koski and this is healthy pets healthy owners and i'd like to welcome today on today show and davis some horses with hope thank you it's great to be here i thank you so much for taking the time of your busy schedule to come in and you know so i know a little bit about them but i know there are a lot of work they are there quite a bit of work and we we have a lot of volunteers to help us keep those horses well taken care of and where are you located where off of on brush run road bethel park which is actually on the borderline between bethel and peters township and how long have you been there we are in our fourth year there and do you have a number of acres a farm what's what is your set up well first started horses with hope i was out on a farm in washington and i leased the facilities and horses there and then i grew it to capacity and then we moved to south park you renovated one of the old agricultural buildings there the fairgrounds and used the show horse arena there and then fortunately i came across this farm that we're currently on and it's a ninety three acre farm that just was not being used or anything like that so i went knocking on the owner's door and he allowed us to move in wonderful so tell us what horses for hope horses and how we are a discovery growth and learning center and it's through the use of the horses that we're able to help individuals we started originally was just therapeutic riding which is for individuals with autism and special needs whether it be physical mental or social needs that they  have so therapeutic riding is somebody comes and you place them on the horse yes and you let them experience running a horse which is something the average person doesn't even get to do but correct but they're there and letting the whole world is something new and adventurous it's the horse itself actually that is therapy for them because of the movement of the horse you know they have four legs and as for every stride of a horse when you're sitting on top of that horse you have a full rotation of your hips so when you have forward taishan of your hip that makes your torso sit more upright when you're city more upright it opens up your airways works on your digestion when you're airways or rope and up it helps with your speech so they're getting therapy without even us working with them and then we have goals that they are set and they set both short and long term goals that we interact with them their writing session is usually about forty minutes long and then we have different activities that will set up on our trail with them and work on a variety of goals whether it be eye hand coordination or you know finer gross motor skills their balance their leg muscles things like that and that's everything  a it's a lot of fun and now one of the best things about the therapeutic riding program is these individuals the majority of our riders are under the age of eighteen and they do therapy they do speech therapy o t p t you know sometimes up to three times a week you know if they're getting therapies for all three of those so when they come out to us and they we put them on the horse even though we have volunteers that sidewalk on either side of them for their safety and we have somebody leading the horse they really don't see us so they're like above us and so they feel more independent and they're more willing to do additional tasks or skills that we ask them to do so it's in a wooded area and we have cleared out pathways and then we set up different activity center is there to work on different skill sets for them i'm sure they look forward to doing that every day and when i was riding horses many many years ago i don't know if i can even get on one now but many years ago my now no more let me go but i so look forward to it although the next day you know people don't realize what it takes to stay on that horse they're using a lot of muscle yet it really is in sometimes we have in turns it all come out from different universities and then caregivers and parents and every once in a while put them on the horse and have them go through what these riders are actually experiencing it really opens their eyes because it is so much more than just sitting on a horse a lot going on sore for a day the last time i rode a horse had had to have been  sure and you think you know i mountain bike i walk i know all those things how can you be ok or but you're using a whole different muscle group and and it is core strength that you need to be on that horse absolutely as one of the good things about these horses also is we have some individuals that have cerebral palsy a lot of times your muscles are very spastic so when they actually get on the horse you'll see like within a couple minutes their legs will start dropping their their muscles loosen up and that actually has been known to stay with them to keep them loose like that for up to three days after they ride what type of horses all different types we have a norwegian f that's this for you right here and we have a couple quarter horses we have a half linger in a radian so how many horses total there's eight horses eight full grown horses and then we have to monitor horses and miniature longhaired donkey and to g that but that was the surprising thing i learned to do that they are not affected by cold or heat i was there right now it's because kathy is worrying about that they built this you know they got these three goats and then all this and now they're building they're going out at five o'clock in the morning before she goes to work to feed them and one of the best things you could do for her i don't know how old she is but her daughters but but you know i just thought oh well you know i was shocked how amazing they are and they get along with the horses and they do a lot of times people that have horses oftentimes with horses don't like to be left alone they're herd animals so if you some people only own one horse oftentimes they'll get a goat to keep it company and then now she's talking about getting a donkey to protect the goats so you know a coyote and so forth and so we have a miniature donkey and izzy we bring izzy and at night we have a goat house for the goats to go in and they get locked up because there are quite a few coyote out there and the goats would not be able to fend them off that's for sure  the donkeys to protect them from donkeys can protect him you know interesting so the this program that you were just talking about you have additional programs as well we do so we offer therapeutic riding which is the writing program and then to individuals oftentimes it'll be a school group of up to twelve to eighteen school kids coming out and we work on a variety of different behavioral issues in character building trades  through the wood the interaction with the horse so there's academic standards built into these curriculums there are character building traits as well and it's a themed  thing so there's a whole curriculum that we follow through and they're built upon each other so for about a twelve week course they'll come out and we'll teach them about trusting on a stephen things of that nature and they have  a quiet activity towards the end of it where they interact and and actually get to work on that trust and how to be able to see that from through different lenses so to speak so you're showing and teaching instructing how the relationship between human and animal trust is that that is at the farm that's what we do yes but it actually transfers into their daily life skills so their experience that they have with the horse we come back and we talk  there were people calling me asking me about working with their kids and having zaya t v or eating disorders or use a variety of things and so i started looking into more programs using the horses and i country actually internationally know you know you know i know i and i say this all the time i've grown to be a better person because of growing up with animals you know like when i was a little my parents had  case we had stray cats we had fish we had birds i don't think i would be as and i'm not saying i'm first and i'm just and i wouldn't be as good as i am if i hadn't grown up with an absolutely you know  and i notice that the kids that are deprived of an animal relationship in their home tend to have a lot more problems sure and i'm always leery of somebody doesn't like animals frankly  that's an interesting program to develop that because not everybody can have a horse for example or go right right absolutely and with what you were just saying you know i was always raised with the animals as well and i needed him because i'm the youngest of eleven so they save me many times but you do see a lot of or i see a lot of kids that come in that don't have the animals in sometimes you know i know in own experience with growing up with when you're having a bad day you know you get to go to your dog or your cat and you know cuddle up and tell him your secrets and things like that and kids i think today that aren't able to experience that they may do i mean where else are they going to release what's been built up and you know you know you always hear about that unconditional love and you know human to human i don't think anybody experience that because there's always a condition yes with these guys the pretty much as much as unconditional love absolutely and i've seen dogs course over the years that were tremendously abused but they still want went to their owners you know they come back yet they still want to live on yeah yeah right horses are the same way they're just a lot his welcomed us with open arms and loves to see what we're doing and like to see the farm becoming alive again the other program you mentioned according to psychotherapy so we team up with actual mental health provider so we work with like southwards psychiatric hospital and they'll bring out a group of boys and a social worker or a counselor with them and we'll do an expert anshul therapy on mounted  again where it's a scenario with the horses and things and then through the interaction of the horse and the individuals a lot comes out from your inside horses as i said earlier are very social animal and being a pray and i'm all they're very black and white so you can't really try to get over on them you can't hide anything from them they're very intuitive for about our feelings in our emotions and they read them spot on so a lot of these kids that are struggling with various things and in doing typical talk therapy or were or whatever their situations might be oftentimes you'll see a faster response when they're interacting with these horses because the horses are they're not there non judgmental and they're non threatening to them so it's it's pretty amazing to see parts of their innermost thoughts and feelings come you know in these sessions yeah we were talking a little bit before the show and i was and i lived in arizona of course i did and i used to go on my road bike every morning you know something i truly missed because it's not as the weather here kind of prevents back it's very hilly yeah well that's not so much a problem i can't stand the rain and cold but  where i live there was a horse farms everywhere everybody had three five acre horse farms and it's amazing that these animals would see me i remember the first time i started doing it they were a little bit leery until they saw you know and i would go up to the animals and pet them and you know their owners would love it but but they have this sense sure of correct and non threatening and so forth and i tell you a story we brought on a horse i had purchased him  n he was another norwegian fjord and after i got him on the farm he dropped a lot of weight and i couldn't understand why and we we take very good care of our of our horses we give them acupuncture if they need i mean they really get the best of treatment because they do wonderful work for so we had the vet come out we did some blood testing and we could not we've done every test on this horse and can't figure out why i can't keep weight on and we change his food added food anyway one point there is a professor at bethany college that was working with us and she had agreed to come up i wanted our volunteers to experience more about that point psychotherapy because we were just  building that part of the business up so for the best way for them to understand it is to actually experience it so she donated her time every week she would come up on saturdays and do these sessions with us well  i had brought willie and to use him in this one session and we're standing there in a circle and we had had him for about a year and the business part of mace well i was talking about having to get rid of  because he wasn't i wasn't able to use them he didn't have enough weight on him to put of sat on and you know so it was a man all in we're a nonprofit so you know it's a business decision right and everybody loves willy  anyway willie was in there we're all standing in the arena in a circle in the professor missing claire was talking about what we were going to experience that day willie came in and broke through the circle and stood right in front of me and i mean like from he was just face to face with me and joey and who helps me run the program she started giggling and i was just shaking my head  like wow this is really telling the truth right here because he was like hey you know don't get rid of me i can do this they can do this so you know two and a half years later he's still there so how did this all come about how to do put this all together what was your motivation well i was in the airline industry for twenty years and my husband and i tried to have kids for seven years and as  story goes you finally give up having kids and go on a different path and then you get pregnant so i was forty years old when i did that and then because of my age i had the test done and i learned that my child was going to be born with down syndrome so i didn't know what that was so doing the research of that i came across there peter grabbing in i just knew instantly that's what god had planned for my life so from that moment on i did everything i could to learn about sometimes you don't develop those programs until you have a personal bit in your life you know as far as a traditional change trained medical person i'm totally holistic in the natural in my approach now but it happened as a result of  nowness had i not had that illness i would have never i wouldn't be where i am today with that aspect of life and only sure and then you see the benefits that other people have as a result of your experience and your learning so how do you fund this how is all this funded well i do charge for the services for the therapeutic writing programs and things like that as our expenses have to be tremendous but yeah they never cover the true cost of it so we you know we are nonprofit organization so we do operate off of donations and grant writing and things of that nature so we're in the process right now of developing a new video that will be coming out here in december and i plan on taking that out and help in the community to learn more about us and who we are and can help support us come in with partnerships and things you know that's nice because you know i wasn't aware of you and i was i was telling and the story i was driving around nineteen and so your cell vehicle with some because we're not licensed therapist so we are certified instructors we have to complete annual training and things like that but we're not a physical therapist or psychologist or social worker or anything like that so that's the reason why insurance is don't cover it there's been many studies ongoing today through various organizations to help that along for for insurance companies to be able to see this truly is therapy trying to get the insurance companies to go is a tough one especially with insurance today to big mountain to climb don't give up hope you know absolutely you've got a absolutely right away and you know i wonder if you could even bring in a therapist license they're opposed as part of your program that's what i'm looking for actually right now yes i thought i had one lined up but that one kind of fell through so we are i am i my eyes open then i would welcome anybody that is interested in learning more about the benefits of interacting with horses yeah and you operate three hundred sixty five days a year well almost we like to say we do we have an indoor right in arena where we could but it's not heated so once it hits forty degrees nobody wants to you know it's for it's very very cold there so we usually take a break early november through january and then depending on what the weather's going to be like we had the start up february or march every year and that's a busy season for everybody to with the holidays and the worse is the to break yeah yeah so i mean this is a animal show and talking about the care of these guys it is a very stressful work for them because the riders  always even there are always moving in and doing odd things that they're not usually accustomed to so it takes a special horse to be able to do what we do with them so we don't allow them to work more than three sessions in a row  to give them a break and then the way we schedule our our riders and everything we do in a week session and always have a week off and then we do another eight weeks so do your clients need a recommendation from a physician the come to see if they do not know in because i have a daughter with special needs a special needs community can get kind of small you know it works on a lot of word of mouth so is the best it really is yeah so  they a lot of those individuals know that we're here we always have a waiting list every year which is good or bad it depends on how you know that i write yeah but yeah so but we live we're very passionate about what we do it w volunteers so we're always looking for volunteers which is what's going to be my next question so you mentioned earlier you use volunteers so what qualifications do you need to be to have to be a volunteer fourteen years able to walk for  will bring you on and what are the volunteers do they will walk beside the rider that's what these folks are doing up here they're always can we focus in on this picture it's a it's a nice picture showing the client on the horse with walker of course is your indoor facility there that is yes and so we have the horse later and then the sidewalk or is there so horse leaders have to be at least sixteen years of age and i have a very strong knowledge of the horses and then the sidewalk as there's no need for any knowledge of horses or anything like that we do it a training and manual training every year for the volunteers it's a two hour course and then as the year progresses weeks up them ongoing and we'll do on the job training so that the horses or rather the volunteers actually do like the grooming of the horses or who does all that who does all the maintenance like that well usually the horse leaders because we'll use the same three horses we do three sessions a night so i get five six and seven o'clock and we use the same horses for each session so that we don't have to worry change in equipment and tack and things like that so generally if you're signed up for the first session of the day then you get the opportunity to groom the horses intact them up none of the clients will participate in the grooming now i used to offer that and then it kind of got out of hand a little bit where the liability is is greater with a lot of kids running around and things so why removed so what are your operating hours well when school is in session we have school sessions it'll come out from ten thirty to noon four days a week and then i operate the therapeutic writing for individual families five days a week four days during the week five to seven pm and then saturday from night in the morning till to new tune so you're busy we're busy and then just the maintenance on loan for the animals is a lot of work m but thankfully it's funny too because a lot of times of volunteers will come they think they're coming for the horses and then they fall in love with the kids and you know and then they're there doing projects and things like that so but i utilize a lot of different groups i use boy scouts girl scouts internships variety of churches will come in do one day things are different corporations will come out and do one day projects or something so awesome yeah that's awesome the good thing for everybody yeah yeah i'm glad i saw your car driving down on the highway it was a pleasure to meet you on the show thanks so much i really appreciate thank you want to thank and davis from horses with hope give them a look give them a donation yes thank you and again thank you for watching healthy pets healthy owners dr demento koski and i forgot to mention my little abby and tucker here seeing so quietly here this one love the bark horses by the way i remember you can listen to me on am twelve fifty every saturday morning from nine am to ten and give us a call our live call in show an extension of healthy owners healthy healthy pets healthy owners were healthy pets healthy people