By paNOW

At Rivers North Ranch, horses teach people

Aug 2, 2013 | 1:34 AM

Viki Neubuhr Keays leans against a rail fence, intensely watching horses with students as they navigate a series of obstacles during a Recognized Equine Assisted Learning session at Rivers North Ranch near MacDowall.

“In this program, horses teach people,” she said. “I am not a teacher and these are not classes. I facilitate learning experiences using the horses.”

Just then, she excuses herself to go to a student who is being challenged with an exercise to back her horse up in a straight line between two boards.

To ask a horse to back up, a student presses firmly on the horse’s chest. Keays reminds students that horses, like people, don’t like to be pushed around and that the more people or horses are pushed and pushed and pushed the more irritated and frustrated they get.

“Look at the horses ears,” Keays reminds the student. “When the ears are going back, they are feeling annoyed. Push and when the horse steps back and does what you like, release. How do you feel if someone pushes you to do something and you do it and they keep pushing and keep pushing? Annoyed? Frustrated? Like you want to give up? We shouldn’t do this to horses and we shouldn’t do this to people.”

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The student pushes gently on the horse’s chest and releases pressure. The horse backs up a few steps. One more gentle push on the chest and the horse has done the task and both horse and student are happy.

And so, the student has learned an important life lesson from a horse.

“We use this technique for so many people and so many situations,” Keays says. “It’s a great program to learn team building, to help recover from addictions, children and adults with self-esteem issues, relationship building including family relationships. People come out here who have been looking for work and that can be really hard on a person’s ego. We use the horses to teach people about trust, respect, silent communication and body language. Really, there is just so much that people can and actually need to learn from horses for all kinds of healing. We have a couple ladies with cancer who come out here just to be with the horses and find incredible healing in that.”

Horses are powerful teaching tools because they immediately respond to what a human is doing and even feeling. “A horse can tell how you are feeling from 50 feet away,” Keays reminds her students. In the Equine Assisted Learning Program, Keays looks for teachable moments that horses identify with their body language.

Facilitators such as Keays are also able to use the horses to help with children and adults that need healing because horses are natural more nurturing to such students.

One boy during the session has slight cerebral palsy which leaves him weak on one side. Keays takes him to ride bareback with her for a while. The horse’s ears move straight up – a sign of pleasure. And as he moves along, Keays notes how riding, especially bareback, will increase strength and balance in addition to creating a sense of pleasure and accomplishment.

Other children with learning issues find peace from the horses in a process that allows them to calmly learn a variety of small achievable tasks.

“Horses don’t judge, but they don’t forget either. They don’t let you cheat and their feedback is honest and instant. Learning to listen to what horses have to say is powerful and can often spur the answer to individual change. They can magnify and mirror an individual’s problem immediately and provide the skilled facilitator with an opportunity to identify and individual’s character.”

One of the exercises involved students working in teams to bring their horse into a small square with one small opening. The instruction simply was that the team needed to get the horse into the square without the horse stepping over a rail. One student asked her teammate if a rail could be moved. The teammate said no, that there was a small opening to use.

After the course was finished, Keays commented on the team’s dialogue. Both teammates would have been correct. There was a small opening to use, an obvious answer but there was nothing in the rules saying that a pole could not be moved. In that exercise, the facilitator learned about how each team mate responded to problem solving.

“I’ve always been interested in people,” Keays says. “About four years ago my brother (who lives on the ranch) had some heart issues and I thought this kind of program would be good for him to work at. We got looking into it and found that Cartier’s Equine Learning Centre just near Spruce Home offered certification. It ended up that I was the one that ended up taking this on, but it’s been an amazing experience.”

Rivers North Ranch hosts Equine Assisted Learning sessions twice a month and does workshops with groups, companies and even schools. For larger groups, Keays refers the workshop to the larger facility at Cartier’s. Likewise, if Cartier’s have a larger group, they bring Keays in.

Rivers North Ranch also offers trail rides with horses at a cost of $25 per horse per hour and Wagon Rides in Summer or Sleigh Rides in Winter for groups up to 12 for $125. Schools, family groups, reunions and even weddings happily use the services provided at the ranch.

For more information on the Rivers North Ranch and the Equine Assisted Learning Program go to their website at:
http://riversnorthranch.vpweb.ca or their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/RiversNorthRanch .

kcay@panow.com

On Twitter: @KarenspaNOW