Square Peg Foundation

“Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It’s that you’re destroying the peg.”
— Paul Collins

Author Susan Salk did a fantastic story on Square Peg horses.

Thoroughbreds ‘lift’ up autistic, disabled kids

By Susan Salk on January 20, 2012

Joell Dunlap was struggling to make her instructions carry across the riding ring, above the din of a howling wind, to her young student who couldn’t quite grasp the concept of holding tighter to reins. Read the article here.

Esther Marr, blogger and columnist for BloodHorse Magazine featured HorseBoy and Square Peg in her latest post.  Read the article here. Here’s an excerpt:

“Most would call Hank a failure as a racehorse, considering he wasn’t even close to being on the board in any of his four starts. He retired with measly earnings of $1,600, which didn’t even surpass his $2,500 yearling auction price.  But Hank simply had another calling in life.

Now, with the help of Dunlap, the gelding is making a huge difference in the lives of children with disabilities. I can’t imagine a more worthy vocation.”

Over a year ago, I submitted a story to a beautiful online magazine Horses For Life.  They published the story last week.  You can read the published version here.

What makes a little girl to wrap a tiny hand around a cotton rope, tug and walk away assuming that 1,000 pounds of muscle, hooves and bone will follow? Is it delusion? Arrogance? Clearly, this is hubris?

Our answer doesn’t matter because the half ton at the end of the rope drops her head and follows that girl. She leaves the security of her food and her barn mates and simply follows that child. No matter how many times I put girls and horses together, this amazes me. It’s one of those little miracles that happens every day of my career and sometimes, just sometimes, I make the time to honor it by watching in wonder.

Every horse story is a story about trust in spite of the evidence. Every horse understands that hope inevitably leads to disappointment, but that trust leads to new possibilities.

Some people will tell you that a horse is dumb. He’s beast of burden that has been bred and broken until he accepts bit and saddle, spur and yoke with a resignation unique to prey animals.

That theory melts away when I send out our 22 year old one-eyed Thoroughbred to teach a student to jump her first fences. He canters lightly to the fence, ears pricked, head slightly tilted to see the jump properly. He knows he could go around. He knows he could stop. But he never, ever does. He slows himself down after that fence and basks in the hugs and pats bestowed on him by the child on his back. She’s got pink cheeks from the excitement and she’s just now taking her first deep breath since the beginning of the lesson. Call this lack of intelligence if you will, I will call it generosity.

There are people will offer to teach you to teach your horse to trust. They will sell you a book, a brightly colored whip (?) and a weekend seminar. They try to unlock the secrets of the horse/girl bond. But it’s not until a girl’s heart has been broken, until her best friend has moved away or until she’s have been shunned by those she thought were supposed to love her that she realizes the depth of effort that it takes for a horse to trust. Only then can she appreciate the fragile beauty of the horse and their power to let us “in.”

People ask me all the time what connects girls to horses. After 25 years of searching, I think I finally know the simple answer; trust.

As girls, we recognize the ability to throw ourselves to the fates without resigning ourselves to defeat. We know how to keep certain parts of ourselves sacred while allowing the rest of us to be controlled, to be led, to be vanquished. Somehow we know in our hearts that the prancing horse in the show ring doing tricks manages to retain her own haughtiness, her own boundaries even while she dances for the crowd. We are forever awed by the fact that our own horse allow sus to climb upon his back and urge him with impatient knees into places where predators lurk.

We ask him to carry us over fences, down paved streets and through the scary corner of the arena. He will allow us to do it again and again. Each ride is an exercise in forgiveness.

This is what bonds women to horses. This is what causes us to forsake boyfriends, money, clean clothes and mall shopping. This simple task of learning to trust is taught by the horse in the most important way; not by lectures, not by assignments and tests, our horse teaches by example. He trusts not with the resignation of the defeated, but with the acceptance of the wise. And he is there to teach us again and again each day, each moment we spend with him.

Some of my least proud moments have come when I have rejected this lesson. I remember riding a young and  flighty thoroughbred filly  who one day would not go around a corner of the arena we had ridden in every day for the last month. I was hot, I was tired, I was impatient and she was adamant. I pulled, I tugged, I kicked, I half halted, I FULL halted, I backed her into the corner to show her who was boss. She bolted forward no matter what. Finally, I hopped off her back, enraged and tired. I marched her into that corner to make her stand. And she stood, and she trembled. With my jaw set, growled at her “see, there’s nothing here!” I was triumphant as I looked into her panting face. I would win this battle of wills. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. An angry mother bobcat and her babies crept out from behind a tree not eight feet away. The filly was right all along.

Each of us has met the un-trusting horse. We know right away from his eye, from his posture, from his distended nostrils. Maybe he’s been abused, maybe, just maybe, he knows he does not need humans. We are fascinated we need him to trust us, we need him to look at us and see something worthy of his trust, something good. Our favorite stories are the stories where this same horse chooses a human, sees something special that we can’t  see and he crosses the chasm and simply trusts. This is the stuff of daydreams and fantasy. These are the stories that move us.

This trust is so profound that the same horse, on the day when you decide that her legs can no longer carry you, that her back will no longer support you, when her belly can no longer tolerate the dried, processed food that you feed her, lays her beautiful head in your lap as the doctor injects the poison that will stop her heart. She takes one last trusting look at you before she sighs her final breath.

If you are a horse lover, chances are you have see the latest article or something similar:

Obama Legalizes Horse Slaughter for Human Consumption by madeline bernstein

Snippets from the article include “During these trying times, is the only thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that Americans need to eat horses?”

Someone will read this blog post and will announce that “Square Peg is pro-slaughter.” That’s not just false, it’s silly.  For the last 20 years of my life, I’ve been placing OTTB’s in homes.  If I cloned myself a thousand times and if I cloned the amazing Joe Shelton twice that many times, we could not save them all.  It’s a fact that rescuers live with every darn day.  With slaughter banned in the US,  these animals head in terrible conditions to slaughter plants across the boarders.  Those plants are not supervised by anything like the Department of Agriculture and they don’t have inspectors from the FDA imposing fines on renegade operations.  The horror is palpable.  I won’t go into it here – if you are curious, you can look it up yourself.  But bring a strong stomach and some tissue.

For now, until we can address the horse overpopulation issue horse slaughter will continue and it’s unsavory.  So why wouldn’t we afford our horses the same protections that we gave the cow that you ate at lunch yesterday?  Because we don’t want to face the reality that horse slaughter exists and that we, as the horse community are in some way responsible?   Are you ready for the facts?  Not only will protesting legalized horse slaughter not save a single horse, we have now doomed those same horses to a horrific and torturous death. Over 100,000 made the trip last year and this year will be no different, there are too many horses and the economy is not improving while horse care costs continue to rise.

Want to really save some horses?  Want to make a difference?

Then donate until it hurts to a local rescue with a strict

NO BREEDING policy. Encourage your friends to do the same.  Ask for the rescue’s adoption contract.  Find out if the rescuer has a breeding operation.  I’m always blown away at how many rescues have parallel breeding programs.  Wow!  How is that addressing the overpopulation problem?

Volunteer at the local Humane Society, or help a struggling neighbor keep her horse through the winter. Sponsor a rescue horse for a Christmas gift for a friend or a child. Offer your talents in marketing or housekeeping or brochure writing for your favorite rescue.  Question the folks in your local horse club when you hear someone say something like “she’s going to be off for a year and we aren’t sure that she will be sound again so my husband said we can breed her.” No seriously, have that conversation every chance you get and you will be saving lives!

Don’t have extra time or cash?  Then support rescues with the money you are already spending. Give your business to the local vet, farrier and feed companies that help out rescue operations.  If you don’t know who they are, call the local rescue, they will be glad to tell you. Promote your favorite rescue on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.  Encourage your local riding club to attend fundraisers for legitimate rescues.  Host a bake sale at your school  or a bowling party.  So many fun options that really will be making a significant difference!

If you are a racing fan, support racing in states such as California, Kentucky and Illinois who directly fund Thoroughbred Aftercare and push them to support aftercare for the horses who never made it to the track.  The National Thoroughbred Racing Association is doing more than ever in history to support ex race horses.  Encourage their work with a card or a note or a call. Let them know that you appreciate their sincere efforts.

Want to take on the environmental issue of a slaughterhouse? Simply eliminate meat from two meals per week to start.  Encourage your friends to do the same.  If that works well, make sure that for another two meals per week, that you choose local and/or organic meats.  How hard is that to put your morals where your mouth is?  Lead by example and friends and family will follow. That’s how lasting change has always occurred.

And lastly, if you do decide that the old horse in your pasture really needs to go to a good home, pick the rescue or the organization mindfully and be prepared to make a cash donation for that animal’s care.  And I don’t mean $50.  If you expect the rescue to care for and re-home and re-habilitate your  horse, please be prepared to donate three to 12 months worth of feed, farrier, dentistry, veterinary and training costs.

Yes, it’s easy to get upset by reading headlines and we love to blame our legislators.  Remember that they didn’t create the horse overpopulation problem. They’re trying to address an economic issue and the moral problem of the transport and unregulated slaughter for our beautiful horses.  It’s a bitter pill to swallow and none of us  like it.  Remember that we, as the horse owning community must be responsible for the animals we produce.

A friend with special needs daughters wrote on her Facebook page: “Had every intention of making Chicken Picatta and risotto for dinner. Meeting ran late. Got home to find a bird in the house. Opened door for bird, dog ran out. Pizza it was.”

I replied: “Pizza happens.”

In fact, life happens.  It happens all the time.  Especially when you think that you have it figured out and planned and it’s all going to be okay.  And then life happens and shakes everything up. And sometimes that shakeup is the last thing you need and the best thing ever all at the same time.

Life happened to me this week.  I was derailed from what felt like a fairly smooth sailing ship.  I have fantastic instructors who are capable and talented and motivated. I have volunteers who show up when they said they will. My desk is closer to under control than I can ever remember it.  Our online lesson and volunteer system  is being used by folks to seriously streamline operations. My email inbox is down to less than 70 emails (from a usual 120 or so).  I have parts and pieces of grant applications that will fold together neatly so that I could ship a record number of grant requests off in the next 90 days.  Our major fundraising event has been postponed so that we could all work as a team to pull off something special without the round the clock panic that fundraising events tend to engage.

And then.

A new friend walks in.   A friend that’s high profile work validates the uphill battles we have waged over the last eight years. A friend with similar ideas and parallels in philosophy, horsemanship, sense of humor and energy.  His work is just different enough from ours to give him perspective to see strengths where I thought we needed work and to find holes in things we were sure were completely sound. We began with a pact to be kind to one another, no matter what then we start swap stories and inspirations. And ideas start to fly.  Notions I thought I had managed were challenged head-on and I had harder questions to answer than “when is the next board meeting.” I was asked point blank:

• “How do you create an environment that is in better service to your kids and your horses?”
• “What are YOUR dreams?
• “What do you see yourself doing next year and what are you doing this week to attain that?”
• “No, not your dreams for Square Peg, for your staff and volunteers, what are YOUR dreams?”
• “Not your nightmares, your dreams!”

All the while, as my eye is drawn off the ball of the day to day running of Square Peg, shit starts hitting the proverbial fan.  Staff needs support and leadership, animals need tending to, calls, emails and texts get pushed aside and weather and mud and bills roll in.  Two years ago I would have panicked.  I would have chucked off the new ideas and the time and space to dream our way into the ever changing future.  Instead, I breathed and smiled and rejoiced in how good collaboration creates true synergy.  Instead of trying to fix that which is simply the nature of growth, I stepped back and watched growing (however painful) happen. I put trust in the abilities of others and I was hopeful, but also prepared to be wrong.

In the middle of all of this, a wonderful supporter handed me a generous check.  I stuffed it in my pocket with a couple of food

wrappers that I’d acquired as I ran hither and yon to fulfill an insane schedule.  And early this morning, I found my dog eating the wrappers and the check through a hole he’d made in the pocket of the clothes that I’d left on the floor as I’d slipped into bed exhausted the night before.

Even a year ago, I would have cried and implored the gods to explain to me why they kept testing me with such fervor.  Today, as I crawled out of bed at 3:30am on the crazy journey that is my life, I giggled about the phone conversation I am bound to have today with this amazing donor to explain that the dog really did eat the donation check and I will have to ask her as politely and delicately as I can to write me another check.

In short, I ordered pizza, and it was good.

It’s simple if you ask Rupert Issaacson originator of the Horse Boy phenomenon – “you just let the children take you on an adventure.”

Rupert, with his rockstar hair and his Hollywood smile and upper caste British accent throughly delights with a boyish grin and self described “potty mouth.” He held rapt a group of eight certifiers (including me, the original skeptic) and an additional 20 auditors at the bizarre moonscape that is the Shalom Institute, tucked in the back of the Malibu Hills. He reminded us that we aren’t teaching anything to an autistic child, we are drawing him gently out of the shell that is autism into our world and hoping that, through the horse, he might give us a glimpse into his world as well.

The Issacson’s family story was one I’d heard time and again; a bright and adventurous couple has a child, they know something is wrong early on but when the diagnosis of autism was handed to them when their beautiful son Rowan was four years old, the resulting anger and shame and frustration almost cost them their sanity and their marriage. They did all the right things with therapies and diets and they struggled through each day with tantrums, potty training nightmares and the knowledge that their son was becoming increasingly more remote and more miserable.

I’ll not ruin the story of how Rowan connected his father back to the horses he loved and his mother a PhD Psychologist to her life’s work in teaching “Self Compassion.”  Just treat yourself and either read the book or see the film.  Even if you aren’t interested in autism studies or even in horses, the story has all the elements to delight and entertain.  If you manage to be inspired and informed, well so much the better.

Issaacson has since started the New Trails Center helping scores of children and their families find hope and peace and laughter together.

Now for the honesty part of the post.  I went to this seminar not just skeptical, but defensive.  I didn’t appreciate the fact that I’d seen too many photos and films of children that Issacson has worked with riding without helmets.  I’m an adamant helmet advocate for adults and I’m next to rabid about them for children.  If you wear a seatbelt while driving, why wouldn’t you wear a helmet when riding?  I don’t like wearing a helmet, but I do because I need to model the behaviors I need our kids and our volunteers to display.  And I was prepared to piss off a room full of new age-ish do gooders to make my point that could and does save lives.

I’m still a helmet advocate, that hasn’t changed.  And yes, I do understand that a helmet can be a sensory nightmare for an autistic child.

But where Rupert was going was so much more important than headgear.

Here’s what got me:

“Remember, you aren’t teaching ANYTHING, you aren’t teaching horsemanship, or riding.  You aren’t a therapist and you aren’t going to ‘fix’ an autistic person.  You are there to draw out communication and help a child with transitions.  The horse will carry him out of his world into the natural and social world.  That’s it.”  We spent the next 18 hours over two days going over exercises, demonstrations and discussions about how to fold in academics, physicality and compassion into our interactions with autistic children and their families.

Finally!!!! Validation from someone, with enough skin in the game – he’s the father of an autistic child and he’s married to a PhD Psychology professor – isn’t talking about cures, he isn’t  some theory-laden pedagague that reduces a child to his diagnosis.  And get this – he does it with fun and silliness and irreverence and adds to that some damn fine classical horsemanship.

I can’t wait to get home and share with my staff and key volunteers and my horses what I’ve learned and re-learned this past weekend.  I’m even more convinced that we can love and laugh our way to connect these children to their families and their communities on the backs of our beloved horses.

I could write so much more about the people I met and the things we learned together, but I’m hopping back in the car to get home to my staff and critters so that we can get to work with our new tools in the kit for turning “I wish” into “I can!”

UPDATE: Square Peg is teaming up with Rupert Isaacson and the Horse Boy Method to present a equine related demonstration at the Abilities Expo at the San Jose McEnrey Convention Center November 18th, 19th and 20^th.  Admission is free – c’mon out!