Interview with Lily Wilson - www.nurturingnatureequine.co.uk

Interview with Lily Wilson .
I'm very pleased to announce an interview with Lily Wilson.
Lily is a qualified veterinary surgeon from the UK who uses all of the knowledge she has accumulated so far, into helping her clients have a more holistic approach, regarding the animals in their care.

Lily was a delight to chat with and there was so much more to the conversation than the normal vet subjects.
I hope you enjoy this episode as we delve a little deeper into Lily's life and her work with horses, humans and so much more.

Lily Wilson.
Lily is a veterinary surgeon with a wide breadth and depth of passions and
expertise in species-appropriate husbandry, anatomy and locomotion, pain
physiology, harmonious and ethical riding and training, and ecosystem health.

Lily has worked in practice with horses, donkeys, pets and livestock, in private and
charity clinics, in general practice and in a hospital as an emergency clinician,
both in the UK and overseas.

She completed a Batchelor of Science degree whilst
at vet school to do a deep dive into comparative animal locomotion, skeletal
pathology and wildlife health. Alongside her veterinary career she has studied and practiced riding teaching, saddle fitting and ethical training and has a deep
fascination with the influence of movement on physical, mental and emotional
health and wellbeing.

Recently she has also done postgraduate study on
biodiversity and ecosystem health, especially focusing on the ingredients for
harmonious, mutually beneficial coexistence of people and our animals with the
natural world and has has taken a change in direction from solely conventional veterinary practice. Her path into this was illuminated by a new yearling colt, Sunny, who she brought home in 2020.
He is an incredible teacher and gives daily life lessons.

Lily’s main goal nowadays is to help people truly advocate for their animals with a mindful application of head and heart. In providing advice and education on animal health and wellbeing and in practicing as a vet, the core of her approach is combining scientific evidence with compassionate understanding.
She believes in identifying and tackling deep, systemic root causes of ill health and wellbeing. At the core of her philosophy is that physical, mental and emotional wellbeing are inextricably interconnected and that there is a wisdom to nature and the body in its own healing that we can assist.

Further to this, she sees time and again that cultivating meaningful relationships with our animal companions holds an important key to solving ill health and that deep awareness and a compassionate process will enable us to find sustainable, ethical solutions.

You can find further information on Lily, her work and her future online courses on the links below.
https://www.nurturingnatureequine.co.uk/

Video version (alongside applicable podcasts) can be viewed on facebook and YouTube.
https://www.facebook.com/equinevoices.co.uk
https://www.youtube.com/@equinevoicesuk
https://www.instagram.com/equinevoices.uk

Contact Ronnie.
mailto:equinevoicesronnie@gmail.com

Transcript

Interview with Dr Lily Wilson - www.nurturingnatureequine.co.uk

Ronnie: Welcome to Equine Voices my name's Ronnie, I am your host for today's chat with Lily Wilson. Lily Wilson is veterinary surgeon and she has an holistic approach to her work. Her business name nurturing nature equine. All the links to her website and her Facebook page will be on this video and the end as well. She also does online courses and Q&A's

Now I came across Lily, I think I've probably seen her actually on Facebook before. Sometimes you see faces that pass you and then all of a sudden they grab your attention but it was a Zoom meeting with Kathy Price that they did live and it was really interesting. 

So without further ado, I shall bring Lily in she can explain who she is and how she got into horses and her work as a veterinary surgeon, also about the holistic side, her intuition and how that comes into her work as well as her personal life. Hi Lily welcome to Equine Voices would you like to introduce yourself? 

Lily: [00:01:00] Hi. Yeah thank you for having me. So I have been a vet for about seven years now. Knew that I wanted to be a vet from about the age of six. I think that's quite common actually and it's a long process to get into vet school and go through the whole course and everything and graduate and then I went into mixed practice for the first few years of my career. Didn't do a huge amount of horse work during that time but all the way through, I also started riding at about the same time that I decided I wanted to be a vet. So all the way through horses have been really important to me and I found after graduating with being very busy developing my new skills as a vet, that the horse stuff faded a bit.

I had my own horses still the whole way through but the horsemanship side of things and the kind of relationship I suppose side of things had faded and I didn't [00:02:00] realise that.

What I also didn't realise is that I had developed some coping strategies because being a vet is emotionally very difficult at times, and I developed mostly the coping strategy was to kind of shut down to that really. And and suppress those sides of things. Which when I realised I was very surprised cuz my sort of innate nature is not to do that.

So what happened was I bought a year in colt in 2020 and I had real difficulty with communicating with him at all. And I couldn't really figure out what was going on and basically I guess he was just the teacher that I really, really needed not just to get back to my real passion, which is how our relationships with animals are so important to us and to them[00:03:00] but also to really find myself again really.

So he showed me what was happening within myself as well as what had happened, I was really struggling with my vet work at that time feeling very burnt out and feeling really sad about that as well actually, because I'd obviously poured a lot of my life and energy and emotions into becoming a vet and improving myself as a vet and was working very, very long hours as well.

And I was almost actually on the verge of leaving the profession. So he's he's just four now and he continues to give me daily life lessons. He's an excellent teacher and really what I've gone back to with, with all of these realizations is a combination of things really. So, There's so many helpful things that have come [00:04:00] from my more conventional training to become a vet and in practicing.

But the thing, the real missing piece has been how us knowing ourselves and kind of being in touch with ourselves and our intuition and how us having a deep and meaningful relationship with animals helps the whole process along and is just really important for the health and wellbeing of our animals and for us.

So the thing that I really want to help people with now is, I guess how I would phrase it, is really truly advocating for their animals. I have, I've kind of divided up into three pillars. So I call one pillar is attuned assessment, and that's where. We allow the animal to be an active participant in the process of investigating what might be going on with them, and whether that's a physical [00:05:00] or maybe if you are thinking about it from a training point of view, a cognitive or an emotional upset of some kind.

But you can, you can determine all three through this process that that I call a tuned assessment. And really it's about setting up a two-way communication with your animal and also practicing being fully present with them and listening to your own gut feelings about things. The second pillar I call wholehearted decision making.

So there's a huge number of very hard decisions that we sometimes have to make when we have animal companions in our lives. And it doesn't just come down to clinical facts and. Sort of scientific studies and things like that in how you make those wholehearted decisions for, for you and for your animal companion.

And then the third is what I call compassionate implementation. So [00:06:00] one thing that I was seeing a lot in general practice, well I still do, is where we do have to perform some procedures sometimes in animals that scare them or are a bit unpleasant and exploring how we can explain to them that they are going to remain safe in order that we don't have to use sort of Well, sometimes restraint is necessary for everybody's safety, but ideally we can get to a stage where for quite a lot of things they can have procedures carried out or at least the part up until things like a sedation that don't leave them traumatised.

So I've done a lot of exploration of, I guess what you would call cooperative care behaviours and where two-way communication also comes into that. So actually I've just launched an online course on needle shyness in horses, and if you sign up, so I've, I'm going to be [00:07:00] doing a cohort that runs through July and August and I'm gonna be providing some direct feedback if you join the course for that window.

So we'll have some q and a calls and you can submit videos and things of the. If you have a needle shy horse, the things that are going on, what I've looked at in that course is how we can understand that the way that their body works and the way that their mind and emotions work in really deeply understanding why they have become needle shy in the first place, and therefore how we can explain to them that they are going to remain safe throughout that procedure.

So one of the things that I'm really, really passionate about is, is the area of pain physiology that is sometimes a bit neglected. In kind of the mainstream discussion about pain, and that's how it isn't purely a physical thing. So I dunno if you want me [00:08:00] to go into that a bit. Yeah, please do.

Yeah. So in fact, I'll just get up the International Association for the study of Pain, definition of Pain which is the most recent one, and I think it's a really good I'm always banging on about this but because it's really, really important. So the International Association for the Study of Pain and this is in people, but it absolutely applies to animals.

They have updated  their definition recently. And what their basic definition is, is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage. So it is quite wordy and there's lots of awes in there. And there's the word resembling and potential.

So the reason why I quote this a lot is well the first part is that it's not just a [00:09:00] sensory experience, so it's unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that's really important. But the other thing is that it doesn't actually have to be associated with actual tissue damage. There can be the, the potential for tissue damage can still cause a perception of pain and it can also just be resembling that associated with actual or potential tissue damage.

What they've also put, they've, they've sort of qualified that with saying that pain is always a personal experience and is influenced by lots of different factors, which include biological but also psychological and social. Pain cannot be inferred from activity in, in sensory neurons. So if you were to somehow physically measure it by looking at nerve conduction, you wouldn't be able to say This being is experiencing this amount of pain.

It's highly individual and, and sort of subjective to that individual through various experiences [00:10:00] in their life. Different individuals learn the concept of pain and they also. Develop a way of responding to that. So I really see quite often that different individuals feel different levels of discomfort about discomfort, and that's something that we can actually help them with.

And therefore, what they say, the International Association for the Study of Pain is a person's report of an experience of pain should be respected. So even if you think, you know, oh, this is not a very serious injury or something like that it it should always be respected that that is a true representation of the amount of pain that they're experiencing.

So how this is important when it comes to animals is that well, so I guess sometimes we are trying to determine when an animal is displaying a behavior. [00:11:00] It's really good that there's a lot of interest now in whether that might signify underlying pain or dysfunction. That's, that's a really excellent, excuse me.

It's a really excellent change in the, in the equine world as a whole, that now the question is asked, could this be, could the horse be responding in this way because they're in pain? And the difficult thing with that is that the answer is always probably yes. And it's quite involved, ruling that out.

So we may or may not be able to find very obvious lesions when we do an investigation. So a lesion would be, be, say for example, to find evidence of kissing spines on a back x-ray. The lesions would be where you see the bones rubbing together. The, the Lesson from this pain definition is that the severity of the lesion or the type of the lesion doesn't necessarily correlate with the [00:12:00] experience of pain in that individual.

So you could have a horse with very, very mild changes and they find it very, very painful. Or you could have a horse with really advanced looks terrible, and actually they're not that sore. So the reason why I've focused so much on the attuned assessment part of the three pillars is that it's so important to let the animal give you that feedback of exactly how it is they are feeling to use that alongside our clinical tools and to treat the animal rather than the diagnostic test results. I could go on. 

Ronnie: That's perfect. I just wanted to say to the listeners that you've had a couple of night duties, so you're doing really well Lily. 

 I was smiling when you said about the needle phobia, I thought, can I sign up for that? But for me, nevermind horse. 

Lily: Oh yeah well it might. 

Ronnie: I think most people, I would say have got phobia about needles.

Lily: [00:13:00] That's part of it is the expectation, you have to be a little careful of the expectation of the outcome because needles I'm not claiming that you can make them a pleasant stimulus. Yeah. You know and that is the difficulty with a lot of these veterinary interventions is that they might actually involve a degree of discomfort so that is a big challenge. 

Ronnie: I think you are right about our perception because one person may have some things that have happened in their life, so when they see that going on with the horse, that has an impact whether they're thinking about it or not mm-hmm. And I'll just share a little story. This was when I was a child and my dad used to go to the Breaker's yard to get bits for cars and I loved going with him cuz it was an adventure. And in those days you could walk around, you know, my dad was talking to the guy and I was exploring these cars. They weren't piled on top of each other, but it still probably wouldn't do that [00:14:00] today and I remember looking at these cars and having a good walk around then coming back and I felt an itch on my foot and I thought, oh, my foot feels itchy. I can't remember how old I was and what had happened is I'd got a nail through my big toe, but I didn't feel it, I wasn't aware of it at all. And what happened is I got thin souls on the front of my shoe and it'd obviously gone through there.

As soon as I saw the nail, the pain, from what I remember, cuz it's memory, it wasn't the real pain cause of once I'd have felt it straight away, it was like, oh my god, so pain associated isn't always physical as you say and I'm sure lots of people have had that experience. So that's really interesting, Lilly. 

Lily: Mm-hmm. And the other thing so one. Concept that is talked about quite a lot in the horse world is that of pain memory. So are they still [00:15:00] reacting because they are genuinely in pain or are they reacting because they have a memory of the pain? And I guess just because of the way that I think about pain physiology is not necessarily the right question to be asking because pain doesn't have to be associated with an actual tissue damage going on absolutely, they can still be in pain when the original stimulus has been removed. Whether or not it's actually pain or whether it's fear or whether it's fear of pain. I think that there's the same approach really to To helping them through it, you know? None of those weren't dismissal as in its only pain memory, if you see what I'm getting at. 

Ronnie: Absolutely you can have muscle memory. So it's really funny cuz I saw a client today and I was explaining that sometimes, so this wasn't the scenario, and I'm not talking about the client's personal details, but you can have things that as with [00:16:00] humans that have been dealt with, but sometimes it's like you have to trust the body that it is actually okay to move in a certain way because it's been there for so long or it's more ingrained in the psychological, energetic side and it's allowing them to feel that they can do something and step into that. But also from where I'm coming from sometimes and this might sound a bit weird, but if there are improvements and they show that, sometimes it's like, okay, but what happens next?

So I'll give an example if you have a competition horse that knows that's their routine and if they're sound and if everything's okay, what's been discussed is the next avenue, if they're not ready for that mentally, that can has an impact with the physical. Obviously I'm not a vet, so this is [00:17:00] from my point of view and from my work. Yeah, that can have a big effect. 

Conversations sometimes around time, you know, it might be that actually what you think is a good timeframe is not what the horse is thinking. And sometimes you take the pressure off that and they may do that within a few days cuz it's almost like you go, okay there's no pressure but you've got to generally mean that if you say it and they know you don't mean that from the heart, cause it can sense what's going on with you. Then it's not the same but if you say, okay, you know, we'll just pull back. That's it, we'll just wait for you. 

Lily: Yeah. I absolutely agree absolutely and that's a really important part of assessing an animal is being open to what's actually presenting rather than trying to look for a particular thing that you maybe want to find. And that's really hard actually, cuz sometimes you don't realize you're doing it. You're kind of trying to look for [00:18:00] a result that you already think is there. So to be really open to what they're telling you. And sometimes you can be surprised in either direction. Sometimes you can think, oh, actually no, they, they are loads better or they actually haven't got better in the way that I expected.

Or they're not responding to this situation in the way that I expected. And then why might that be? And one of the things that I find is quite discipline But is very helpful is that when you are observing an animal, so what I'd like to do, and this is quite difficult in a general practice session setting where you only have very short appointment times, especially for small animals, is to really, really slow down your observations because often if the animal is kind of bundled in to the, to the consult room and you've only got 10 or 15 minutes and you kind of grab them and they do a physical exam, then you miss loads and loads and loads of stuff cuz they don't give you their responses to how they're feeling about things.[00:19:00] 

Whereas if you do a really slowed down observation and you try not to attach meanings as you go, so you try not to interpret as you go. Because if you do that you can tend to get some tunnel vision and you think, oh, this is what's going on. And then you just, you only see the things that agree with that.

So if you try and keep stepping back, am I actually listening and open to what this animal is, the feedback that they're giving then then you tend to get a lot more information, I find. 

Ronnie: Absolutely. Yeah so tell me how has it impacted on your, on your veterinary work as well as your personal work? So what have you seen when you're interacting with your clients and your horses? What have they given you back? Because obviously when you're doing that, when you're working in that way with animals, especially they're very much aware, so they might have a barrier [00:20:00] as with us. Sometimes they want to show you, sometimes they don't because it's self-preservation you know, if I'm lame, am I gonna go down that route? They were aware of their surroundings and what's ahead of them. So how has that helped you and what have you seen? What's more noticeable? 

Lily: Yeah. Well I suppose when you do really let them give you that feedback and you slow down and you really notice things, then what they tend to give you is life lessons as well as information about what's going on with them.

So I guess one of the big things that I've learned is just how incredibly aware animals are of themselves, their surroundings and you it is actually amazing. So with the cooperative care behaviors, so trying to help animals through husbandry or veterinary interventions [00:21:00] with minimal stress I've gone into learning lots of positive reinforcement techniques and you really break down behaviors into tiny chunks with that and one of the things that astounds me is how an animal is so aware of their body. 

So you can inadvertently teach them sort of two things at once. You think you're marking for one behavior and they're actually doing something else with their body at the same time, and you end up creating something that you know, you are watching them and yet They have such an awareness of what's going on with their own body, that they develop a totally different behavior to what you were expecting. So that's a really useful thing to remember about animals is that they are, well, they should be in a normal situation, totally aware of what's going on with all of their body parts at once, really.

And if we expect, particularly [00:22:00] with things like riding, if we expect real precision or particular I guess particular expression or feels of, of movements, for example, when we're training horses we have to practice the same in ourselves. We can't expect to just teach them. It's a two way process. They can teach us what's going on with ourselves just as much as we are trying to teach them a particular technique. So that always amazes me every time I have an interaction like that, how aware they are and the practice of being that aware when we're in their presence in order to communicate with them is it's really almost meditative really.

That's been amazing for me, recognizing what's going on in terms of my emotions. And that has really helped me with a lot of the really hard [00:23:00] decisions in my work because I think that if you if you don't let that come up, then well, there's kind of a view that you should have a, an objective and a clinical judgment about things, and if you let your emotions come in Then your rational brain will be adversely affected by that but I really don't think that's the case. I think that if you are in touch with what else is happening, I think that that's a really important part of your decision making. So that's also been incredibly helpful because you have to you know, you have to live with your decisions at the end of the day.

One of the really hard parts about being a vet is that we make hundreds of decisions every day. And some of them work out well and some of them don't. And there's a constant process of reflection of, you know, was this a was this a clinical error or did I let something[00:24:00] from, say, for example, a previous case come up that actually wasn't relevant to this one and Led to me being misguided in my decision making. But I think that if you've approached the process in a way that fully aligns with your own values and having those kinds of conversations with owners as well then the outcome, the outcome is still important, but you can live with it in a, in a different way, I think.

Ronnie: Yeah. So when you was talking about you're not meant to bring your whole emotions into it, so I can imagine you don't want to be in front of a client actually bawling your eyes out saying, I've got to do this that's not gonna help the horse or the client. But feeling emotions so some people will think if you feel the emotions and allow them to come up, you are gonna just blow you know, like you do sometimes. But I think once you get used to that feel and allow it to flow through you and it's like a muscle. [00:25:00] So intuition is like a muscle and you've got to find what it is for you, what the strength is and what the communication is, what the signals mean to you personally, there's no two people the same. If you can tap into that and allow that to come through you, that gives you lots of information. 

It's not always verbal and written down information, but you know, with the feel that whatever you've been talking about is going in the right direction it might not be the answer, but it's going in the right direction. Cause you get a feel about something you just know. And that's what happens when I'm communicating. In that flow it's as as pure as it can be. You feel that and you listen to it, and then you, you put that into words. I think that's being in touch, but also you can feel for the, the human element .

 So this is from another lady that I did an interview with and she had a really interesting experience [00:26:00] and she's very intuitive, she's had a brain injury, so she's had to rebuild her life and before then she was very intuitive. She had to relearn the feel it was always there, but she had to just do that as well as repair the human element and She had a horse that had started to colic, now normally, she's in Canada, so they would have to try and get a vet out and they're like five hours away, nearest vet, five hours away so a lot of the things they do out there, they have to do themselves. Or she would hall the, the horse to nearest vets, which again would be five hours away. 

On this particular occasion, there was this calmness that came through her, this knowing that she had to just stay centered but it wasn't a try, it was just there it was naturally happening and in the end that the horse was fine, you know, she went through some things, the horse was fine. In fact, the horse told her to go to bed. She's like, but that's not what I do, I have to keep an eye on you. But the interesting thing she realized [00:27:00] through this was that previously she had a horse that was bleeding and she was trying her best to stop this bleeding, but she was in a bit of a state she was still grounded, but in a bit of a state. And she realized that, that trauma of trying to help the horse in that state was staying with the horse but because this time she stayed as calm as she could be and just followed her intuition and did things that would not necessarily be what somebody would say you should be doing, she just trusted that and then afterwards there was no trauma. And she says, imagine if you lose a loved one and you are at the bedside and you are understandably, you are sobbing, you're crying and your own emotions. That's the energy that they feel and that's what horses feel too. I don't know why I'm sharing that bit with [00:28:00] you, but maybe somebody's listening to this but I found that really an enlightening story to share and that was her realization that if you are in that state, it's not just you, the animal. And that's why animals sometimes don't want to go because of that, the attachment to that, and an animal can be, don't get me wrong, if the, if the body is ready to go, they have to go, but they will stay when maybe other times they would've just driffted it off.

Lily: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I've had some sort of seemingly spooky things like that with putting animals to sleep where the owner has made the decision on a conscious level. And then I've thought, I don't know whether they're fully you know this is maybe not wholehearted decision quite yet.

And I've had some cases where the, the animal, just even with a lethal injection, [00:29:00] you, you listen for their heart and it's still going. And I mean, you could explain it with all sorts of, you know maybe it was the batch of the drug or whatever but there was one case of a cat and the owner, she really, really, she said to me, I know I have to make this decision you know, looking at everything that's wrong with him. I know I have to make this decision, but I really don't want to. Anyway. She said, well, let's not delay it any longer. And bearing in mind that the method that we use for cats, which is a lethal injection, it's an overdose of anesthetic and it takes seconds, sometimes a minute or two, but usually it's seconds, you know, they fall asleep and then when they're completely anesthetized, then their heart stops and this cat's heart was still going after 40 minutes. And I was talking through it with the, with the owner and and then she said to me okay, I think, I think I've [00:30:00] accepted it now. And I listened to his heart and, and he was gone. Yeah. And that's happened more than once. That's the longest one yeah and they were so connected, him and his owner, they had this understanding. You could see, you could see that they communicated on a much deeper level than, than a surface level. 

Ronnie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Even though I've just said that myself, I might know spiritually, energetically, whatever you want to call it but on a human level, I might be completely different. You don't know how you're gonna be until the time comes. No, you don't. There is the intention to be a certain way is one thing, but when it actually happens. 

Lily: I will say one thing about that, and that's to make sure that you do have plenty of self-compassion, because I think a lot of people they look back on situations and they think, oh, I shouldn't have acted in that way. I should have you know I don't tend to like the word should very much.[00:31:00] 

You know, people think, oh, I shouldn't have got overly emotional. Maybe I upset my animal. I think they, I think they have a knowing even deeper than that as well. Yeah, They won't they won't blame you for that. 

Ronnie: No no. So on a few occasions I've had the honor of, I didn't know why I was gonna be there, to connect with horses that everything had been done as far as possible and the owner had come to the conclusion or realized that this is what is needed, the next step. And they just wanted confirmation, so I wasn't aware why I was there and one horse, I went in the evening and the first thing that came through was he wanted the owner to apologize to the farrier for stepping on his toe. And I said, okay. So I passed his information on and, and she just sort of looked at me and I said, does that make sense? [00:32:00] She says well, he just stand on his toes when he is here quite often. I went, oh he's really adamant that you apologized to him this time. And then some other things come out and a while ago, before I'd volunteered at a vet, so I was just helping out a weekend so I got to see some of the substances. And one of them was when they put animals to sleep. It was a small practice and it was a certain color and as I was talking to this horse this flasher color come out and I says, does this mean anything? Have you got anything in this collar? All because this has really come Ined strong and she's like, no, no, it doesn't mean anything. And then all of a sudden, and this is what I'm talking about, the feel, it's like this calmness and this feel. And I went, okay, now you understand. So I just said to the lady He's feeling a little bit tired. And as soon as I said that, she started crying and she knew and then I knew, okay, that's all I needed to say because it's not like you go along and you tell somebody that has no [00:33:00] inkling cuz that's not how it works from, from my point of view.

So I said, okay, it makes sense now. I says, now it makes sense why he wants you to apologize to the farrier cuz he's not gonna see him again. And he wanted to be dressed up in his finery and to go out and to have polos and to have treats and to look pretty and to be rejoiced and to have a moment of everybody come in and saying goodbye to him and that was probably my second experience of that and I said goodbye and I says, are you happy withevery thing you understand? And she says, yep, yep the vets had been sane and everybody else has been sane. But I needed to hear that from my horse, and I drove off and I'm not, can you, you know, when you stop as a kid so much that you can't catch your breath I was thinking, oh my God it was so emotional and I thought, what if I've got it wrong? What if I've got it wrong? What if it was all my imagination? Because there's nothing to prove this. But I knew rationally it wasn't that [00:34:00] emotions were coming up. And then I spoke to a friend that had put her in touch with me, and she went, no, no well, you said that's what was needed. But she just needed a gentle, a gentle Word and the word came from the horse so that's what they did. They dressed him up, he got polos, he'd bin box rest out back in again for months and he'd done a lot in his life and they were very active together and she doored him he adored her. But that, that's what they did. They celebrated him. And I find that's an honor. Absolutely. It really is to be. Yeah, it is. 

Lily: It's a sacred process. Yeah. And one of the really important things I think is giving yourself enough time for that and enough time for grieving as well because nobody should feel that you shouldn't grieve an animal companion in the same way as you would a person. You can have just the same depth of connection I mean, they're family members. Yeah. [00:35:00] There's no two ways about it. 

Yeah. They've just got four legs and poo a lot. Actually some family members can do that too.

Ronnie: So Lily, tell us a little bit about your boy then. 

Lily: Sunny. Yeah. So he's a quarter horse gelding. He's the chestnut in the photos with me. Ah. And I've been learning to implement some of these positive reinforcement techniques in terms of cooperative care behaviors with him and he's hilarious. He loves it. One of the things that we have been working on recently is targeting his foot to a hoof stand. And the other day when I'd finished a session, he'd done so well so I actually ended it early and what you do to make sure cuz I do use food that it isn't an inadvertent punishment. To end the session is to gave him his end signal with plenty of food, went off to open the gate, [00:36:00] turned around and he had his foot on the stand looking at me like, where have you gone? 

So do you do it with a clicker? Is it clicker based? Yeah. 

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. 

Ronnie: It's fun. I found that very useful to do things with my mare. So I bought a hula hoop, it was a little bit later and I thought I wanna do something with, I want to play with her, I want to interact with her more. So I, I bought a Hulu hoop, but I bought one with all the bits in inside, so I, it rolls, it makes a noise. The first time I rolled it in the field, she was like, what the hell is that? Anyway, she got used to it and I used to touch and click, touch her, click, touch, click. And then I would hold it out so she'd lower her head and then in the end, I threw it over. She went, not galloping, she just went tting up the field and it was, it was making this noise as she was good at the field. She came back down and I took her off and she stayed there and I thought, oh, okay. Do you want me to do it again? And we used to have lots of fun with a four [00:37:00] pound hula hoop. Yeah, we used to do cones. So I would have a circle of cones and I would touch in my hand, but in different order and then I would maybe point and then I would try it with thinking. That's good fun. So you think about the one, and you can just see them. Sometimes I get it, sometimes they don't. And you can think, well, that's just a fluke, but not when you do it a few times. Yeah, true. It wouldn't happen every time, but it's, it's fun to play around with.

Hmm. 

Lily: Yeah. Yeah. I was practicing with my other, my wealth d who I've had since I was 15, and he's incredibly well, the thing that he likes the most in terms of communication is flow with you. So I have done some clicker training stuff with him, but the thing that makes him feel good is, is to get into a flow with you.

So he's not quite so interested in whether there's this sequence of click treat or not. But I was doing a little bit with him just on a rocking his weight back and just using his [00:38:00] spectral muscles only, and I started off with pointing with a finger and he took several steps backwards. It's like, okay, that's too much he doesn't need quite as big of a signal.

And then I did the same thing, experimented with just thinking. And it is amazing because that's a, that's a very specific behavior that it would be difficult for him to get that, or for him to perform that behavior without it being in response to a cue. Mm-hmm. It's not something that they would habitually do.

Ronnie: Yes. Yeah he did that with you thinking about it too? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well most of the things we do, by the time it's come to a thought, it's already out there. E energetically when it gets to our head. That's why people Say, well, I was fine you know, I went out to my horse, I was fine, and then all of a sudden this happened.

But I say, yeah, but what was happening as you was walking out? Because as you were doing that, that energy is already going out [00:39:00] there and they can feel things from miles away. If you watched, heard of horses, and they can be fields and fields apart. They will sometimes nap in sync in the right direction, same direction, in sync.

 I'm sure you'll find this actually, if you go into a group of horses and you are working especially when you are using your feel and allowing that to flow through, or the horses will start to migrate, either migrate or they'll pay attention or they can doze off, they all doze off because that energy it's felt Mm, you know, we can't see it but it's definitely felt from, from animals. 

Lily: Yeah. 

Ronnie: So tell me a little about your online course. There's the one you just mentioned. 

Lily: Needle shyness. Yes. That's the word. Yes. Yeah. So I've recognized the need for this for a while. So you can't really get away from the fact that a horse might need to have an injection at some point. I have come across in my day-to-day vet work several horses that are [00:40:00] so incredibly needle phobic that you can't inject them at all or they become dangerous and then I also come across horses that have clearly come to be able to be injected via learned helplessness because they've had some kind of Restraint because of their sort of inherent tendency, rather than continue to fight and be unable to be injected they sort of check out when it happens but I would prefer that interaction not to be happening also. Yeah. And then there are others that you can kind of get it done, but it's stressful for all involved and it might be dangerous. So I can think of a few cases in the past that sort of stay in my mind. And some of them are horses that because they're so needle phobic, can't have routine care, like be sedated for the dentist or have their vaccinations, for example.

Now the dentist, you could work on that behavior so that they [00:41:00] don't need to be sedated for it. That that is an option. But I've also, during the course of my career, done some volunteering at overseas vet clinics. And I have seen examples of some of the diseases we vaccinate against, which we've quite uncommonly see here because of the widespread use of vaccines and they're, they're terrible, they're truly terrible. So if it's the case that your horse is so needle phobic that they can't be vaccinated, then I'd like to help people with that .

 If your horse were to colic, then most of the really effective types of pain relief are given by injection and I'll never forget, there was a horse where I used to work and he was so needle phobic that he would know when you arrived. That you were the vet and couldn't even get near him. Now one time he did actually colic and it was [00:42:00] terrible because basically it wasn't until he was very, very sick that we could approach him and start to help him. So there's another example of where explaining to him in a way that understood why he was finding it so aversive would, would've been helpful. So what I look at on the course is first of all we look at a bit of relevant anatomy and that can help you with why, why a horse might be finding injections in certain locations, particularly painful.

Also look at the emotional impact of previous bad experiences. There could be other underlying conditions going on that contribute to how painful they find it. And then we look at well, I suppose you would call them ethical behavior modification approaches. The word training might not fit [00:43:00] exactly. So ways of explaining to them that they have alternative roots to register their discomfort with the procedure than, say, for example, exploding or pushing you over, because sometimes horses have become so phobic that there isn't even a window of being able to incrementally increase their tolerance.

 One of the things that is really useful that I've started on is certain techniques in positive reinforcement, you could teach these with negative reinforcement too. But start, end or anchor signals so that the horse has a route to tell you, I'm feeling uncomfortable, or Please don't start now, or, yes, carry on and they have the opportunity to give you a signal other than becoming dangerous. When they're becoming uncomfortable. And it goes a lot deeper [00:44:00] than them just being able to tell you that because them, knowing that they can tell you that takes away a lot of fear, builds a lot of trust, and will have an impact on their pain perception as well.

Ronnie: Yeah. I'm just being reminded and this was quite a while ago. It was a client who became a friend who I went to see and she messaged me, a horse had an injury in his leg and he wanted to move around more, but because of his injury the vetted suggested to sedative, to calm him down and I can't remember how the conversation started, but basically what was happening was the horse was fighting the sedation and the vet was doing absolutely everything they should be you know, suggesting, because they said if he moves around and doesn't more more damage, you know, it's gonna be a different story, a different outcome.

 So she messaged me and I says, well, all I can say to you is he's fighting the sedation, it's the sedation he does not like to be out of control. Mm-hmm but [00:45:00] obviously I cannot tell you to go against a vet but this is what he's saying. It's that, he's fighting and that's why he's getting agitated and that's why he's wanted to move he's trying to get it outta his system. And for some reason, the next day when he was due the sedation, one of the stable girls had given the feed, but there was no sedation there. So he actually had the next feed without a sedation that it organically happened or the universe set it all up.

 And then he was a lot calmer. So she decided not to give him any more sedation. No. And she talked to him cuz she does. And she says, you know if you want me to do it this way, then we've gotta work together. I mean it was just a feel and this is what he doesn't like.

Mm. But she made sense to her cuz she knows a horse really, really well and she could see what's happening, but also she forgot to put the sedative out to go into the feed. So it it happened organically and the results were [00:46:00] better. 

Lily: I think we really do need to be careful about The all round effects of things like that, not just the physiological effects that they might have, but mental and emotional effects as well. And it's definitely the case that sedations and general anesthetics can be traumatizing. So it's a recognized thing in people. Not sure how widely recognized it is, but it is, it is a recognized thing that you can actually have P T S D from a general anesthetic and certainly from surgery.

 You know, the body knows that whilst it was out of control, something has been done to the integrity of the body structure, even if that has actually resulted in it becoming Healthier. Ultimately you know, even if it's a helpful procedure you can definitely develop P s D from that and one of the things that impacts that is the state of your nervous system when you go [00:47:00] into the sedation or the general anesthetic. The other really valuable thing about working on these kinds of procedures and how the horse feels about it is exactly that. So if a sedation is going to be given by injection and you are sort of relying on getting it in, but the horse is really, really stressed. But at least once they're sedated, you'll be able to do the thing. That's also a case where it will be incredibly helpful to resolve the fear around the injection happening. And ideally, I mean, sedation and general anesthetic is needed for certain procedures for them to stay still enough and it be safe enough or to provide enough pain relief but avoiding having to sedate them by having the, the conversation with them that the procedure won't be, that aversive is also incredibly helpful but that's another area that I think we need to focus on a lot more is what are the all round [00:48:00] effects? Are they going to come out the other side? Well changed really, because I have spoken to a significant number of people who when they come back for a post-op check, for example, they say, well, they're kind of doing okay in terms of the health condition that we were treating. But there's just something different about them. And I'm convinced that there is also a A P T S D aspect to sedating and anesthetizing animals as well.

That's a huge subject and I hope that the veterinary profession and owners and everything, we can, we can address that in a way that tries to prevent it from happening. 

Ronnie: But you're definitely going in the right direction, definitely in the right direction. Are there many veterinary surgeons like yourself going in that sort of area?

Lily: I can't say that I see that trend [00:49:00] in the wider profession. 

Ronnie: It must be very difficult because obviously when you was talking about your trainer and how hard it was and you, you felt like you'd sort of come off the horse scene a little bit or you'd come away from it. When you are learning something, you're focused so much on that and especially what you are doing there's so much information, there's so much knowledge that you've got to absorb and yeah I can't imagine how how difficult that is and you obviously have to work in a certain a certain way to a degree. Sometimes clients will get me out when they still haven't got the answer from everything else and I do say to them that you might never get the answer you are looking for because it depends it depends on a whole lot of things. It depends where you are coming from, why you want the answer, it depends where the horse is coming from, it depends whether the horse can actually give you that information because you can have mentally a horse that's, that's, yay, I wanna do this [00:50:00] and they've no idea. I know you mentioned earlier that they're aware of their body, but they do not have a crystal ball to say this is gonna happen. If I jump that jump. They might have the desire and the passion to do something and then something happens. But in their heart would still want to do that cuz that's what they wanna do, that's their drive.

Whereas you'll get another horse that can appear to do many things, but mentally there's more they could achieve if their heart was in it. Totally. So there's lots of different scenarios, it's not a simple answer and you can have everybody out and you still might not get the answer because sometimes it's maybe that's been presented, but when we've addressed that something else has to adjust and be okay and comfortable and maintain the longevity for the next bit to move so there's lots of different things but I know as an owner, as a carer, [00:51:00] you wanna just do your best and sometimes you wanna fix things, you want to make that better. And sometimes the desire for that is so strong that it can take you away from maybe what's in front of your eyes and again, I don't know why I'm talking this way. So maybe somebody's gonna listen to this and it might mean something to them because I can feel the flow coming through now. 

So there isn't a right and a wrong a lot of the times it's just deal with what's presented. Obviously you have a lot more skills to your belt and you can go in lots of different route, which is amazing.

So if somebody contacted you explain what they would expect from yourself coming to see them and their horse. 

Lily: Yeah. So I guess the reason why they might be approaching me is exactly that, that maybe they've been looking for answers and they can't seem to find them through a conventional route the approach that I've developed is first of all, [00:52:00] are we, are we taking all of the indications from the animal that we should be into account? Secondly, are we asking the right questions? And then looking at outcome expectations as well is quite important because that can actually change your approach to things and change what results you get. Wonder if I can find an example. If say for example, you are struggling to find a diagnosis for something, then I would probably take a step back and see whether the, see the, whether we've caught all of the signs that are going on, first of all and one thing that I often remember as something that one of my clinical tutors said was if it's not on your list of differential diagnoses, then you won't diagnose it.

So what that means is a differential diagnosis list is all of the possible health conditions that could [00:53:00] be causing the signs. So what a vet will do when they are presented with a problem is that they will gather all of the information and then they will form this def differential diagnosis list and then you have to work through it to rule things out or to rule things in to make the, the diagnosis. And sometimes you don't realize that there are some things missing off of that list, and of course you won't get to that if it's not on there. So one of the things that can be left off is where it isn't purely a physical complaint. There could be emotional aspects to it. You might not get that consideration if the approach is very conventional. So that's one aspect. Then say for example, you are treating something and it's not working, things aren't getting better. So [00:54:00] that's a situation to maybe examine expectations and whether they're realistic or not that's the first thing and then the second is to look at whether we are actually working with the horses, innate nature in what we are trying to achieve. Because if they're fighting, but like what you said earlier, if they're fighting what you are doing, then that's excellent feedback and we need to try a different way, try a different tack and examples of that might be, for example there are cases where we implement treatments that actually they don't really work with the way a horse's metabolism works. I'm thinking attempting weight loss by a diet that would be in the way that we would diet ourselves, just reducing the amount of food that you eat.

In horses that actually doesn't work with their metabolism because they're trickle feeders and they have a system of [00:55:00] chemical messengers in their body that signals that their food supply might be diminishing. So all you will do is you'll have a temporary response and then if you go back to how you were doing things previously, everything will just bounce back. So just examining whether we have actually implemented things in a way that works with how that species actually works. And I'm trying to think of another example.

Ronnie: That's fine. That's fine. Lucy, that's a really good example and of course you don't just work with horses. 

Lily: Yeah horses and dogs. Yeah. With my own work. Mm-hmm. I'm still doing some in-clinic work, in mixed and small animal practices as well.

Ronnie: The course that you are doing is it videos that people can do at any time or is it a face-to-face interaction like we're doing now? 

Lily: Yeah, so the course content, the main course content once you sign up, you just have lifetime access to that. There's some lessons [00:56:00] in webinar format and there's some worksheets that you can do as well and then if you sign up for this window that's coming up, then during July and August I'll be available to talk about your unique situation. So you can send a description of what happens or a video, making sure that you don't get yourself into a dangerous situation is the only thing with that or maybe a history of what's happened before to explain why there might be such an aversion to needles and then there'll be some live calls, some zoom calls, and we can discuss scenarios and things. If people have questions about the approaches or the possible underlying causes, then we can go a bit more in depth with that, and then you'll have access later on as well, I'll probably run the, the sort of eight weeks every six months and then you can join if you've signed up before, you can join future calls as well. 

Ronnie: That [00:57:00] sounds brilliant and you also do some interaction with people, and then people can ask questions q and as. Do you have a group as well that people can join? 

Lily: I don't actually have a group just yet. You can follow my Facebook page. That's generally where I put New upcoming events and things or check the website and you can sign up to the mailing list or keep you updated with upcoming events. I've actually got another free q and a call coming up next and that's on something that I call husbandry for happiness. So throughout vet school we were taught the six main domestic species, cats, dogs, horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs. We were taught their body systems and the diseases that they get in a sort of rotational fashion. So you'd do the digestive system of all of those species, then you'd move on to the respiratory system, et cetera, et cetera. 

And then there were some extra classes if you wanted to go to them about [00:58:00] what a termed exotic species. It basically just means anything other than those species. It might include rabbits or birds or reptiles and in those classes, they would always say all of their health conditions arise from the way we keep them. We don't give them the appropriate food or deliver it in the appropriate way or the right housing for their species. And this is all about nurturing their innate species nature. And I was thinking, is that not the same with the other species though?

You know horses get, for example they can get metabolic disturbances, I think from the way that we keep them and this isn't to app portion. Any blame? No, that's important. It's a historical thing. Some of the practices, husbandry practices that we have for these domestic species and we just need to examine whether they are actually helpful or not. So the talk is on [00:59:00] husbandry for happiness and what lifestyle factors are beneficial for all round health and wellbeing, and what lifestyle factors might be contributing to dis-ease, whether that's physical, mental, or emotional.

Ronnie: Sounds really interesting. Is there anything else that you'd like to share? Because I'm conscious that you've been on nights so is there anything else that you'd like to share with the listeners or a piece of information that might, might help?

Lily: Yeah, I think my message would be that If you do feel like something isn't right, then it probably isn't right. I do get people who contact me saying I've spoken to different professionals about this and I've been told that there's nothing wrong, but I feel that there is something wrong and I'm always delighted, really, because we can't advocate for our animals well if we don't follow that gut [01:00:00] feeling. And there will be something if you feel that something is not right. It might not be life threatening, but you know, I think that listening to your gut feelings about things is really important but the other part of that is that I wouldn't want, therefore that message to get somehow distorted into other professionals are doing a bad job because everybody is just where they are. And one of the things that really gets in the way it struck me when you were talking earlier about well, I can't remember which bit it was, but where you were saying about not being able to get to the bottom of things is that I think there's, oh no, that's what you were saying about how there's a way of doing things, that there's probably a, a, a guidance around a way of doing things in the veterinary profession and Yes, there is. So there is a code of conduct and then there's also kind of gold standards [01:01:00] or best practices or standard practices for various procedures or conditions. 

One of the reasons why that might become very rigid is. If there is a continuation of, or an intensification of blame culture so it's actually really quite unusual for there to be huge arguments and disputes between owners and vets that escalate to the point of suing thank God you know, basically there are the occasional professionals who do actually commit gross misconduct. That is a thing, but it's incredibly rare most of the time where something hasn't turned out the way anybody would like it to, it's either an honest mistake or it's not even a mistake, it might be a miscommunication. So I certainly wouldn't [01:02:00] want to spread an idea that there are some professionals that are. Somehow knowingly not doing a good job. Mm-hmm. And they also have to follow their own feelings about their ways of doing things and live with their decisions as well. I guess I would say, you know, you can trust what you are feeling. If that doesn't agree with what a professional has said, doesn't mean that they are necessarily to blame. Yes. 

Ronnie: Absolutely. You can have a line of people, and this goes for anything, animals, human you can have a line of people that have an interaction and come along and do something or try to help an animal or a person and it might be that everyone that's come up has relevance and it actually has done something at that time cuz we can only work with the present time, we, we don't have a crystal ball it's the present time we're [01:03:00] working with. And then you might get somebody else that comes along and they may do a big thing or they might do the tiniest thing they might not even know what they've done but the horse changes and then it's like, oh my God, after all those, you're the one that's fixed it. And I say to people, no everybody has had an impact and an import to what's going on and it's might be that tiny last bit of the jigsaw that allows what needs to be seen to be seen. So don't assume that they're the miracle worker and all the rest of crap. Mm. You know, if you've got good people, respect that, that each has a process, each has a part to play. 

Yes, there are sometimes those that may be you wouldn't have back again and there can be a conflict of personalities. It don't mean to say that what they [01:04:00] said and what they did was, was irrelevant but appreciate and see what everybody brings to the table because most people want to do their best but you can only do, and that applies to me with what I have at that moment. 

I don't have a crystal ball, I'm not a fortune teller and I can't see what's around the corner. And I wouldn't do, even if I could because it can change with what happens next. So it's what happens afterwards and all that has an impact too in a, in a deeper way sometimes not always physical. So there's so much, but it can be mind blowing too.

So you can think about every single thing, or you can just think about, actually I'm just dealing with what I see today, what's presented today, and then we'll see what happens tomorrow and what's presented there. And sometimes things can seem to get worse [01:05:00] before they get better because the body has to adjust to what's going on, sometimes miracles happen, you know? Yeah. But we're not the ones that are in control it that bit. 

Lily: Yeah, that's a really excellent way of putting it. Yeah. Thank you. 

Ronnie: Yeah, you're welcome. It's been a pleasure chatting with you, Lilly, and I would love to have you back if you'd like to come back and visit.

Oh, good. Oh, good night.

 So if you'd like to say bye to everybody. 

Lily: Yeah. Okay well, thank you very much for listening. Bye. 

Ronnie: That was a real pleasure what a lovely lady and how lovely is that? There are many professionals and there are lots of people out there, and just because they might not feel that they're using that side, their intuitive side. I am 90% sure that a lot of of them are but don't realize that. But again, sometimes they feel maybe that they can't delve into other areas. So the beauty of Lilly is that she can do that, and I'm [01:06:00] sure there will be many more behind her, in fact, I know there is, there are people that are expanding beyond what they visually see and the feel is, is so much more important than we realize. So much more important. And there isn't words with it, and there isn't there isn't a book with it. You just have to follow that feel and see where that takes you. And sometimes it's your journey to find out where that goes. If we had every answer we wouldn't stretch to find what it means to us.

And I think some of the time that is the journey and horses, people coming our lives, we can learn from that. They're not here so we can learn on these big lessons because they're here to follow their destiny, but they learn just as much too and they can open up if they are asked and given permission to.

So on that note, I look forward to chatting to you soon. 

Take care and bye for now.