I'm Steve fast and this is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. In this episode, we traveled to many acres, a central Illinois horse farm with miniature horses, in particular, miniature therapy horses, and it's feeding time.
That's up there's there's leap of faith. There's okay, this is Coco. She's, I got her when she was eight years old, and she is about 13. Now she needed to be rehome.
therapy animals have become a common sight at college campuses, nursing homes, schools and even hospitals. Studies have shown that for some, the simple act of petting a dog reduces blood pressure and stress levels. But it's not just dogs that are serving the role of therapy animals.
My name is Deb Murphy, and I have miniature horses, that I have trained to be therapy horses, which means they have been trained in order to visit a variety of different kinds of places. All ages, all disabilities are non disabilities, and they've done a great job.
Tell me a little bit about these horses. They are full grown horses,
the definition of a miniature horse that the end of their main on top of their back, that's called the withers were the main stops. A miniature horse is no taller than 36 inches at the withers. So their backs are 36 inches tall. If they're larger than that they're considered ponies or miniature ponies, depending on mom and dad. But miniature horses are 100% horse. There's nothing to distinguish them from a horse except their size. Well, so
how many do you have here
I have five I was only going to have two. But that doesn't always stay the case with horse people. I got into it about 14 years ago. I was going to start with just two horses and the place where I was purchasing them was a Rescue Ranch and not knowing exactly completely what I was getting into. Before I was ready to take them home because I purchased them from the owner of the Rescue Ranch. She also bred and sold horses. She called me and said that she had a miniature dwarf coming to be rescued. 10 month old and dwarf is a miniature horse that has dwarfism the same challenges as anyone diagnosed with dwarfism. She thought she'd make a great therapy horse but I would have to take mom also. So sight unseen my husband and I who didn't know any better said okay to four. What's the difference? She had some definite physical problems with a leg and we needed to work on that. But I started out with
four. What's the size of the miniature dwarf?
I could measure her for you. She's probably about 30 inches tall at the back.
What sort of criteria would make these horses therapy animals.
What you need is a horse that is not going to startle. That's not going to scare easily and is not going to be at all affected. By being touched, handled. Moved. My horses go in the van that I transport them in, they go on elevators, they go up and down stairs, they go in buildings, they can stand for two hours out of sight without moving more than three feet. They don't startle. They don't get scared. They allowed from the youngest child to the most elderly Alzheimer's patient, to interact with them, pet them, brush them, pull on them. They have been surrounded by kids that Headstart and don't move a muscle. We were in a parade, we were put in front of the fire engine. The sirens went off, the horn went off, the lights went off. They didn't get scared at all.
Now, is that a training thing? Or is that a temperament thing that comes maybe naturally to certain breeds?
I think it's possibly both. When people ask me I always say if you're going to do this, if you're going to start with a mini I would say get the miniature horse from a family. When I was in Texas I went to a place that breeds miniature horses and there were hundreds of them running in herds. Personally, this is my own personal opinion. They need to be handled daily by a variety of ages, by kids, they just need a lot of hands on and they need to be in a calm, nurturing environment. The dwarf that I got was 10 months old. The others were two. I just work with them constantly. Horses are prey animals. Therefore they're scared of everything because they know they are hunted. It's fascinating to understand how a horse perceives his world. Their eyes are on the side of their head like prey animals, squirrels, rabbits, anything that's food, they can see 180 degrees to the right from the right eye simultaneously 180 degrees to the left with their left eye. The same with their ears. It's like their brain works separately. So they are constantly aware and alert of what's going on around them. If they're not desensitized, they're gonna get scared. So raising a miniature horse for therapy, you have to desensitize them to everything sounds, loud sounds, unpredictable noises, being handled, being petted, being taken different places. And if a horse is afraid of something, then you just repeat it over and over and over and over again, if there's a loud Bell, and they started, I ring the bell, I ring the bell or ring the bell or ring the bell until there's absolutely no startle anymore. And that I've had to do loading them. It's sometimes it's really difficult to load a horse and you can talk to large horse owners and sometimes getting them in and out of the trailer. I had the little dwarf. She's little but she's stubborn. And when I got her on, I took her off, and I must have done it 20 times in a row. And now she's she's just fine. You just repeated practice.
Tell me a little bit about some of the ways that you've seen therapy horses make a difference situations that you've been in, that have shown you that this is something more than just a curiosity to people.
Sure. And I over the years I, you know, I started out slowly, I wasn't a horse person. And it took some guts and some risk on my part just to think, okay, I can do this. And I started up very slowly. And over the years I have seen, I did a lot of study a lot of workshops, classes on autism, because so many of my students over the years, were being diagnosed with autism. And that was one of the things I found fascinating was that the horses are wonderful with kids with autism. There's an author by the name of Temple Grandin. She's pretty well known at the UEFI for her PhD there, but also she is an adult with autism and is able to speak about it. And I've seen her through my professional career. I've heard her speak about three or four times and met her a couple times. She has actually said that she feels she knows animals so well. She feels that people with autism perceive their world more like a horse perceives its world than someone without autism just because they're so aware of the environment, and changes in the environment. So I started visiting kids with autism with the horses and the interactions were amazing. I tried to take the horses to Special Needs events. And one of the first visits I did was the Champaign Urbana special rec program. And actually one of my former students was there. And he was glad to see me didn't want anything to the horses. And I said nobody ever has to do anything they don't want. He took a little bit of a risk. He was enamored, he completely got involved with the activity. And after the activity was over, and we were ready to leave. The camp counselor said it's the first activity he's ever participated in. So to me, that was a connection that he made. I have a picture over there of a teenager who was a patient at a hospital. And he was in an incredibly deep depression. He had had an operation go wrong. And he was airlifted and brought to another hospital where they had to correct what was wrong. And I had met the child life specialist at Camp healing heart, which is a bereavement camp that I go to every year. In fact, it's in a couple of weeks. And that's a camp for kids who are who are grieving the loss of someone. Well, this kid was in a deep depression, and they couldn't get them out of it. And they said to his mom, what can we do? She said, Well, he misses his horse. So I met him at a local park with one of the horses. And I just gave him the horse. He was in a wheelchair with the IV. And they just spent about an hour together. I just sat with the mom and life specialists and let them alone. And that's all I knew. A year later, I went to the camp. And the child life specialist said, the nurses credit the horse for turning him around for giving him they created the horse and I smiled. And I said, Matt, great, little skeptical. Well, last year, I went to the bereavement camp again. And the original specialists was there and she said I have to tell you, I just saw him. Six years later, He credits the horse for helping him recover. And he wants to use his own horse in therapy sessions. Because he said it made such a difference to him. We go to the area libraries with four horses go indoors, and the kids read to them. It's a very safe thing to read to horse who's not going to correct you. They take it very seriously. They Champaign library 350 kids showed up to read to the horses. Last week we were asked to go to Wellness Week on the U of I campus to the Native American and Native American Indian house. Two and a half hours the line never stopped. The students just wanted to pet the horse. And they it said that made their day. So I'm thinking I'll come back during finals week. You know just for a little distressing, going to Heartland to do Stress and to, you know, if there's somebody in the community that we can support in any way, then I'm not going to say no. And what the students get out of it, only they will know.
So when you go to a library or a college campus somewhere where it's not necessarily a visit where all the students or kids know what's going to be there, what are the what are the common questions that people want to ask you about the horses?
Some of the same questions you're asking, or else the kids want to know if it's a boy or girl, how old they are? Can I pet them, I go over horse safety with them. Even though they're extremely gentle. My two year old grandson will go out into the pasture and bring them in for me with this little crop stick. We still go over horse safety. Some questions I get is can I have one? Can I take one home? How much does it cost? Where do you get them? Just general horsey questions?
What sort of reactions have you seen from people that didn't necessarily, you don't expect to walk into a public library and see a horse of any kind? So what sort of things do people how do they react when they see the mini horses?
Many people have told me they're grateful that I've done it just because their kids wouldn't have had a chance to interact with a real horse. It's a very safe horse, because it's not one of these big guys. grateful for the opportunity, and just kind of enamored and my husband is not our huge animal lover. But he said nobody can seem to look at a miniature horse without smiling. And just kind of being a little bit enamored.
You mentioned a little bit how you got started with many therapy horses and getting more than you thought you were going to get into in the first place. But what was your path that made you decide to do it? How did you get there?
That's an interesting question. I'm a retired Special Ed teacher. And I did this as a special ed teacher. I was home during the summer cleaning the house and somebody on one of the morning shows was on with miniature horses from Texas. And I sat down and was just in awe. And they were working with special needs kids. And I just was fascinated, absolutely fascinated. And I'm an animal lover, didn't have them growing up because there were too many allergies. I grew up in Chicago, probably the only little girl that didn't want a pony because I didn't know they existed. But I'm an animal lover. And it just absolutely fascinated me. I call the woman in Texas. I emailed her My husband actually drove down when we met her a little discouraged at the time. Not exactly what I was expecting, came back talk to my dog that she didn't discourage me. So I've told my own children, and my students leave your eyes, your ears and your heart open. And if you get a nudge, you just might want to follow it. There were just too many nudges. I was not going to pursue it. I picked up the Parkland catalog of adult ed stuff. And with just their catalog that came in the mail and I was gonna throw in the garbage and I dropped it ended open to beginning horse behavior and management. I went, huh. So I called my husband and I took the class. He dropped out when he had to touch a big word. But I took the class and I volunteered at a horse places I had to work with a horse for this class, which is where I met this woman. I worked with a little horse. It was an assignment for class and I worked with this little 18 month old filly got to know her got to work with her fell in love with her, but she wasn't for sale. And then all of a sudden she was for sale. And I had never asked her name. And I said, we don't have a house. We haven't looked for homes. We don't even know if we're going to do this. And she said this would make a great therapy horse and I said what's her name? Leap of Faith. I started crying and said I think I'm supposed to take a leap of faith. And I did and it's worked out ever since then.
For more information on Deb Murphy's major therapy horses visit her website, many visits.com For more information on how Heartland Community College incorporates therapy animals and other stress reducing measures on campus, visit the Student Counseling portion of heartland.edu. This has been random acts of knowledge. Thanks for listening
