The Horse/Human Relationship: How Horses Can Help Youth With a History of Abuse or Neglect

Louisiana Tech University students in ANSC 220 “Introduction to Horsemanship” conducted horse-related activities with abused or neglected youth residing at the Louisiana Methodist Children’s Home, Ruston, Louisiana. These service-learning activities were designed to teach life skills to disadvantaged youth while reinforcing horsemanship concepts learned in class for university students. All activities were conducted at the Outdoor Wilderness Learning Center, Dubach, Louisiana, and were designed to facilitate confidence, communication, and effective team effort. Activities included utilizing horses to help youth understand social hierarchies when working within a communal environment, increasing cooperative and communication skills by guiding university students with a horse through an obstacle course, demonstrating acts of compassion through shared grooming tools used on horses, and participating in games related to the five senses that demonstrate parallels between affinities for horse and human. For university students, working with the youth not only reinforced horsemanship concepts taught in class but also taught them more about themselves. Horses are very honest in their behavior; therefore, they were ideal implements for teaching the youth about their own behavior and social skills via an easy to understand and charismatic methodology