The Horse Listener

01/01/2025

Happy New Year to all you horse lovers out there.
So I've been fostering Nova for Amanda Vella's - Bella Vita Equine Welfare and Horse Sanctuary for over two years now. Nova arrived at my place emaciated and pregnant, having been purchased by a dogger at Laidley sales and saved by the fine people at Equine Voice Australia (E.V.A.) She is, without a doubt, the most traumatised horse I've dealt with in almost 50 years of horse rescue. I firmly believe she's had an electric cattle prod used on her flanks and rear end, and to catch her I still need to use a tiny yard and a LOT of patience. But this girl has really tried - particularly when I surrendered and gave in to her timeframe - to trust me, in the tiniest of increments. She took her first carrot from me while the Olympics were on, and I awarded her a special Gold Medal, in the form of an extra carrot! She's gradually relaxed and allowed me to slightly cup my hand around her mouth to take the carrot, and now she's allowing me to touch her head very lightly. This morning she managed to sneak some carrots away from her paddock mates, Taz and Tyra, and I honestly think she's beginning to enjoy interacting with me. All four of us, three horses and one human, brought up her lovely foal Comet, now with my friend Cass at CSF Horsemanship. All of us were sad but also relieved when he left us as a bouncy two-year-old, and now we will see what further progress this sweet little mare can make in 2025, in her own time, and at her own pace. 🩷

18/12/2024

How often do you get to play with not one, not two but THREE Brumbies? Not often is the answer, but recently on the way back from Sydney I got to stop at one of my favourite places, with one of my favourite people - Kathy Holtrust's Southern Cross Horse Treks (Kerewong) Australia at Kerewong, inland from Port Macquarie. I couldn't wait to see the Blonde Brumby again, and his Brumby brother Dodge, but I was a little sad that it seemed although Dodge was fully embracing his life as a boutique trail-riding horse, Blondie was finding the change of riders a bit worrisome. Kathy explained that he seemed to find it hard to relax, so before I started to lead him around Kathy's brilliant obstacle course, I took some time to just breathe, walk, breathe, stop, breathe, walk, breathe, stop, breathe, and pretty soon that beautiful golden boy was as relaxed as anything.

Kathy wrote a beautiful post about my visit, and was kind enough to post these lovely words on her page:

"Today the focus for Candy and I was the Obstacle Course, and I was so pleased to see Blondie calm, relaxed and content. The Blonde Brumby has worked tremendously hard for me over recent years, and while he's a fantastic trail horse, he's a softie who struggles mentally with the inconsistency of different handlers and riders (it stresses him out tbh), and physically with the fact that I still haven't found a well-fitting saddle for him. Since he's being given a rest from riding, Candy led him around the obstacle course and he was the most relaxed I've seen him in a long time. Instead of the usual rushing he actually stood still and relaxed on top of the obstacles.
It shows that a gentle, kind and reassuring handler without a time frame or goals mindset, can make a big difference to the mental wellbeing of a horse.
The Gold Nugget Brumby Dodge was happy to carry Candy along the obstacles and Kalypso made the Brumby experience complete."

It really is the most wonderful feeling when you know that the horses with you - particularly when they are not your own - are completely at ease.
It's been a big year working with many different horses - and I can't wait for 2025.

05/12/2024

This is a wonderful explanation of why Slow is always Best with horses. Charlotte Moore - CM Training gives clarity to so many of the behaviours and reactions I’ve observed with horses over the years - particularly rescue horses. 💓

Comparative neurobiology of horse and human.

Horses and humans are both mammals.
Our brains may not be the same size, but they are almost identical in their structure and function.

Why can our brains look so similar but our behaviours and sensitivity to the world look so different?

The area in the picture highlighted is the prefrontal cortex or the (PFC). Its job in humans, horses, dogs, dolphins, elephants, cats, mice, rats, all mammals, and even birds is to carry out "higher executive functions" such as:

🧠 problem solving
🧠 decision making
🧠 reasoning
🧠 risk assessment
🧠 forward planning
🧠 impulse control
🧠 intention

Obviously, these executive functions are more advanced in humans than in other species of mammals, but this part of the brain plays a pivotal role in higher levels of learning beyond primal behaviours and learning survival skills.

So why aren't we seeing these higher executive functioning skills and behaviours in horses as much as what we see them in dogs, dolphins, elephants and even birds?

Ultimately it comes down to safety!

The latest neuroscience research suggests that when the brain feels unsafe it causes the body to produce stress response hormones and these stress response hormones cause the PFC to go "offline".
This means that subcortical regions of the brain (deeper parts of the brain) such as the primal brain (AKA limbic system, survival brain, flight/fight brain) completely take over to increase the chances of survival.

Feeling unsafe causes the feeling of fear and it is fear that gets this party started.

So behaviours come from two areas:

1. The PFC, carrying out problem solving skills, reasoning, impulse control, forward planning etc. that may be interpreted as "obedience" and "partnership".

2. The primal brain, carrying out reactive survival behaviours. This brain does NOT carry out impulse control, forward planning, problem solving, etc. It just reacts to the world. This brain heavily relies on patterns and consistency. This brain will cause freeze/flight/fight behaviours such as shutting down, bolting, biting, rearing, bucking, kicking, barging, etc.

Which brain is the domesticated horse spending most of it's time in?
It's primal brain!

This is why we don't get to see their full intellectual and cognitive potential because most of the time, domesticated horses are perceiving their world in a fearful way to some degree.

We can help our horses with this!

Feeling fearful is the OPPOSITE to feeling calm.
If we want to help our horses access their PFC then we MUST do whatever it takes to help them feel calm.

☝️ ONLY when a brain feels calm can it slow down enough to develop TRUE confidence. Only when the brain feels confident will it access TRUE cognition (PFC).

☝️ We first need to understand that when we get "bad behaviour" from our horses, it's not intentional or naughty or rude. What you are seeing is either a horse that is just reacting to the fear they feel or they are carrying out their "coping mechanism" in response to their anticipation of feeling fear.

☝️ Try to remove expectations that your horse should "know better".
"Knowing better" implies that all behaviours are coming from the PFC and there should be some impulse control and reasoning. Unless your horse feels calm, they can't access the PFC to "know better".

THIS STARTS WITH YOU!!!

You need to be consciously aware if YOU feel calm first. If you feel calm, your horse will have a better chance at feeling calm. Expecting them to feel calm when you don't is unfair.

The best way to create calmness is to intentionally be SLOW!!!
SLOW EVERYTHING you do down.
SLOW your movement down.
SLOW your talking down.
SLOW your walking down.
SLOW your breathing down.
SLOW your horse down.
If you feel too slow, then you're going slow enough.

Calmness is slow, not fast.

This will help you and your horse to connect and feel safe together.
When the brain feels stressed, the stress response hormones cause the body to speed up.

Stress = speed

We can reverse engineer this process and create a calm mind through slow intentional movement and a relaxed posture.

The by-product of a calm brain is confidence and cognition (PFC access).

Happy brain training 🧠
Charlotte 😊

Photo: Credit: Adult horse (equine) brain, sagittal section. Michael Frank, Royal Veterinary College. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

29/11/2024

HOW MANY 'RABBITS' CAN YOU AND YOUR HORSE TOLERATE?

After having the pleasure of being at WWarwick Schiller's Attuned HorsemanshipJourney On Podcast summit in Paso Robles recently, I've been listening to Warwick talking about all sorts of horse issues, one of them being the vexed queston of the so-called 'spooky' horse, and why a lot of them may not shy straight away, but will shy at something random, often after passing quite a few scary objects in a row.
Warwick talks about 'rabbits' and horses, and whether you have a four rabbit horse, for example, or a ten rabbit horse, or even, if you're lucky, a 200 rabbit horse.
In my experience, horses and humans can be very good at holding internal tension and not necessarily showing that they are reacting at something in the moment. They hold it together, and then - wham - they reach the last rabbit, and things explode! I have nine horses, varying from a highly traumatised and abused little mare I foster for AAmanda Vella's - Bella Vita Equine Welfare and Horse Sanctuary who has gone from a no-rabbit horse to a one rabbit horse in two-and-a-half years, to a horse that arrived five years ago as a two-rabbit horse, and is now around a five or six rabbit horse, to a wonderful, apparently limitless rabbit horse.
So it set me thinking about how for a horse, it feels that being scared is a way to keep itself safe, and how teaching it to self-regulate just a little more can really change how it feels about the world and increase its trust in its handler. As a horse person, we need to know how many rabbits we can handle as well, and to understand that each horse and human has a different limit. The less reactive we can be, the more rabbits our horses can gradually handle. It's a great analogy to reflect on, and an idea that's also giving me hours of entertainment. Thank you Warwick for your insights.🙂🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇

24/11/2024

What a wonderful success story. Thank you Amanda Vella's - Bella Vita Equine Welfare and Horse Sanctuary for everything you do.

18/11/2024

OUR EQUUS CHRISTMAS RAFFLE IS SELLING QUICKLY!

It's never been easier to buy a ticket for our amazing Equus Alliance Christmas Raffle! We now have a Shop Now button on our post, which takes you straight to the raffle page. Tickets are only $5 and every ticket sold goes to support our rescue horses in care. We have a truly beautiful array of prizes donated by so many lovely local businesses - pop over and have a look! You won't be disappointed, I promise.

01/11/2024

CLINIC IS ON FOR NOVEMBER 9 AND 10TH

Well my friends - I'm all horsed up after my three weeks in the US, and we've rescheduled my horse listening clinic for the weekend of Saturday November 9 and Sunday November 10. I had to cancel the planned clinic at the end of September thanks to a massive amount of rain, and so I have just a few spots available - either with your own horse, or borrow one mine for a play date, or fence-sitting. If you're interested, send me a msg and I'll give you all the info.

25/10/2024

Tom Mayes at Warwick Schiller’s Journey on Podcast this morning was amazing. The material the speakers are presenting is mind-bogglingly fascinating. 👌💓

23/10/2024

I’ve driven from Wyoming to Sedona, and today I kept thinking how much I was missing horses. Lo and behold, I drove around a corner and there was this beautiful little herd! 😘 Off tomorrow towards Paso Robles where I will see plenty of live ones (horses that is) at the Warwick Schiller's Attuned Horsemanship Journey on Podcast Summit. What a wonderful way to end this three weeks - three days spent with a horse tribe, all attuned to making life better for horses. 💓

17/10/2024

So I’m having an incredible riding adventure through www.globetrotting.com.au at The Hideout Ranch in Shell, Wyoming, and one thing that is a standout here is the quality of the horses, and the adherence to natural horsemanship principles. The horses undergo an extensive training period with a senior wrangler for at least a year, and then when they are ridden by guests, they’re carefully matched with a rider, and given plenty of rest days between rides. The horses are happy, healthy and love going out. I can honestly think of only one other place in my many years (when I was younger) of wilderness and long trail riding, where the horses are as well cared for and delighted to go out, and that’s at my friend Kathy Holtrust’s beautiful boutique riding establishment, Kerewong, where she has a mixed herd of Arabians and Brumbies. Southern Cross Horse Treks (Kerewong) Australia 💓
After a long day yesterday on ‘Lil Blue’, a mustang QH cross, who was the accidental result of a champion QH cutting stallion jumping the fence one night 😂 Blue was given a rest day, and I was given ‘Mum’, a 15.2hh QH mare - and oh my goodness it was like sitting in - or on - a Cadillac. If I was to describe the difference between the two I would say that Blue is a ‘thinking’ horse and Mum, who has had a couple of foals, a ‘feeling’ horse. It wasn’t long before we were communicating about all sorts of things together, including her over-arching concern for the herd, her continuing connection to her now two grown up and working babies, and her deep affection for horses and humans. She’s 14 now, but until a few years ago, she was a lead mare, and still is by nature, but happy to be in front or a bit further back due to perhaps slightly feeling her age. I told her I understood completely 🥰
We had such a beautiful, in tune morning, that I decided to skip the afternoon ride. I spent a couple of hours with Mum in the barn, I groomed and brushed her, gave her reiki and finished up with some essential oils, which she loved.
It was the deepest pleasure to give this nurturer some nurturing. It really reminded me that these calm horses carry a lot in their hearts and minds in ways we often don’t realise. She enjoyed the oils so much that for sometime she just kept inhaling each new one and if I stopped, she’d gently nudge my hand until I offered again.
Her eyes dropped, her nostrils softened, her breath slowed and we were in a state of complete relaxation together.
Of course, the riding through such wild and extraordinary landscapes is the trip of a lifetime, but for me that sense of emotional connection with a horse is so important, and that few hours was just very, very special.

The Hideout Lodge & Guest Ranch

28/09/2024

Life imitates art - or cartoon. 🤦‍♀️At least my helper Lucy is still smiling. 💓

28/09/2024

Drowning. 160mm in 30 hours & still more up there. Plus gale force winds. 😢