In this three part series we’re joined by Dr. Susan Schneider is a behavior analyst. She is the author of “The Science of Consequences” which many of you may have read. Normally when we have behavior analysts as guests we talk about academic subjects such as schedules of reinforcement.

In this case I wanted to talk to Susan about what horse people can do to help mitigate the climate change crisis.

For the past eight years Susan has made climate change her primary focus.

Her work on climate change and sustainability includes outreach, community projects, organizing, academic and nonacademic publications, and extensive public speaking.  As Senior Scientist for the sustainability nonprofit Root Solutions, Dr Schneider helped design projects and coauthored two chapters in its 2022 guidebook, Making Shift Happen: Designing for Successful Environmental Behavior Change.  

Recent outreach includes a podcast for the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Schneider’s award-winning book for the public, The Science of Consequences, covers basic learning principles, their role in nature-nurture relations, and their broad range of applications, including sustainability. 

Schneider is on the faculty at Western Michigan University and serves on its Climate Change Working Group. She also serves on the Tools of Change Landmark Peer Review Panel for Climate Change, and on the board of the nonprofit Green Driving America.

Now if you are wondering why a podcast about all things equine is talking about climate change, here’s the connection. Horses are grazing animals. That means that collectively horse people own, manage, make decisions about a huge amount of land. What we are learning is healthy pastures help to contribute to healthy horses.

Healthy pastures also contribute to biodiversity. Healthy pastures come from healthy soils. Improved soil quality absorbs more water which helps to reduce flooding. Healthy soils also sequesters carbon.

So horse people can help in the climate change crisis through the way we manage our land. It’s one of those win-win-win situations. Healthier pastures are good for our horses which is good for us and it’s also good for the planet.

I wanted to explore three major topics with Dr. Schneider. The first is where are we now in terms of climate change? Why should we care? The second is what can we do to make a difference. And the third area is how can we talk to others without shutting them down and driving them away? There are lessons to be learned here not just about how do we talk about climate change, but how do we talk about positive reinforcement training when we’re surrounded by command-based trainers.

In part 1 I set the stage for this conversation and then Dr. Schneider took us to some hopeful solutions that are available to all of us.

Our guest this week is Anita Schnee. Anita is a Feldenkrais™ practitioner who has joined us many times on this podcast. During the recent conversation we recorded with Dr Brennan Armshaw and Dr Claire St Peter (episodes 324 and 325), I kept thinking - I wish we had invited Anita.

Well, it turns out Anita was listening. Anita offers Awareness Through Movement classes twice a month via zoom. After listening to the podcast I did with Dr, Armshaw, the introduction to Anita’s next on-line ATM lesson was built around his work. That conversation generated all kinds of fun connections for Anita.

In last week’s episode much of the focus was on what happens in the body when there’s an injury. Dr. Armshaw uses electromyography biofeedback to help people recover from injury. The Feldenkrais™ work also provides a pathway towards recovery. In this episode we’re going to switch the focus to look at why starting small is so effective. In her introduction to the Feldenkrais™ work from last week’s episode Anita made the point that this work is not exercise. It is not physical therapy. It is not yoga or pilates. So what is it?

What I would say is the Feldnekrais™ work comes first. Through the awareness lessons you learn how to move well so when you engage in these other activities you are better able to perform well. That includes the work we do with our horses. Starting small is effective for us, and it is certainly effective with our horses. The “why” behind this is what we’re going to be talking about.

Our guest this week is Anita Schnee. Anita is a Feldenkrais™ practitioner who has joined us many times on this podcast. During the recent conversation we recorded with Dr Brennan Armshaw and Dr Claire St Peter (episodes 324 and 325), I kept thinking - I wish we had invited Anita.

Well it turns out Anita was listening. Anita offers Awareness Through Movement classes twice a month via zoom. The introduction to her next on-line ATM lesson was built around Dr. Armshaw’s work. It was sparking off all kinds of fun connections.

I loved Anita’s introduction to that evening’s class. Of course, I wanted her to join me in a conversation, so here we are. We begin with a much better description of the Feldenkrais™ work than I provided during Dr. Armshaw’s podcast. Dr. Armshaw uses electromyography biofeedback to shape at the level of the activation of individual muscle fibers. Compared with his starting point we are all massively lumping!

What interests me in this is what can be achieved when you start small. When we look for what comes before what comes before the action we are interested in, good things happen. Dr. Armshaw and Anita are helping us to understand what happens when we start small.

This week we are joined by two behavior analysts. Dr. Claire St Peter is the chair of behavior analysis at the University of West Virginia. She has been a frequent guest on this podcast. We are also joined by Dr. Brennan Armshaw, who also teaches at the University of West Virginia. Claire is a horse person so she’s able to bridge the world between behavior analysis and horse training. Dr. Armshaw has not yet been drawn into the world of horses, but his work is of great interest to me.

As we learned, in Part 1 Dr. Armshaw takes starting small to a whole new level of smallness. He shapes at the level of individual muscle fibers firing which he measures with surface Electromyography. Surface electromyography records the electrical activity of targeted muscles. Dr Armshaw has been using surface electromyography biofeedback to improve outcomes for patients undergoing physical therapy.

This may seem a long way from horse training, but given the number of injuries horses people sustain plus all the injuries we treat our horses for, our conversation should get some wheels turning. My interest is in what Dr. Armshaw has been discovering as he begins small. With the horses we see over and over again the value of microshaping. In this episode Dr Armshaw helps us understand why starting small can produce such huge results.

This week we are joined by two behavior analysts. Dr. Claire St Peter is the chair of behavior analysis at the University of West Virginia. She has been a frequent guest on this podcast. We are also joined by Dr. Brennan Armshaw. Claire is a horse person so she’s able to bridge the world between behavior analysis and horse training. Dr. Armshaw has not yet been drawn into the world of horses, but his work is of great interest to me. We have talked a lot about micro shaping in these podcasts and the importance of starting small. Dr. Armshaw’s work makes us all seem like lumpers. Using Surface electromyography, he has been training responses at the level of the firing of individual muscle fibers.

His research brings new insights into how starting small can create the huge results we see.

We want to start small. That’s an important part of loopy training and constructional training in general. You begin with a small, simple, easily achieved response which means you are starting with a high success rate resulting in a high rate of reinforcement.

This is great from your horse’s point of view. Very little effort yields consistent goodies.

From our point of view we want to start small but we don’t want to stay small. Staying small means you are staying stuck in the narrow end of the funnel. Instead of the behavior expanding through gentle nudges, you are stuck in a tight cylinder.

In this episode we look at different strategies for breaking free of the narrow cylinder so your training can expand into ever more complex behavior.

Dominique and I spent a very hot June afternoon recording this three part conversation. In the previous episode we talked about the weather because when it’s over a hundred degrees, it’s hard to think about anything else. We shared what we do to keep our horses comfortable in this extreme heat.

We also talked about neck ropes. I described what you can use them for and how you introduce neck ropes to your horse. We ended with the neck rope evolving into a trailer loading lesson and then into ground driving.

At the start of this lesson Dominique is asking about the difference between handlers who are absent versus handlers who are light. This leads to a discussion of riding on a release versus riding on contact. We talk about the difference between describing what an experienced riding is doing to influence her horse versus describing the process that got her to the result you’re admiring.

We also talk about mounting blocks and how to teach your horse to line himself up next to the mounting block.

It’s hot. The day we recorded this conversation it was 105 degrees (Fahrenheit) where Dominique lives. My area was positively balmy by comparison. It was only 94 degrees.

So the weather is what we both wanted to talk about and more specifically how do we manage our horses when the temperatures are so extreme? We aren’t authorities on horse care. We’re just two horse owners who worry a lot about our horses’ well being. In the first half of this podcast we exchange ideas about how to deal with extreme temperatures. Hot weather leads to talking about something else that’s very current for me and that’s ticks.

The first half of our conversation is about management. The second half is all training. I describe how to introduce a the use of a neck rope. Working in a neck rope is a great stepping stone towards riding. It also evolves into a lesson that helps prep a horse for riding in a trailer, and for ground driving.

This is Part 3 of a conversation with Muna Clough. I’ve wanted to have Muna on the podcast for quite a while. She’s a participant in my on-line clinics along with her Irish Draft cross, Frank. One of the first videos she sent me showed Frank rearing up at her and then snaking his head around and biting at her legs.

In the more recent videos Muna has been teaching a calm Frank lateral work. The change in their relationship has been an absolute pleasure to watch. I wanted Muna to share with us the process she’s gone through to create this transformation. I can make suggestions, but we have an ocean separating us. It has been Muna who has done all the training. She’s created the changes that we’re seeing.

In this episode we talk about the principles Muna has used to guide her choices with Frank. These principles let you weave a strong safety net under a horse. I’m always so appreciative when people share their training stories. It’s very much a pay it forward system. There’s always someone listening who is where they used to be with a horse. Sharing what worked, what they learned, the process they went through to get where they are today - all of that helps the next person who’s new to this way of training.

It is always go to people for opinions and horses for answers. We can’t invite Frank onto the podcast but we can very much ask Muna to join us so she can share his story.

We ended last time with a discussion of principles and that’s where we pick up as we rejoin the conversation in Part 3.

This is Part 2 of a conversation with Muna Clough. I’ve wanted to have Muna on the podcast for quite a while. She’s a participant in my on-line clinics along with her Irish Draft cross, Frank. One of the first videos she sent me showed Frank rearing up at her and then snaking his head around and biting at her legs.

In the more recent videos Muna has been teaching Frank lateral work. The change in their relationship has been an absolute pleasure to watch. I wanted Muna to share with us the process she’s gone through to create this transformation. I can make suggestions, but we have an ocean separating us. It has been Muna who has done all the training. She’s created the changes that we’re seeing.

I’m always so appreciative when people share their training stories. It’s very much a pay it forward system. There’s always someone listening who is where they used to be with a horse. Sharing what worked, what they learned, the process they went through to get where they are today - all of that helps the next person who’s new to this way of training.

In this episode we talk about “hot potato” horses. These are horses with issues somebody else didn’t want to deal with so they passed the horse on to some unsuspecting person who now has to figure out what to do with the “hot potato”. I share stories of other “hot potato” horses and Muna talks about how she worked with Frank to transform their relationship.