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What Does Abuse Look Like? A Talk with Daniel Dauphin

Best Horse Practices Podcast

Release Date: 08/24/2024

Gillian Higgins on Anatomy and Biomechanics show art Gillian Higgins on Anatomy and Biomechanics

Best Horse Practices Podcast

Our show is a space for riders and horse owners of all disciplines to learn best practices and to discover skills, strategies, tools, ideas, and insights for better connecting with their horses, with all horses, and for getting work done.  We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 6 of Season 5 and in it, Jec interviews Gillian Higgins, an expert in horse anatomy and biomechanics. She’s known internationally for her painting of horses’...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 5 of Season 5 and in it, we welcome back my colleague, Jec Ballou, for her first show of our fifth season. Yay! We’ve heard from several folks who have suggested discussions on gaited horses and people with expertise around gaited horses, so Jec has done a great interview with Carl Bledsoe, from Talking Rock, Georgia. I was really excited to produce this interview as it’s clear Carl has been on a...

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What Does Abuse Look Like? A Talk with Daniel Dauphin show art What Does Abuse Look Like? A Talk with Daniel Dauphin

Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. We’re dedicating another show to horsey intellectualism. Intellectualism roughly means thinking, studying, and/or discussing complicated ideas without getting emotional. I guess what we do on this show is a sort of low-level intellectualism, redneck intellectualism, because we’re not consulting great philosophers or significant texts. But we are bouncing around ideas that are complicated and less straight forward than...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 3 of Season 5 and we’re dedicating the next few shows to some horsey intellectualism. I like to look up words, to make sure I’m saying what I mean. Intellectualism roughly means thinking, studying, and/or discussing complicated ideas without getting emotional. I guess what we do on this show is a sort of low-level intellectualism, redneck intellectualism, because we’re not consulting great...

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J.B. Zielke - The Lost Cowboy show art J.B. Zielke - The Lost Cowboy

Best Horse Practices Podcast

Our show is a space for riders and horse owners of all disciplines to learn best practices and to discover skills, strategies, tools, ideas, and insights for better connecting with their horses, with all horses, and for getting work done.  We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 2 of Season 5 and in it, I interview , a writer, music video producer, and most of all, a cowboy. JB has cowboyed on six continents and written about it in The Lost...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 1 of Season 5.  For this show, I’m speaking on behalf or maybe I should say as half. Half of the interview crew for this podcast. Jec and I have had a hiatus and Jec is still doing her thing and enjoying summer. She’ll be back later this season.  I thought I’d make this a short episode to let you know what I’ve been up to and to ask you what you’ve been up to. As I mentioned, we love...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 27 of Season 4. In it, Jec and I have a fun On the Fence conversation in which we talk some about identity and, mmm, maybe a bit of barn politics and shenanigans that we sometimes see in horse communities. The topic came up when I was listening to an interview that did with , a professor at the University of Chicago. Oh, and we also give a nod, or maybe a shake of the head, to the cover art for , which...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 26 of Season 4. In it, I interview , a horsewoman and police detective from Wyoming. She’s a clinician and colt starter, and she participated in the held last month here in southwest Colorado. This is the fourth in a series of interviews around Buck the Trend. You can find links to conversations with BTT therapists and other participants in the show notes. Buck the Trend got its start thanks to a...

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Daniel Dauphin, Buck the Trend Mental Health Forum show art Daniel Dauphin, Buck the Trend Mental Health Forum

Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 25 of Season 4. In it, is back, not to talk about bits and horse mouth anatomy but to talk about , the mental health forum held last month. Daniel attended BTT and we have been visiting on the phone about mental health in our horse community since the in 2022, which I directed and at which he presented two sessions. This is the third in a series of interviews around Buck the Trend, which is funded in...

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Best Horse Practices Podcast

We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy .  We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a , we sure would appreciate it. This is Episode 24 of Season 4. In it, I interview KD Bryant and , the two therapists who anchored the development and facilitation of , the mental health forum held recently in southwestern Colorado. BTT got its start thanks to a generous grant from the and with the support of . Donations have been extremely helpful, too. Big thanks to all who contributed. Buck the Trend is a two-and-a-half day, all expenses paid...

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We love to hear from listeners and contacting us is easy here

We offer these shows for free. If you think it’s worthy of a small contribution, we sure would appreciate it.

We’re dedicating another show to horsey intellectualism. Intellectualism roughly means thinking, studying, and/or discussing complicated ideas without getting emotional. I guess what we do on this show is a sort of low-level intellectualism, redneck intellectualism, because we’re not consulting great philosophers or significant texts. But we are bouncing around ideas that are complicated and less straight forward than a lot of articles or social media posts seem to make them. 

I think owners and riders inevitably come across these ideas in their time with horses. I know I do, sometimes as I’m riding along, sometimes as I’m lying in bed, pondering a life with or without equines.

Not much is black and white. There’s a lot of grey area to consider when it comes to, well, everything, but in this case, horse care and management. Doesn’t it seem like there has been a lot of outrage and side-taking lately? Maybe we could be doing more listening and show a little more curiosity?

Anyway, for episode 4, I invited Daniel Dauphin, the Louisiana horseman whose specialty is bit function and design and horse mouth anatomy. 

Thankfully, he’s not one to shy away from what he calls ‘career suicide’ by saying things that might not be in step with the latest money-making trend or attention-grabber. I was happy to bug him for this continuation of a related chat with Nina Fuller last week in which we talked about livestock and our agrarian lives.

Daniel and I bounce around the ways in which people perceive the treatment of animals. What does abuse look like? Certainly, it looks different to different people. How is that so? And, what does the horse want and need? Can we decipher that objectively or do we get misdirected by questionable motivations?

Thanks to our title sponsor, Lucerne Farms, producers of quality forage feeds, extremely handy and healthy bales of alfalfa, timothy, and grass blends. A great addition or substitute for your hay or grass and way better than grain. They also make products for your stalls and chickens. Check them out at lucerne farms com

Watch Daniel Dauphin's BHPS presentation. 

Visit his website. 

Check out his YouTube channel

As I mentioned in the last episode, horses are livestock. When it comes to laws and policies, that puts them in roughly the same category as sheep and cattle, not dogs and cats. Over the last few generations, however, as an increasing percentage of horses are used for exclusively recreational purposes. In popular culture, barn culture, in a materialistic and consumer-driven world, the species has moved into a fuzzy space between livestock and pets. American laws, for instance, are sometimes at odds with prevailing attitudes. It can be messy.

And, yes, we know that the practicality of putting horses together at Olympic events is probably problematic. But why not, for instance, put them in with other horses they know? Seabiscuit traveled with a companion. Rodeo horses are put together. I could be cynical and say it’s all about money, but can we think outside the box – even if it is lined with locally sourced shavings?

We can’t wait to hear from listeners. What do you think about animals in our society?

How do we balance old standards of agriculture and animal treatment with where we are now and what we know now and, for us horse owners, what we need and want from our equine partners?

It doesn’t escape me that Daniel and I live rural existences, maybe more rural and old fashioned than many listeners. Our points of view come from cumulative observation and interaction with land and animals. Your days and interactions are not our days and interactions. That’s one reason I’m interested in hearing from your shared or different perspectives.

Watch Daniel Dauphin's BHPS presentation. 

Visit his website. 

Check out his YouTube channel

Thanks to Redmond Equine for generously sponsoring our show. With the warm weather and the turn of the season, make sure to have Redmond’s salt available free choice for your horses. We think they’ll love it. You can hang the Rock on a Rope on a fence or in the stall. Order a box full at Redmond equine dot com.

Also thanks to Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. I hope you can check out their hemp full zip sweatshirt. It’s probably the softest, yummiest sweatshirt I’ve ever owned. And it comes in a buttery yellow that makes me smile. Also, check out the tough hemp canvas vest – extremely handy for all seasons but especially fall.

Give us feedback, suggest a topic or guest, or make a donation and you’ll be automatically entered to win a free Patagonia WorkWear item that we give away every month. Redmond Equine is sending a complimentary syringe of Daily Gold Stress Relief to everyone who drops a tip in our donation jar. Pretty cool and a $15 value. If you get something of value from our podcast, please consider making a donation. We sure would appreciate it.

That’s it. Another episode in the can and out of the barn. Thanks for listening y’all.