Helping Hoof is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization providing equine assisted therapeutic activities and opportunities for growth and learning for those with developmental, emotional and mental challenges.
The heart and soul of Helping Hoof is a loving and respectful relationship between humans and equines (horses and donkeys). You don’t need to know about horses and donkeys to experience their healing potential, we facilitate interactions for you! We have a variety of programs to choose from all centered around human/horse (or donkey!) interaction.
We are moved every session, the horses manage to get at breakthroughs that just weren’t happening without them. We have seen a boy with Autism, who doesn’t call his mother or father by name ask to go to a horse by name, “go Suede”, a young woman with PTSD make a connection about trauma years ago and her challenges in life today, and another young woman, who was recently unhoused, learn how to overcome fear and ask for help in doing so. Time after time, and in every session, the horses allow us to see ourselves in ways we just haven’t been able to do so on our own.
Horses are prey animals and as such, are really, really good at evaluating if someone approaching is a threat. Does this predator want to eat me? Are they acting like they are not dangerous when in fact they really are? Horses decide if they are open to having a relationship with you based on how congruent you are. Does your outward approach match your internal feelings? If you are afraid of horses and try to approach one acting like you are not scared, you may have fooled yourself, but you haven’t fooled the horse. They might be hesitant to have an interaction with you. If, however, you approach the horse honestly, though you might be experiencing dysregulation, chances are they might be cautious, but more willing to try. The even more remarkable thing is, they are uniquely adapted to help others recognize and work through their dysregulation!
The horses never judge a person based on anything but their willingness to try and be their most authentic self, the deepest, most true part of you. They don’t care who you know, what you are wearing, how ‘educated’ you are, how you self-identify, or your socioeconomic status. They offer us feedback without judgement.
As co-regulators horses can help us lower our heart and respiration rates to reduce anxiety and relax. They offer us cues, referred to as calming signals, such as taking deep breaths, and our biorhythms align with theirs. For those of us who don’t know how to or need help self regulating, this can be an excellent way to learn! If we are open, and willing to help them help us, we can experience the healing benefits of co-regulation.
In a herd setting horses synchronize their heartbeats so that if a member of the herd perceives danger, the rest of the herd will be alerted immediately because the change in heart rate will stand out! Because the safety of the herd depends on conservation of energy and having the reserves to run when danger is present, if a member of the herd remains dysregulated after the threat has passed, the individual who needs to calm down will get help from the rest of the herd through co-regulation. Horses do this for us when we aren’t making demands of them (riding, grooming). This is a two way street, and horses can also come to us for help regulating themselves. The act of sharing space and aligning energy is a powerful way to feel connected and grounded to the best version of ourselves.
Mirror neurons are responsible for things like second-hand embarrassment, feeling sad when others cry, and getting scared when you watch a horror movie even when you know you are in no direct danger. Horses have mirror neurons in spades (potentially the most in the animal) and are super in tune with our emotional states. The above explanation of what mirror neurons do is taken from Ryan Tehini’s article about horses-human interaction, mirror neurons, and the way they impact our interspecies relationship.
“Recent studies have indicated that horses are so in tune with human emotion that they can detect and remember even the subtlest changes in facial expressions. More impressively, horses could even detect when a person’s tone of voice was incongruent with their facial expression (e.g. someone was smiling while yelling) and when it was congruent (e.g. someone frowning while yelling).
All of these results are likely the result of mirror neurons and provide a window into understanding these complex animals, and how they are so adept at non-verbal communication.
Over the past decade, horses have become increasingly common in assisting people with grief, trauma, and other life adjustments. The logic behind this is that horses are particularly good at picking up the most subtle emotions in people, and they adjust their behaviour to soothe adverse emotions. This assists people in learning new ways to self-regulate, as the empathetic and accepting nature of the horse in interaction with the patient has been found to promote positive psychological wellbeing through stress reduction…. In fact, the ancient Greeks would often prescribe horse riding to improve psychological and physical well being.”
Spending time with our equine friends can provide valuable mirroring of our emotional state, regulation of our emotion and sensory states, and non-verbal communication (which we feel is paramount for those of us who have a hard time using speech for communicating).
Since they are so good at seeing your true inner state, when a horse holds up a mirror by reflecting your inner self back to you, they often reveal parts of yourself that you have had to hide. Most of us wear masks to get through tough situations and play the roles we must to exist in society. When we ask participants to try an activity like leading a horse with a rope, how they approach the task, figuring it out and its challenges; often their own behaviors are reflected back at them and patterns that they couldn’t see they were stuck in become apparent, or feelings or traumas they have buried deep come to the surface. Horses can help us shift from our sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system through co-regulation.
“The parasympathetic part of your autonomic nervous system balances your sympathetic nervous system. While your sympathetic nervous system controls your body’s “fight or flight” response, your parasympathetic nervous system helps to control your body’s response during times of rest. ” (taken from my.clevelandclinic.org) When our nervous system starts to shift we are offered calming signals from our equine partners and a chance to learn when these shifts occur, what it feels like before, during and after these shifts and how to navigate them with more intention and control.
Because of Kuniko’s work with individuals on the Autism Spectrum we are well versed in how sensory regulation can impact a person’s ability to perform certain socially significant behaviors. If you don’t feel comfortable in your body, you will probably have a hard time interacting with others in conventionally meaningful ways. Being around horses is great for sensory regulation. They have slower heart rates and breathe more slowly than us. As we co-regulate with them we start to sync up to those rhythms and it can have a calming effect on us. If we ride a horse, the movement our bodies experience can be like that of walking, without having to walk. For participants who need more sensory feedback, this means they can get it without having to expend their own resources. For participants who cannot walk, the activity engages the core in some ways as though they were. And, for participants with high muscle tone or palsy, they heat from the horse’s body and motion can help soften and relax muscles.
When a participant who may have a hard time with expressive verbal communication, who has benefited from sensory regulation also gets to have a conversation with another living thing without the pressure of using ‘words’ the result can be a desire to have that same level of communication with others in their life. Like, “I really like communicating with my horse friend, now that I am feeling good in my body and I don’t need to focus on getting my sensory needs met, let me see if I can communicate with my parents or friends”.
There are so many reasons horses make such amazing therapeutic partners and we feel like our knowledge of these things make us effective facilitators. We truly believe you will always get something out of time spent with a horse, but that we can guide you to powerful experiences that otherwise might have gone unexplored.