http://www.insideouthorsetraining.com/

Inside Out Horse Training, 2275 Finley Rd., Minooka, IL (2025)

06/13/2025

We had a wonderful workshop today with Elizabeth Appleyard . Happy horses and developing better connections!

06/10/2025

So well written and I love this sign!

https://www.facebook.com/share/15qvC4nXK6/

One of the best things I heard the other day, I think it was on a podcast, is the idea of us trying to establish ‘moral dominance.’

That describes so well what I ran into in parts of the clicker training community, as well as parts of the overlapping consent-focused/non-escalating communities…

This isn’t even necessarily something that is extrinsically taught or overtly modeled, as much as it is something that intrinsically pops up, rooted mostly in the projection cast from our own guilt and shame.

So it can exist within an individual who isn’t even connected to any particular community.

What’s fascinating, is we can use behavioral science to understand why people get stuck in certain behavioral science subsets.

In some of these communities, the main motivator and reinforcer can become the back-and-forth validation between people, rather than any objective observation of positive change for the horse.

The back-and-forth validation of moral superiority within a group, or within ourselves, becomes addictive, because the dopamine we receive from that gives a respite from the negative emotions we feel about training outside of that scope, whether that’s extrinsically or intrinsically rooted.

Maybe someone made us feel shame, or we’ve made ourselves feel shame, and we don’t want to face that.

I’ve seen so many people get stuck in their own past trauma around boundaries and communication, project that onto their horse, and keep themselves stuck in a loop of having their avoidance around those issues validated.

Within a community, it can be that much more difficult to get out of that loop.

Things can get so emotionally charged when any of that gets challenged, and I choose not to engage with anyone actively struggling with that, because they need to do their own internal work, separately from their horsemanship.

I know that, because I’ve been there.

It’s difficult to have a conversation with someone who’s stuck there, because if people aren’t doing things their way, it’s always chalked up to moral inferiority, not being enlightened enough or evolved enough yet.

Coming out the other side of strict clicker training, consent-focused, and non-escalating modalities, I can say that it is absolutely possible to be able to understand those things really well, be able to implement those things really well, and still choose to work outside of them when it’s what’s best for the horse.

Not because it’s a shortcut, not because of some moral or ethical failure, but because we’re able to discern when it serves the horse, and when it doesn’t.

Again, and again, horses ask us to transcend our human baggage and meet them where they are.

That is why horsemanship is the journey of a lifetime.

05/28/2025

02/15/2025

Trip (TTT Flashy Whiz) arrived 4 weeks ago from Stone Valleys Ray of Hope Arabian Rescue. At that time he would not let anyone touch him. Today, he enjoyed a vigorous scratching. He's going to be a great horse!

01/19/2025

We're so happy to welcome this guy to the farm! Thanks much to Roz Wilde, Horse Transport, for the excellent job getting him to us from Stone Valleys Ray of Hope Arabian Rescue! We're looking forward to the adventures to come!