Episode 310: Lucy Butler Pt 2: The Many Benefits of Lateral Work

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. With her fiancé Lucy founded the River Haven Sanctuary in Rhode Island. The sanctuary is home to about fifty animals, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, goats, donkeys, and three horses. The Sanctuary gives forever homes to animals that were in crisis. Lucy and her fiancé Jeff have plans for developing the sanctuary into an educational center,.

In Part 1 Lucy introduced us to the sanctuaries three horses, Pearl, River, and Nieve. Initially, clicker training was used to help the horses settle and to fill in the huge gaps in their basic education. It’s been a healing process for them physically as well as emotionally.

In Part 2 we talk about the effect that lateral work is having on the horses. We begin with Nieve and the remarkable effect that teaching her lateral work is having for her emotionally. Nieve is confirming that in horses physical balance is very much related to emotional well-being. We talk about constructional design and what shaping on a point of contact means for the horses.