Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets. Welcome to
the Human Animal Connection Show, where we believe we can
communicate with all animals. Join us as we explore the
thirty three principles and healing methods of the Human Animal Connection.
As animal lovers, we know that you share our commitment
to making the world a kinder place for all creatures. Together,
let's embrace the transformative healing power of the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, Welcome to the Human Animal Connection. I'm your host,
Jeanie Joseph and the executive director of the Human Animal Connection.
And today I have Bella with me and since she
was nine years old, she has been doing just about
anything and everything at Track Ranch. Now Track is therapy,
the grants for animals and Labella tell us a little
bit about what is so exciting about working there.
Speaker 3: So Therapeure Grants for Animals and Kids was founded sort
of on the basis of just having a really welcoming community.
It accepts everyone and allows animals to build just a
great connection with kids. You don't need to have any
specific needs or desires to grow coming here, but it
kind of the therapeutic aspect just kind of happens whether
you're planning for it or not. All of our animals
really love what they do. All of our programs, we
very carefully pick out animals that work very well with kids.
So we do writing lessons, we do Earthday parties, summer camps,
and then our therapeutic services, and then we're also five
oh one C three nonprofit, so we also take tax
deductible donations.
Speaker 2: That's excellent. Yeah, And one of the things we were
just talking before the show started that we're totally in
agreement about is that it's really important to recognize what
animals like, you know, what their opinions are. You know,
some animals love working with small children, some animals prefer
working with teens and so on. They have a real
sense of what they want to do. And I love
that you are really watching, observing, paying attention being Oh,
this animal really likes young kids, or this animal really
likes to be hugged by five people at once, or.
Speaker 3: Apps don't want to stress out any of our animals,
and we want them to enjoy what they do just
as much as the kids interacting with them. So we
make sure that all of our animals genuinely enjoy the
work that they do. And are always relaxed around kids.
Speaker 2: Great, great, Well, We're going to focus today on your
service donkeys because I think that's so exciting a lot
of people have heard about therapy dogs or therapy horses,
but this notion of therapy donkeys and even service donkeys
is very exciting to me, of course, because we have
two therapy donkeys we do therapy work with, and it's
just I really want to hear all about tell us
about your service donkeys, how they came to you, what
kind of service they do, and how you've trained them
to be service donkeys.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so. We get our animals just about any possible
way you could think of. Some are donations, some are rescues,
some are purchased. They really come from every possible way
you could even think of. We've had college students buy
and drop off a goat they realized would not actually
work in their dorm room. We've had people bring over
their amazing horses that have been retired after a long
came of work. One of our donkeys right now, we've
had since she was a tiny baby, and we had
her mom here who passed quite a while ago, but
she lived well into her forties and then we have
a new donkey. We just actually got Betty Pisketti. She's amazing.
She just came in day one. She just loved what
we do here. And then we have two other little
little tiny KUIs Rio and Smooch. I'm not positive on
how they came in, but they're a huge, huge bonus
to our program. They're kind of our little young guys
who like to run around and have a little bit
more energy. As far as training, main the main aspect
that we really look for for them, it's just that
they're calm, that they don't have any fear of people
of children. Every now and then there is something that
we need to work out, but generally the animals just
provide that service on their own. They're just naturally very
very calm animals. They has very intuitive. They're very also
authentic in the reactions that they provide. So a child
comes up and is really loud and just kind of
acting like that predator to our prey animals, that donkey
will respond really quickly, and that child will see a
direct correlation between his actions and the donkeys kind of
seeing that action to them, and they get upset. They
could get scared, they could walk away, and that's a
really great skill to teach that child of how to
look at their own actions and how that can affect
someone else nearby to them. So as far as training,
they honestly do more for us think we really end
up doing with them. But there is always training to
be done. You know, if a donkey's exhibiting science being
a little too pushy at the gate, that's something we
can work on. But other than that, they really just
provide that service on their own just naturally.
Speaker 2: Great. Now, I know you work with all kinds of animals,
all kinds of therapeutic experiences, but what do you think
it is about the donkey experience that's kind of unique
to them? Unique to donkeys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so donkeys have some really crazy the attributes. They're
just really strong and sturdy, and they're the ones that
we have our miniature donkeys. They're a little bit smaller,
so they're a little bit more approachable to the children.
They're very sure footed. They don't really get startled at
a lot of stuff, and when they do, they're a
little they think through it a little bit better than
some of the bigger horses who may just want to
run away. But they are just that smaller size, and
they're just very gentle and kind and calm in general.
Ours especially, We've never had any issues with that. They
just genuinely are affectionate and enjoy those interactions with kids
and adults too. Our Peekaboo are one that we've had
since she was a baby when her mom was here.
She would rest her head in our laps when we
would kind of sit on the rail and there during
animal free time at her summer camp, and she would
quite literally just snuggle up to us just because she
genuinely enjoyed that human interaction.
Speaker 2: That's really wonderful. Yeah, and you know, I think humans, well,
I mean the humans wouldn't be humans without the help
of donkeys. I mean, for thousands of years have helped
like on every level, you know, you know, in peace
and in war and in commerce and friendship. I mean,
there's so much donkey's done. I think, you know, we're
really interested in helping humans understand the donkeys are really
special that they're very intuitive, they're very intelligent. You know,
there's so many negative preconceptions, you know, like the dumbass
or whatever. But you know, we're definitely interested in helping
people have a one on one experience, a moment where
they can see that the donkey really does know what's
going on with you. You know, they do feel your emotions,
your energy, your moods, and is really helpful for children
to be able to understand that sometimes they don't recognize
how their energy or their emotions are affecting other beings.
And when a donkey can give them that instant feedback
of saying, hey, you know this is too much, slow down,
you know, that's really it can help a lot of
children recognize their own emotional states and then make choices
about how to manage their energy and emotions.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a huge aspect of our animal assisted life
skills and equan assisted learning of having kids to see
how their actions are reflected in that animal, and even
some that may come from a place of fear. Those
donkeys are generally very calm and they're gonna stand pretty still,
and they're smaller size than the larger horses, so that
may be a great introduction to those larger horses and
kind of getting over some of that fear of interacting
with our animals.
Speaker 2: That's really you know, that's a really great point, you
know that to be kind of to have a being
be still and present in the face of your fear,
gives you a chance to let it dissolve. Let the
fear dissolve, you know what I mean, kind of in
your own pace. And do you have any stories of
kids who who've come and kind of been transformed just
from interacting with donkeys.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly too many to count personally. As a kid,
I would get a little bit anxious with some of
the larger horses and competing and going faster on the horses.
Speaker 2: And and.
Speaker 3: There there have been a couple times when I was
pretty young and I had just gotten a little overwhelmed
that I would be and the donkeys, almost like dogs,
would quite literally just snuggle up and just really understand
that someone was going through something, and they just want
to be near them and comfort them. So they're just
naturally very comforting animals. So yeah, happen many many times.
Very small children are often really scared of the large horses.
So I've seen that happen pretty much weakly, where they
run right up to the donkeys and they want to
go in and they want to go hang out with them,
and they don't really have that fear and they go
to the larger horses, and I mean rightfully. So for
a young child has never interacted with the horse, they
have a little bit more fear. So they're able to
kind of learn in a safer, calmer, slower environment. So
maybe horse rules of you know, don't run up behind them,
how to approach them appropriately looking at their blind spots.
You know, you want to approach them to their shoulder,
not directly behind them, not directly on their forehead, things
like that. So it can teach them really really helpful
skills and how they could apply those to larger animals.
Speaker 2: Definitely the larger animals and also people. You know, the
awareness of how your you know, your body language or
your speed, your emotion is affecting another being, whether that
be animal or human, I think is a really really
useful lesson. Some kids are, of course more tuned to
that than others, but all kids can learn to improve
their awareness of, you know, spatial relations, because you can
rub people the wrong way by getting too closer, by
being too far, people can think you're too aloof or whatever.
You know, the donkey kind of gives you instant feedback,
you know, as to how you're projecting yourself into the world.
So that's a wonderful experience. Yeah, and so what is
it you know about animals that were you always from
birth interested in animals or how did you get started
on your journey?
Speaker 3: Yeah? When I was a kid, I always wanted to
ride horses. I always wanted to take lessons, and in
two thousand and nine, my parents brought me over to
track at our old location on Craycroft and sign me
up for horseback riding lessons. My first lesson included no
horseback riding, just learning all the basics on the ground,
and we had our little reins that used to control
the horse tied to my brother and I are waists,
and we had to pretend that each other were the
horses to learn those basic skills. So that's a really
fun memory that I have. And after that, I just
took lessons weekly for years and years, and then we
did some Jim Connor clubs, some little little tiny kid
barrel racing things like that, and eventually I started volunteering
and doing summer camps, and then I was hired in
twenty seventeen and have worked here pretty much ever.
Speaker 2: Six that's an amazing record. That's an amazing record. I
know tracks started I think in two thousand and seven,
Is that right? Do you want to tell us a
little bit about the origin story and Scott and his
wife Liz was it.
Speaker 3: I think Scott and Jill are our founders. Scott is
still heavily involved. He you know, he's here every single
day working really hard. You know, this is his dream.
This is something that's really important to him and his
wife Jill. But when they founded it, you know, they
may tell it a little bit better, but just from
my perspective at least, I think that they just really
wanted to create that community in Tucson where animals and
children could interact in a really just great setting and
create that community where everyone is accepted. I know Jill
has a history with special education and Scott has a
history with horses, and they really wanted to bring those
two things together and just create this really really kind
of specific community where we provide the education and that
experience to farm life ranch life that kids may not
really have experience with, and we really really talk a
lot about just respect of each other, just having really
great boundaries and using those animals to teach those So
they just really wanted that great community in Tucson to
and then serve our community with bringing animals to elementary schools,
to dementia facilities, to places all around Tucson to share
that same experience so people can enjoy that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, we're going to meet four of your
donkeys and going to meet two of ours on World
Donkey Day, which is May eighth, twenty twenty five, if
you're listening to this now. In this we really want
to celebrate that. And I think it's so important for kids.
You know, go back, let's say our grandparents' generation or
whatever it was. You know, animals were part of growing up.
But in today's world, kids are are sort of separated
from the wild side. And there's really something wonderful about
kids having an experience of beings that are not you know,
on the screen and you know, actually have instant reactions
and like that. What have you seen in terms of
the benefits in your own life or the other kids
you've worked with by just being able to get a
little touch. I mean, obviously not wild like wild tigers,
but you know, animals are still animals.
Speaker 3: What's that like? I mean, they do have a lot
to teach and you already touched on it. That just
kind of age of everyone has an electronic device in
their hand. We very much enforce the no phone zone
around here, so we'll have families come in, you know,
parents and little kids that maybe don't really get enough
one on one time where they can look each other
in the eye and have a mutual experience that doesn't
involve a TV. I mean, that's that's just something that's happening,
whether whether they're trying to or not. So this provides
a really great escape for just families as a whole, grandparents, aunts, uncles,
cousins to just come in and have those really unique
experiences together as a family without those distractions that are
pulling their attention away from the kids. And they can
also have those learning and teaching experiences as well with
the kids where they can, you know, maybe watch dad
pick up a chicken for the first time and laugh
if he if he gets a little startled if it
tries to flap away. And so I've seen some little
kids teach their parents the appropriate way to handle a
chicken or how to walk behind a horse if they've
never done that. So it's just a really great experience
to get to see these families come in and just
have that moment of joy getting to have some family
time with any of our animals really not just on Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, So tell us a little bit of a what
all animals do you have there? Besites the donkeys and
the horses, what else do you have?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have a bunny and chicken coop. They
are separated down the middle between favoral levels, so we
just make sure all of our little guys are very safe.
They have an outdoor portion as well. And then we
have our goat pen and personally, I think we have
some of the more calmer goats I've seen. They do
really enjoy kids and not too jumpy on them, so
that is more of a safe place so we can
have some kids play around with them. And then we
have our three pot belly pigs, and then our donkeys.
We have fourign totally have Peekaboo, Betty, Pischetti, Smooch, and Rio.
And then we have our three miniature horses as well,
and then we have around twenty six full sized horses
twenty to twenty six to Penning, you're kind of those
little guys as well, but all of them are used
in a lot of our programs. We don't ride a
Hayman miniature horses. We just drive the larger horses. But
every single animal except for the pigs, they don't travel
very well. We'll go go out to petting zoos around
our community and kind of share that experience with them.
Speaker 2: Well, is absolutely fabulous. We're going to take a short
little break. When I come back, we're going to be
speaking more with Bella from Track about some of the
experiences that she's witnessed of transformation with children and animals.
Will be right back. Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Hey, friends. If you like what you're hearing and want
to learn more, check out doctor Joseph's book The Human
Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with Animals and Ourselves, or visit
the website The Humananimalconnection dot org to book an online consultation.
Thank you for loving animals. Now back to the show.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to The Human Animal Connection. I'm speaking with
Bella and she's been working at TRACK. There are few
brands for animals and kids and every day, hey, you
come in and have wonderful experience, So just give me
an everyday story that really touches your heart.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So my personal favorite one is every day
I get to see kids, you know, start when there
may be four years old and progress to where they're
pretty much teenagers, right along with me as I grew
up here. But one of my favorite ones there was
this little girl who was just so sweet, and she
was just really hesitant. She hadn't really had much experience
with talking to strangers at all, just with her own
family history, and she came in and was really really nervous.
And I have a personal policy where I'm never gonna
play a kid on a horse who's crying. You know,
I'm gonna let them tell me, okay, I'm ready to ride.
Even if they're sad or scared, that's okay, but they
need to be a little vocalized. Then she calmed down
right when we put her on the horse, and as
we're walking around, she just starts to get this huge
smile on her face. And she was young enough I
had to be standing right next to her, but you
could just see her completely open up. While she was
on that horse. She started grinning from ear to ear.
She was listening to everything she needed to do. She
was just doing everything that you'd think that a kid
had been writing for years and years was doing she
just really really took to it, and when she got off,
she came around and gave me a hug around my
leg and just said thank you. That was really fun.
And her parents were just absolutely shocked that when she
was speaking to a stranger too, that she had just
even gotten on that horse. So I see things like
that all the time, and luckily for her, I got
to watch her progress through a writing program for years
and years and years, all the way up to where
she was loping on a horse, so she was basically running.
She went from me a little kid who was even
too young to be allowed to do that, all the
way to being a really successful student. So we see
stuff like that all the time. Kids. I've grown up
with kids that came in here when I was young,
just watching them succeed and really do well and learn
those really basic life skills that are sometimes a little
bit more difficult to teach in school. But they get
to see that through that hard work from our volunteering program.
They get to learn what it's like to, you know,
do jobs that may not be your favorite job, and
they can actually turn that around and then turn that
into really great you know, resume keywords and end up
getting full time careers based off of the skills that
they learned just right here in our programs.
Speaker 2: That's so great. I mean, I think it's so wonderful
that an animal can help a child blossom in a
way that maybe other methods haven't. I mean, you know,
all methods are good if they're helpful, but I think
there's something unique about what animals bring to the experience,
you know, just that sort of like a horse can understand, Okay,
this child is a little frightened, no nervous, but the
horse sees the sweetness, you know what I mean, Like
the horse doesn't. I mean, I think the horse sees
the fear, but is not stopped by the fear, you
know what I mean Like that, that's not the final answer.
It's like, Okay, the child is scared, and how can
I give this child a beautiful experience? How can I
help this child feel safe? You know with me? And
I think that that generosity of spirit that animals that
are especially therapy animals. You know, obviously not every animal,
but you know, animals whose purposes this is I think
you probably see in your own life that there are
some animals out in other circumstances, maybe that would never be,
you know, a tract ranch animal. That's just not their destiny.
It doesn't mean they're bad animals, but that's not their
purpose in life, you know what I mean. So I
think that's great that you have assembled quite a crew
of animals that this is like, Yeah, this is what
I'm here to do. I'm here to make people feel
good and to help them feel safe. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Especially with our horses and our horseback riding program,
they give meet some of the annoying, the most annoying
horses ever to the kids. Because if the kid is
having an issue, and we can see that from a
crossby areen, if they're pulling too hard on their face
when they should be having loose reins and they should
be kicking instead. We can see those little things and
sometimes we let them work it out, but that horse
will just completely stop and wait, and sometimes they'll actually
deliver that child to us. They'll walk over to an
instructor while the child's trying to get them to go
the other way and say, hey, fix this. But they
just do it in such a kind and calm way.
And obviously we we have horses that can go along
with a child as they progress. So we don't just
have those horses. We do have horses that are for
the more advanced student that needs a little bit more
training and experience in order to handle them appropriately, but
we do that on purpose. So when kids first come in,
we put them on a horse that is really calm,
and we call them like our teacher horses or our
babysitter horses, who just genuinely get it. They just understand
what their role is and they understand their job is
to keep that child safe. Even on the windiest day,
you know, they're not even glancing at anything blowing by them.
They understand what their role is that day, and they're
just very quietly and calmly fulfilling that role. And then
we have those horses that can take that kid to
the next level who's progressed really well through our program
and is ready for that real challenge and has the
skills to do that really safely and effectively. So we
have pretty much every range of that you can think of.
And that girl I was speaking about previously, she did
end up riding one of our more spirited horses who
had been pretty spirited in the past, and once we start,
I started seeing that he was really calming down and
getting a little older. We started kind of working on
him with younger kids and just watching his entire body
just calm down. He just really settled the second we
put a younger kid on him, and he just told
us that was his purpose. And I think I genuinely
think he enjoys those younger kids just walking around with
them a lot more than he ever enjoyed going fast,
which was a shock to all of us because we
thought he just wanted to run and run. But I
think he just genuinely enjoys younger children and he enjoys
just a slower pace. So we see things like that
all the time though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's really beautiful that the notion that the
animal can be involved in a healing self discovery process,
you know, process of really finding their true heart space,
you know what I mean. Like that horse that you
thought was just wanted to run and be wild, and
maybe that was true at a time, but there's something
else for him, which is the slowness, the gentleness, and
that can be very rewarding. So I mean, I think
that's an idea animal therapy human interaction situation when when
both sides are growing, when both sides are learning, when
both sides are enriching their heart and expanding their potential
for who they really are, and to discover that in
animals where we think, Okay, this horse is for this group,
but then we find out, no, you know what, it's
really this other group that the horse is really brings
out that horse's true heart. You know that's really awesome
to witness that. Wow. Okay, well, do you have like
some favorite animals at the ranch? I know you love
them all equally, but I did you have some favorites?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: My absolute all time favorite is that horse that was
really spirited and then he got to calm down a lot.
His name's man Yo Soo. We call him Yosi, but
he used to be quite a fast spirited horse and
he calmed down a lot. So I got to experience
him when I was ready to progress to a faster
horse when I was a kid, and then I got
to experience him when I was teaching and putting smaller
kids on his back as see him really calmed down.
And his mom is actually part of our program as well.
She's aged out of any of our riding stuff, but
she's just very happy here living out the rest of
her days, just providing, you know, that sweet little she'll
she'll nuzzle your hand when you walk by, and she's
just very affectionate and just likes to kind of say
hi to people. But we're not using her for any
of our programs anymore. And that's another thing I really
love here is we're not ever getting rid of horses
because they're too old for a program or anything like that.
If that horse has shown us that they enjoy kids
and they're just happy being here, we're keeping them. Even
if all they can provide is just hanging out and
meeting her guests. That's more than enough for us. So
we like to say we have kind of a collection
of some elderly animals sometimes, but that's a good thing,
and we really we really kind of like that aspect.
You know, those some places will have like baby goat yoga,
but we're not just primarily kind of using those young,
cute baby animals. We're also using our really kind and
gentle older animals that have worked a really long time
and just have that really great understanding of how to
work with people. So I think that's kind of special
about our program as well.
Speaker 2: That is definitely very special. You know, the older animals
bring a kind of quality of wisdom and gentleness and slowness,
and some people really need that, you know, they need
to just have a slow interaction. I mean not to
say that a fast interaction isn't wonderful, but but the
value of a slow ambassador, a horse ambassador, you know that.
I think it's wonderful that you that you have that
perspective of the value of an elderly animal. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and that's even more helpful. We have our summer
camps going all summer. We have our spring break and
winter break camp. So when we have a you know
a large number of kids that have maybe never interacted
with a horse, we have those really great calm animals
that can kind of help a child along in that
journey of just meeting a horse for the first time.
Speaker 2: So great, Bella. How can people get involved if they
want to volunteer or support or just have an experience,
how can they get connected to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So our webs it has all of our stuff
on that. If you just google track Ranch too, saw,
that'll take you right to it. We have all of
our tabs for all of our programs. We love our
volunteers to sign up for that. You would just go
register and then sign up for next upcoming volunteer orientation
and that will get you in to help feed the animals,
help care for them, help give them water, clean up
after them, and it teaches some of those skills I
was talking about before that are so lacking right now.
Those just really basic life skills of learning how to
do a chore and see that immediate reaction to the animals,
seeing their nice clean stall. For our summer camp is
now enrolling, and that's a really great wave to get
children involved who have never really been part of our
program before. We take them really slowly through the rules
and we have a bunch of really fun activities. They
get to ride a horse. It is really hot, but
we make it work for the summer. We have some
water flurry, we hoose our horses down to help them
with the summer as well, so it doesn't end up
being too bad. But we always have pretty much always
have a wait list for a horsemanship riding less and
so someone is interested in that could always go on
our website and find out how to get involved with that.
Or shoot doesn't enough if you have any questions. But honestly,
my favorite part about what we do here is we
have our family Membership, which allows the entire family for
the whole year to come in and just really experience
those animals without how to be a part of a program.
They just come in during our members hours which are
posted and they just get to hang out. They get
to pet our animals, they get to just say hi
to their favorite animal, and that's really all that there
is to it, So that one is a great way
to get involved personally.
Speaker 2: Family.
Speaker 3: Also, we're five on one C three, so a lot
of people really like doing tax deductible donations are not
on tax season, so if you're not really interested in
necessarily coming out here, it's a little too far. When
we are located at River and Alvernon. That is another
great way to have people get involved because that goes
directly to our animals and helps us give them the
best care possible.
Speaker 2: Give us your website so people get in touch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is just track tuson dot com and that
is TRAK that stands for a Therapeutic Branch for animals
and kids. We also have all of our social media
under the same name, just Track Ranch Touson. I mean,
if you ever forget it, you can always just type
trk Ranch Tucson into Google. That should be the first
one that pops up.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Bella. We look forward to
meeting your four wonderful donkeys. I can't wait to meet them.
And thank you for all the great work at you're
doing in Congratulations on such wonderful yourself of having such
a wonderful career.
Speaker 3: With Track the problem. Thank you all right, bye for now.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to The Human Animal Connection Show.
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