to be because the horse is in trouble or something needs to be done it's just, it's funny how life will guide you and I think that I had no clue that we were going to become a horse rescue.
I'd never thought getting Zhum that we were going to do anything like this, there was no master plan, the master plan developed and I think because of these tugs you know, you get this unquenchable desire to do something. Hmm and you just start following that. The more you listen to that, the more it takes you where you are supposed to go and I feel lucky, John and I both feel lucky that our purpose involves these animals and these people.
So I think that's it, I think your purposes and some that you think of ahead of time, it's something that kind of organically shows up if you listen, it takes you in places you never thought you would go.
If somebody said to me that I'd be doing something like this and I don't have a huge audience, I have my clients on my business page and you know, they know me for who I am and I share this with them and I have the YouTube channel and it's not a big following but you know, I still love doing it and I love doing the podcast, but it's teaching me to do things that I wouldn't have dreamt of doing, like editing. It might take me like 20 hours more than a really but I'm still an editor.
And the thing is you have to listen to it in real time, so as we're talking now, I am listening to you, but I'm also conscious of other things, so when I do the podcast, I will hear more depth to it, I'll hear different things.
When you were sort of about communication earlier, Sometimes it's the communication that's nonverbal and non emotion, it's just really stillness and it's like a calm before the storm, it's just that really quietness and when you connect to that it's actually a beautiful and that to me is deep communication because it's just been in that little time zone with that horse and when they zone in as well, you know, that you're connecting with them. And it can be two minutes, it can be five minutes.
It can be, you know, 20 minutes later you can sit there and they, and they've gone off to sleep and it's just lovely and it's so beneficial for the horses but for yourself, because it helps ground you, it helps just set you down quite in your mind down because your mind goes 20 miles an hour.
So it's really good that and I explained to people that that is communication, it's not all about what they say, it's just listening but they want you to listen to yourself because they want to help you too. They want you to sort yourself out and to recognize what's inside you and that you can change things.
It's not about fixing everything but it's do as much as you possibly can and not beating yourself up, because if you're genuinely coming from the heart, you're going to make mistakes and you're not going to get it right and sometimes when it's your horse, emotions take over and it's harder to hear but when you're listening to maybe a friend's horse, that's why I was saying to you, have you ever done it? I don't need to ask that, you do it.
It's easier because you haven't got that emotional attachment and it's lovely to see when they think like I'm not getting anything, I think, yes, you are just look at your horse and especially if I get them to put their hands on and just breathe, so right what you feel in and they'll go peaceful and go yeah. Okay. And then I'll say, but look at your horse, what is your horse doing?
And the horse relaxes and then he sign, they give a breath out and they can feel the ribs moving underneath and it goes, that's communication. That is communication, you're connecting but they're connecting with you and that feeling is yours too. I'm sorry. I went off on a tangent there.
No, that's beautiful I'm so glad you brought that up because I think we come very agenda written, you know, I gotta get this done today. This time today and though the horse is like you said, just stay with them. Don't have an agenda. You know, if today didn't feel like riding and you just stayed with them.
And one thing Masterson method does is they call it a bladder Meridian and they slowly chase it and you will see your horse transforming in front of your eyes and I think if we're listening quietly, we just changed to, we started breathing deeper. We started relaxing. We connected without doing something and not expecting a result. Just listening. It's lovely. It's so lovely
It's hard for humans and so, because we're used to being busy and like you say, our minds, even if we were relaxing, it's what am I doing tomorrow, what's going on there? But it's good training because when you with the horse and you're more, you're more focused and it helps you to just quite in your mind down and just to bring that soft in it, energy in which I love.
But even though I do what I do, you know, it's different with my own horse and I miss lots of things and life gets in the way and sometimes, you know but it's easier just to get on with the day and then I'd beat myself up afterwards, which it shouldn't do but I do cause I'm only human and then I feel really bad but sometimes if I'm going through stuff and thisthere'slots of changes, that's when it knocks you off balance easier and it's a bit harder to just get that nice little rip or rather than
the ups and downs. I think if you're aware of it, it's always going to happen, but if you're aware of it, you can go, okay, I'm doing it again and then the timescale between those sessions is smaller because we're not monks and we don't live on a mountain and we can't just meditate. My best meditating is poo picking, great ideas come from when I'm poo picking Bernadette.
It's very zen, chop wood, carry water poop.
it's been really lovely chatting to you, I'd got loads of questions in my head but I didn't write them down and I should have but it was lovely chatting to you and I hope that you'd like to do this again sometime, actually I've got one question, cause it's just come to me, my intuition is saying, you've got to say this. You was talking earlier about that young child, the version of you.
So if you could say something to that child, the one that didn't know she was going to have a horse and 53 acres, beautiful husband that she shares her life with. Just before she gets into the age where she's thinking, what's my life going to be, would you like to say to that young Bernadette, if you could see her now in front of you.
That's a very good question, you know what I think I would tell her kind of like don't sweat the small stuff and realize that your daydreams can come true., Go for what you want, not what you don't want. So I feel like we fill our days with, I should do this and we should actually be following more of what we would like to do, does that make sense?
And then follow that with a, a good heart, because I think that if I get lost in worry, doubt and fear, that take me down a very dark hole and I can never see an answer for that. And if I'm not careful at the ranch, I can be looking around for problems instead of looking at the beautiful horses and imagining them healthy. So imagining what you want to have, not what you don't want to have. And it feels like you're helping by being worried but you're not, I I've gone there and it doesn't help.
So you picture what you need, like even now I don't know where the hay is going to come from. I'm going to picture that we have a pasture full of big rounds horses, and you know what? It's always worked out. Even when I see that there's no other options, the miracle happens. So I totally believe in miracles. And I think that they come because you keep your options open by staying positive and looking for the good and yeah what you want, does that make sense?
Absolutely. someone we said that to me the other day I know about their masters in method, my dear friend's Sam, she tutors, Masterson and she's moving away, she's got a home and then moving away. So the horses going with them. So we've got to find homes for our horses and my horse has been there for the last seven years. And it's changed and it's actually what I've been asking for.
I've been asking the universe, I need to move forward but it's not just about moving my horse, I need to move forward. I need to do more of what I love and it's not just about.
so where's carry vibration, so when we have a conversation with somebody, the vibrations in that energy that we carry it has meaning and it connects with whoever and it might be you say something, they hear it and there's a little key, there's a little key and it's unlocked something and not necessarily straight away, it can be later.
And I think this is part of what I'm doing, so I love doing interviews and I love meeting my clients with the horses but I always say to them, it's, it's 90%, 80% the person, not the horse. It doesn't mean to say the horses don't have problems and they have things put for them. They need that human to just offload and just see and then the almost go away with thank goodness for that.
The physical things are still there, but I'm sure, you know, as a lot of people know if your head is in a good place, the physical you've put with with, or you just get through it. If your head is in a bad place, the pain in your body is 10 times worse because your head is actually adding into that.
Keep going. What was the same before then Bernadette. I know, but it becomes life changing. I look at our life before, which I thought was very fulfilling and Zhum came into our life. This desire to have horses back in my life, completely changed our trajectory. We just diverted completely from where we might've been going. And as far as myself and I think John too, that I feel like now we have a life on purpose and not just about working and accumulating things.
It is life that gives back and I think that then we saw the difference for us, you know, I don't know how fulfilling that would have been for us eventually. So we did the right thing at that time but of horses has helped guide us to a different path. I just think how lucky we are that we had that, and then we followed it and this is where it took us and just such remarkable people, you know?
And it's your passion? I think if you do whatever your passion is, that you're giving out, that's what you draw back to you And you get up in the day and it doesn't matter how hard it is sometimes and yeah, it's never always a bowl of cherries, but you think, well, I've got this and I can do this, I'm so lucky.
my world at the minute is I work with a lot of horses and I see my clients and I love that and I get to travel but he also have a part-time job, which I call that my bread and butter work, you know, that's always there, but I want to go more into what I'm doing because this is my passion and I feel it. I don't know where don't have a crystal ball but it's expanding and I just trust it'll take me wherever I need to go and it's not just about me.
It's whoever I'm connected to wherever I connect and I love that. I love the fact that you don't actually know but you can just feel there's something exciting just there and sometimes I get impatient, I'm told soon but I'm well aware now that timeframe in another dimension is not the same as this planet two timeframe soon can be like 20 years later soon.
Yes exactly and it's part the journey right? So even though we want, wanted to go straight ahead, whether it was mistakes or failures or just diversions happen but they also got us prepared for when we get what we wanted. Yes. Sometimes you get things too fast and you're not ready, you know, it's not that you're not able to manifest it, you are.
Now you got to really catch up to know how to handle this and so I've gotten a little more contemplative about, I know now if you aim to what you want, if you keep your mind clear and you really focus on even the smallest details of what it might look like, it will happen and just trust it. And trust it's going to happen in the perfect way. In the perfect time.
I have a really good friend and she works with the mind, she's an animal communicator but she's gone into working with humans and the minds and she used to in so many different monitors to go with their skills and she always say is which I truly believe myself because I realized that about myself, you can be spiritual, you can be knowing but if your head has a stronger opinion than that, it's that, that gets in the way. But also, what once was it protection, what once was a safeguard for you?
It keeps you there because it feels safe and sometimes that's when you get the struggle, you know, that you should be moving, you know, should be doing something, but there's almost like two parts of you and it's the conflict and sometimes even though you know that, and you've tried everything to shift past that you just need a little help and she helped me, with a few little things and it's amazing, she does kinesiology muscle testing.
We were sitting a chair she was saying, I'm going to read this story, but I'm gonna ask you a question and I said Okay. I know what the answer to your question is before you can say it and it's it's no, because I could feel my body shifting in the chair and it was like it's getting uncomfortable.
So once you're aware of your body, you know that it's reacting, even though, your spirit, your essence of you is no, no this is it and it's like no, I'm staying in right here and it's quite funny, I talk like two aspects in me and sometimes I'll have a conversation say, right. I know that was then but this is now, okay.
We're not going down that same road and I'm talking to myself in the car driving along and I'm having this conversation with myself and sometimes I give myself a good telling off i say they forgot to say, go get a grip.
That's the old you, this is not who you are now and when you're aware of that, it becomes easier but those moments are less, the same as when you're with your horse and they help ground you, those moments, they still happen but they become less and I always look to me first, I always think what am I not doing because it starts with me.
That's right though, I don't think we can do it by ourselves, whether it's our horses helping us or someone else who has a different perspective or a different insight, I think that all of that helps. so we have to go out of our comfort zone to help us and those are some tough ones when we feel like we have to kind of put our armor on, cause that's how we get through the world. We have our shield up and then it's like, okay, I put my shield down but then we can learn.
And if we realize that we don't need the shield anymore, that's a big difference but I do think it's good to have help. I think that's why I love like-minded people find each other because they support and help each other and they all kind of are going the same direction. It doesn't mean we're homogenous to the point, we can't think separately but I think it's important to know you're not alone in your journey
You don't always have to agree with each other, I think as you get older, it's like showing people that you have an opinion and you want to be noticed, I think it's about more about being noticed. Whereas now everybody can have their own opinion and you have to respect that but you can still stay sure in yours if it's coming from the right place and you feel it, you have to honor it and be true to who you are.
I recently listened to the gentlemen that I listened to and he talks about the energies of the month and he was saying that at the minute, there's lots of big changes and big energies going on and lots of confrontation and things and he said about staying with who you are but not burying that emotion because it's meant to come up.
Because this is time for healing and he talks about, if you feel angry or he feels scared or fearful because of what you see on the news, he says, I acknowledge that to yourself and allow that feeling because as it comes through, it's like flushing something out and that's what we're supposed to be doing, not supposed to be getting angry, upset, and trying to sort of keep it in it's meant to flow through, right It's not supposed to be like long-term now.
So we don't keep it in our heads and go on about it and talk to somebody I spell it for months and months. We recognize it in ourselves, we acknowledge it, we feel it. And then once it's past like that cloud and then you can let the next bit. I think this is on a planetary level that this is going on. But before we go, I'm going back to my intuition when I was looking at you talking and I asked you the question about, what would you say to the young Bernadette.
I'm getting in age now, I'm getting a young woman Bernadette, and she feels 20, 23. So please forgive me if this doesn't feel like you then and I feel that you're on the cuffed of something and it's a change within yourself but it's an understanding.
And what I'm being told is there was a point in your life, and this might not be the exact age that how you thought were things were coming through and you recognize it because you could have gone a different route but what the saying is you opened up to you and you were channeling you and this is when you connected big time with you as, as a young adult. I'm not sure I'm making sense here, what I'm trying to do is translate it as it's come in, so does any of that make sense Bernadette yeah
which totally makes sense? Yes, I think that there comes a time when all the things you've been taught to believe you have to question them and say, do I believe this? Am I in alignment with this? And if I'm not, it was kind of, where you were saying before about your body moving. I feel like there was almost a physical dissonance happening inside me that says I can't do that anymore. You know? And I would try to use that as my guide that I can't walk that walk anymore.
I can't pretend that I like that, I'm going to go along with that philosophy. I mean that spirituality, I'm not, I'm just not going to do it anymore. And I think that is true that yeah, kind of shucked everything.
I think at the time, before my late twenties, I got into martial arts and I had two children then my first son was born when I was 22 and the second one was dramatized 26 and I wanted to know if they could take care of themselves but I wanted to make sure they had a martial art that was also very, sounds weird, not aggressive but more about building up their own sense of self-esteem and their place in the world and to ground them so that they wouldn't in a physical sense ever feel like they had
to do something that they could make their own choices. So I got into martial arts then and I realized a lot of people thought that I had taken that on as a religion because I was very devoted to what physically it was doing in terms of grounding me and being positive. And again, this idea that our bodies are really programmed to be so positive. If you lift weights, you will get stronger. If you do this, you will get that.
But somehow in our mind, we doubt that, but in fact, anything we do consistently we will get, so that's thoughts, actions, all of it translates that way and I think martial arts kind of showed me that then you could just take a stance and you could have this confidence that came from physical sense of balance and coordination and a skillset, you know, if you needed it.
so yeah, but I wasn't feeling that in other places, they were walking their walk, you were talking about in these terms and they were actually doing that, as opposed to people who talk one thing and do something else, you know, they talk about, this is only for self-defense, but actually they were looking for a fight and you're like, well that's not actually it isn't, it you're looking to fight then that's not the same and I feel like there are a lot of people that were talking one way, whether
it was religious connotations or something else, but they weren't acting at that love. Wasn't transferring across the board and so yeah.
Thank you for sharing. When I'm talking to people I get things that come forward and, and it's like, remembered to say that, and I got something else, but yeah, I'm going to say that privately actually. So thank you so much for tonight's interview, I hope you felt relaxed and I always feel a bit nervous when I come on but I like to be prepared and the computer was playing up and I sort of came on with a bit too much high energy.
So I hope that I made you feel relaxed and I will love to do this again and maybe next time I have John with you because that'd be nice and we can talk about your life together and from his perspective Bernadette
that'd be fair.
Whether he really believes he's retired.
Yeah right that would be true. you should have John's perspective
so is there anything that you'd like to say before you go or.
No I think you did a great interview by the way. I enjoyed talking to you when you came and how fun that was really nice and the things that happen in happy dog, it's a village, you know, we have amazing staff, grey Louise, Brian, my son, John. I mean, people come and visit at that volunteers. So it isn't one person. It may have been started with a dream that we didn't realize what we were dreaming, but the reality of it is all these other people are in place and hearts that are moving.
So, yeah.
It's a community community. It's a loving community and that's definitely what I definitely felt that, and obviously everybody else does because you have such amazing reviews and Sue can't say enough good things about it so
Thank you, Ronnie I enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed this interview Bernadette it it's lovely and everybody happy Dog Ranch. If you want to know any more about it, I shall put a link on so you can go straight to the website and Facebook page. And if you want to ask any questions Bernadette, I'm sure she'll get back to you through the website or Facebook page once again and they do have an Instagram account as well. Thank you very much and catch up with you soon, bye for now bye.