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Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field. This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have that these lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com.
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome
to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson,
New York Times best selling
author of The Horse Boy, The Long
Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
Before I jump in with today's
guest, I just want to say a huge
thank you to you, our audience,
for helping to make this happen.
I have a request.
If you like what we do, please
like, subscribe, tell a friend.
It really helps us get this work done.
As you might know from my
books, I'm an autism dad.
And over the last 20 years,
we've developed several
equine assisted, neuroscience
backed certification programs.
If you'd like to find out more
about them, go to newtrailslearning.
com.
So without further ado,
let's meet today's guest.
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
Many of us are used to the equine
assisted thing being a sort of a
European na white American type thing,
and we don't often consider that it
might actually go a bit beyond that.
So I'm really excited today to
have Brandy Tom have, who is the
second executive director of the
Native American Humane Society.
We've all heard of the Humane Society.
Again, this was something that came at
the Humane Society in America, as we know.
It came out of animal suffering largely
in cities particularly draft animals
like horses being, you know, dying
in the shafts in the streets, and
people saying, you know, we should
actually do something about this,
and, well, things are better, however.
When I went to the Quis Film Festival in
Montana in September of 2025, I met Brandy
who was fronting the newly formed Native
American Humane Society and bringing to
our attention a whole bunch of oh gosh,
animal welfare issues that actually
affect us all, even though we might be
living in different cultural contexts.
And I think it just adds an
incredible perspective to our
work that allows us to broaden it,
deepen it, gain more understanding.
And you're gonna see what I mean as this
conversation unfolds because there are
very different ways of looking at animals,
animal assisted stuff, animal welfare,
that have as much to do with culture as
they have to do with, if you like fact.
So I don't wanna spoil it for everyone.
So without further ado, Brandy, thank
you so much for coming on the show.
Please tell us who you are,
what you do, and why you do it,
and then let's go from there.
Brandy Tomhave: Sure.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
I am really thrilled to
be joining you today.
So as you mentioned, I am the
second executive director of the
Native American Humane Society.
I am an enrolled member of the Choctaw
Nation, which is located in Oklahoma.
You probably can't help but notice
that I am very white passing.
And I mentioned that because being a
Native American, a Native American in
the United States is it's complicated.
We all share a painful
and traumatic history.
You know, my own family walked along the
trail the Trail of Tears from Georgia
to well ultimately ended in Oklahoma.
We stopped in Arkansas and I
think decided that was enough.
I think that our identity politics are
different than the identity politics of
other minorities in the United States.
Native Americans are only
about 2% of the population.
But very little is understood about
Native Americans today and why their
status is different than any other
Americans in the United States.
We have a very specific political
relationship with United States
as a result of treaties and
statutes and Supreme Court cases.
So that.
Affirm the sovereignty of tribes.
And so if you're an enrolled member of
a tribe you are not so much a racial
minority as a citizen of a dependent
sovereign nation within the United States.
And if you don't remember anything else
I say today, that's really probably
the most important thing you'll learn
because that fact is what everything
else we're gonna talk about flows from.
The, the trauma of the, not only
the history that Native Americans
share but the, the damage that it
continues to do and how that trauma
and damage is less a matter of moral
failings of individuals than systemic
failures of government systems.
And and whatever happens to
people, happens to their animals.
And okay.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: alright.
So why, you know, you could have just,
I know you're a lawyer and I know
that your husband Jeff is a lawyer
Brandy Tomhave: Oh yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And that you have
spent your professional lives, you know,
working on behalf of Native American.
Rights in various ways,
which needs to be done.
Why did you turn your
attention to animals?
Brandy Tomhave: You know, I, that
is a really good question because
I certainly wasn't looking for it.
I will tell you what I was
doing immediately before.
Okay.
Two things.
I had worked very closely with the Navajo
Nation to help stand up the first cancer
treatment center on any Indian reservation
to make local culturally sensitive cancer
treatment accessible to native families
who otherwise have no opportunity to to
deal with that, that disease in a way that
gives 'em any chance to, of surviving it.
And then I had also just represented the
president of the Navajo Nation in this
multi jurisdictional effort to improve the
systemic response to missing and murdered
indigenous people on the Navajo nation.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Brandy Tomhave: And that's really like,
so one's access to cancer treatment.
The other one's access to ju justice.
You're right.
Yeah.
And so I think I'm very drawn to
causes that try to provide access
where none has otherwise existed,
and that's only an issue in
under-resourced, overlooked communities.
And I, I, I have always been
inspired by those kinds of causes.
And you know, I, I wanna
help and have some impact.
And it, and that's in my own small way,
how I have found a, a, a path forward,
you know, right towards that goal.
And then I, I learned about, I,
I'm embarrassed to tell you, I
had never noticed the animals.
I had spent 25 years out on the
Navajo Nation working in the deep res.
Every cause I've ever worked on, doesn't
matter how large or small straightforward
or complex, every conversation starts
at someone's table in the deep res.
And, and my job has been to then carry
that conversation forward from someone's
home or office to, you know, the council
chambers, to the president's office, to
Congress, to the White House ultimately.
And, I had seen dogs and I, you know,
you can't visit a reservation without
noticing, you know, dogs and cows and
horses, you know, outside community
spaces where you just don't see them
where I live now in Baltimore I'd
never really given them a thought.
And then the president of
the Navajo Nation asked me to
accompany him to a local animal
shelter in Flagstaff, Arizona.
And I had no idea why he asked
me to jump in the backseat.
And I was like, you know, all right,
I'll, I'll, I'll go along with this.
I have no choice.
And that really changed my life.
And it wasn't the dogs, it was the
people in the shelter that I found
so shocking because they were sort
so casual with their racism, frankly.
They said to then president, this
Rupert Isaacson: was
outside of the res, right?
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Tomhave: Flagstaff.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Flagstaff is a border town.
Yeah.
A college town, a wealthy town.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Brandy Tomhave: That, that's a rather
Rupert Isaacson: nice place.
Yeah.
I've been there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: To the Navajo Nation.
And so, you know, it's some, it's
someplace you're gonna travel through
if you visit the Grand Canyon.
Yeah.
And and so the folks at this shelter,
I looked at the president of the Navajo
nation and said, well, you really need
to do something about your res dogs.
40% of the dogs in our shelter
come from the reservation.
And and then the, the conversation
kind of deteriorated from there.
One of my,
and let me give you an
example of how, so I took it
Rupert Isaacson: once more.
Quick question.
Yeah.
Why did the president of the Navajo
Nation take you to this place?
Brandy Tomhave: He had been invited
and I think he had been invited to
Rupert Isaacson: to be lectured.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Because,
Brandy Tomhave: because the dogs that
were being taken from the Western
agency of the Navajo Nation were
seen by this non-profit organization
as a drain on their resources.
Right.
But this non-profit organization
was providing, it's like,
Rupert Isaacson: why are you
abandoning all your dogs?
We are the ones mopping up the mess.
Come on, do something about it.
Brandy Tomhave: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: That
was the message, right?
Yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: correct.
But the nonprofit organization
had a contract with the county
to provide these services.
So it was for all county residents,
and President Nez rightly reminded
them that Navajo Nation families.
Our county residents too.
They're paying sales tax, they pay
county taxes just like everybody else.
And this nonprofit organization
just didn't have the right to
decide which residents they were
going to provide services to.
That was really not a conversation
I had any business in, you
know, participating directly.
But I did have a question
which they entertained for me.
And that was, well, how do you
know those dogs are strays?
And they said, well, you know,
tourists will call us and tell
us that they see a dog outside
of, you know, a store or a hotel.
And so we send up our
van and collect them.
And there is frankly just no
way of that, let me back up.
Mm-hmm.
There was no system, there was no effort
to determine whether those dogs were
owned or unowned, which is problematic
because on the Navajo nation, like
many tribes and frankly lots of rural
communities owned dogs run around when
they're, you know, humans are, are
out doing their thing during the day.
The dogs are, are too.
There wasn't a process of like, you
know, notification, giving an owner
the opportunity to learn that their
dog had been taken and where their dog
had been taken to and where and how.
Right.
People won't color in their
Rupert Isaacson: dog saying, this dog
belongs to such and such a person, blah.
Right.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Right.
And I think that there.
There are just kind of
inherent judgments made.
We all make judgments about each other.
But when you act upon those judgments
in kind of such a definitive way, it can
be absolutely devastating to a family.
Yeah.
Right.
You come home and you're, you
know, your your dog's gone.
Your, your kid's best friend is gone.
You know, your, your companion is gone.
And so what really struck me was that
these were really nice people doing a
really great service for the county,
trying really hard without enough
resources, but attitudinally, they
just thought about Navajo families as
being kind of inherently different.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, probably neglectful
that, that would've been their thought.
Yeah.
And so I just, I want to bring
the conversation for a moment.
So listeners and people watching this will
probably be wondering, okay, well this
is interesting, but what does, what has
this got to do with equine assisted stuff?
Alright.
Yeah.
Well, just in for context equine
assisted is also part of animal assisted.
And as we all know, those of us who
particularly follow say horse boy method
or any of those types of things is
that we don't just work with horses.
We are working with any social animal
that we are hoping that, a person with
a need is going to form a relationship
with, and then we can work within that.
So anyone who's running a therapeutic
riding place, if the kid is into the
dog, not into the horse, well hey, great.
We're now gonna work with the dog.
We might bring the horse in later.
You know, so, and we are gonna talk about
horses as they relate to this as well.
So don't, if you are thinking,
well how does, how's this relevant?
Hold that thought.
'cause we are, I promise
gonna bring it back.
But I think what we need to do
is, is let Brandy outline this
cultural difference in perception.
Brandy Tomhave: Because
Rupert Isaacson: I do feel, as we'll
see in the course of this conversation
that there is stuff there for us to
learn, we practitioners how to better
our service through understanding
perhaps the Native American and
other different ways of looking at
the human relationship with animals.
So, okay.
Just having made that point over to
you, so you are sitting in this place in
Flagstaff, Arizona, you're seeing Oh yeah.
These people are coming from a
good place emotionally, morally.
They wanna do the right thing, but
they are, they don't realize that the
people on the Navajo reservation have
a different type of relationship with
their dogs, and now there's an impasse.
So people are going in there and
taking dogs that are actually family
dogs thinking they're neglected dogs.
Now what?
Yes.
Brandy Tomhave: Right.
E Exactly.
And I think that, you know, I have
outed our friends and Flagstaff and that
perhaps might be unfair because it's not
that is not unique to them in any way.
And working on the Navajo Nation, what
I soon learned from the friends with
whom I worked there was that there are
a lot of well-intended folks parachuting
into their communities trying to help
Yeah.
Basic.
And, and the, the form of that help is
telling them how to treat their dogs.
And that does so much damage and
that feels so much like, a a eight.
I am, I'm struggling to find the words.
Mm-hmm.
There was a time when it was
perfectly acceptable to steal
kids from native families.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
Brandy Tomhave: And the government
encouraged missionaries to do that
Rupert Isaacson: a hundred percent.
And sent them to boarding schools
where they were all sexually abused and
every kind of horrible thing happened,
Brandy Tomhave: right.
Rupert Isaacson: North America.
Yes.
Yes.
Brandy Tomhave: And, and what was
driving that was a shared assumption
that those kids would be better
off being raised anywhere than
there in their own communities.
Yeah.
By their own families.
And bottom line, that is a belief
that is still held pretty firmly by
folks who see animals on reservations.
So it's not cool to steal the kids
anymore, but you can rescue the dogs.
Yeah.
It's the same phenomenon and
it lands emotionally the same
for the native families who
find their loved one absent and
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
It's
Brandy Tomhave: so,
Rupert Isaacson: I, I, I
totally understand this.
Why did you decide,
given that the human abuses that go on,
on in Indian country are so still so
pressing, why did you decide to then
switch your attention to these animals?
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah, because it's
such an extraordinary opportunity.
I have worked in a tribal advocacy
for almost 30 years and this is the
one area that no one else has really
shown up to deal with quite yet.
Hmm.
The federal government has responsibility
vis-a-vis treaties and statutes
and case law to provide for, for
forming main things for tribes,
housing, education law enforcement
and and environmental management.
Okay.
And not not veterinary
care, not animal wellness.
And so there is no federal
program or model that has had an
opportunity to help or hurt tribes
when it comes to animals just yet.
What that means.
Is that while the housing that you
see on Indian reservations it's result
of decisions made in Washington DC
largely by non-native people about
what housing should look like.
Same thing with education,
same thing with public safety.
Same thing with land management.
Here when it comes to animals, it
is an extraordinary opportunity
for tribes to do authentic nation
building to decide for themselves what
animal wellness systems should look
like within their own communities.
They didn't have that opportunity
in the other spheres of daily life
that I just listed, but here they do.
And I find that incredibly exciting
as an advocate for native people
and everything I learned working
in the sector of public safety or
public health for tribal communities.
All of those lessons are absolutely
relevant here because what we're really
talking about is creating systems
where none have ever existed before
and they are going to be created.
On the ground by tribes themselves
and the, and it's gonna be peer to
peer knowledge sharing and coalition
building, rather than having the feds
issue dictates about what that should
look like in a tribal community.
I've never had an opportunity to be a
part of that, and I am 61 years old,
and that is a heck of a way to, you
know, I guess, move towards what I,
what I'm assuming is gonna be like the
last quarter of my professional life.
I, that's, well, I
Rupert Isaacson: think, yeah.
What, what, what I think you're,
you're hitting on, which is really
interesting to me, is that animals
are always the ambassadorial
bridge between human cultures.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: So, for example,
the equine assisted world that we do,
the equines are a bridge between the
neurotypical and the non neurotypical.
The therapy dog is a bridge
between this human population
and that human population.
I routinely go to foreign countries
and I can show up in a place where I
don't speak the language and I know
very little about the culture and.
I can meet other horse
people from that culture.
And the horse is the
ambassador between us now.
It's not just that animals are
not the only thing that does that.
There are things within human culture
like music or healing or land management
or there are many cultural things that
can bridge and do bridge human societies,
particularly human societies that perhaps
don't understand each other very well.
But I think what you're putting your
finger on, which I think is fascinating
to me, is that particularly the dogs and
the horses in Native America can serve
as a bridge, an ambassadorial bridge
of understanding of the entire culture
between white and native American society.
And in Europe, you know, outside of
native, outside of white America,
if you like, you there is often a
sort of fascination with a perceived
idea of what Native American
horse culture might look like.
Yeah.
Because of the adoption and
really successful adoption of the
horse by Native American tribes,
you know, once the Spanish had
shown up and that they could use.
Those horses very successfully
against the whites.
And particularly like on the Comanche
nation, you know, they kept the
whites out of Texas for 300 years.
I mean, without, without the horse.
They couldn't have done it.
When the horse brought to them by
the whitey used as a tool against
the whites with great success.
And at the same time served as a
respect bridge that any of the people
coming from white America into Comanche
could go, wow, these guys really know
what they're doing, but there's stuff
we can actually learn from here.
This is sort of our tradition that they've
taken and now they've made it, you know,
something that we can learn back from.
Whoa.
So you've got people coming
from that perspective too.
And I think that Native American
relationship with canines is also
something that's been a fasten source
of fascination, because when Europeans
first showed up particularly in the,
on, on the plains, they noticed that
people were using dogs as draft animals,
as well as as hunting partners and
companion animals and the rest of it.
And so they clearly knew a whole
lot more about dogs than a lot of
the Europeans that were coming in.
And this was a source of fascination.
People wrote about it.
Now we've reached a point where I would
say probably it's gone the other way.
The perception now is that no, we in the.
If you like the white world, know more
about these things than people living in
rural slums because the, you know, when
you go into a, an Indian reservation
in the US I've been to many of them.
They often look like that.
And so it's hard then if you knew
nothing about that other background to
look at that and go and not go, okay,
these animals look kind of neglected.
And at the same time to not
understand what the relationship
with the animals might be.
So the horses are walking around,
apparently untended, but of
course they all belong to people
and they actually are used.
They just don't happen to be fenced.
And the same with the dogs.
You are in this really interesting
position where I think you can speak as an
ambassador for those animal ambassadors,
which brings a greater understanding
between these two historically
antagonistic human cultures to do, kind
of allow the animals to do what the
animals always do, which is cool us out
and make us actually realize that we deal
with the same species and ought to be on
the same side occupying the same planet.
We shouldn't be trying to colonize,
but yet I can definitely see how your
experience in that Flagstaff animal
shelter would've made you go, ah,
sadly, this is still colonization.
It's just coming from a good place
rather than a bad place that's
even more ambiguous and therefore
almost even harder to address.
No,
Brandy Tomhave: it is very hard to
convince, very passionate,
well-intended people that they
could be doing harm because it's
the last thing they want to do.
And I think that really cha challenges
their core belief about themselves.
I get that that's hard for all of us.
I love how you've characterized animals as
being these kind of bridging ambassadors.
I just wanted to share with you that
you know, in my tribe, the, the Choctaw
people and, and other tribal people,
you know, have thought of dogs as being
ambassadors from the spirit world.
Yeah.
And I'm sure that's true
all around the world.
Right?
Same thing with horses.
Absolutely.
And and I think that this nascent effort
to help tribes develop their own animal
wellness systems is an opportunity for
them to reclaim their own historic,
traditional relationships with animals
who've unfortunately, you know, are
too often now seen as just a nuisance.
Because reservations are not
designed for companion animals.
And I just have to say that on behalf
of tribal folks, it's galling to have
non-natives who, like, as you white people
Rupert Isaacson: call it
like, it is, it's fine.
It's,
Brandy Tomhave: it's usually white
women, you know, who look just like me.
It's older white women, you know,
caravans of them who come in and
start judging people about how they
live and the condition of their dogs
because those white women are living
on the land that belonged to those
native families not that long ago.
Yeah.
Like.
Within a hundred years.
So you can find people to these spaces.
The reason why they didn't have
problems with dogs before is because
there's plenty of room for everyone.
Yeah.
There's no longer is, and the housing
that the federal government provides is
so sub, so small, so substandard that
you have multiple generations of people.
You can have 12.
It's not at all uncommon to have a
dozen to 20 people living in a two
bedroom house that is not fenced.
Where, where are the
animals supposed to be?
And those families and those communities
have larger problems that are urgent
right now regarding their own hunger and
their own health and their own warmth.
And they just can't quite get to the dogs
like people like me who have the comfort
and privilege of you know, all of those
kinds of basic needs are taken care of.
So, you know.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
It, it's also, there's a
really interesting thing.
I dunno if you remember.
We were in Montana together
in Missoula for that festival.
And there was a, another presentation
going on, if you remember, from
the local dog shelter talking about
homeless people and their dogs Yeah.
And trying to provide
veterinary care for that and
Brandy Tomhave: mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: In the current political
climate, this is getting more and more
difficult and so on and so on and so on.
And, I remember thinking, yeah, the
happiest dogs, often the happiest
dogs I've seen are the dogs owned
by homeless people because they have
constant companionship from their owners.
The owners do not go out to
work and leave them frequently.
They are there all the time.
They have a totally defined job.
They're protecting their companion.
They're acting as sort of a bridge.
They, they earn money because if
you sit and your panhandling and
your dog is with you, people are
more likely to give you money.
And the dog's pretty grand.
Dog doesn't care whether it's sleeping,
you know, on the street or on your sofa.
And so this perception that say
the animals owned by those people
are suffering is that, well, they
might be, but they often are not.
And the animals owned by people living
in houses are frequently suffering.
So one can't really
judge by those standards.
And then the same thing
with say with horses.
Now obviously if I go on a, anywhere,
a reservation or not a reservation,
and I see horses that are obviously
say under fed or clearly worm ridden
or something like that, then yeah, I'm
gonna notice that and I'm going to but.
The reservation that I've spent the
most time on is the Navajo reservation.
And I'm going to talk a little
bit about my relationship with the
Navajo reservation in a minute.
'cause this is specific to this
conversation because there would
be no horse boy without the Navajo
nation and I'm, so, I owe a debt
of gratitude to the Navajo nation
which I'll go into in a moment.
When I was on the many times that
I've been on there, I've tended to
notice that the horse is in pretty
good Nick, when you go around, yeah,
there's the odd horse that isn't.
But for the most part, what you see,
and I've seen plenty of horses in
white America, not in good nick too,
by the way, but for the most part,
driving around that vast area, which
is the size of Ireland, I believe.
The horses look pretty good and
people are riding them pretty well and
are, have a relationship with them.
That is to do with livelihood, not sport.
It's to do with culture.
And that makes generally for happy,
fulfilled animals as well as people.
So
it's clear that there is stuff
to be learned from both sides.
Your organization is, is doing
a really great thing and they're
gonna provide, you know, more
veterinary systems and fantastic.
Fantastic.
And at the same time, there
is a relationship that one
doesn't really want to disturb.
Can you talk to me a little bit about
what we don't want to disturb IE
what is the therapeutic value within
Native America of canines and equines?
I don't mean what fanciful notions can we
white people have about Native American
horsemanship or something like that.
Now, I don't mean that, what I mean
is specifically family to family.
What role, given that we're dealing
often with quite traumatized
communities, what role do the
dogs and the horses generally have
or play in the human wellbeing
of people living there?
Brandy Tomhave: Well, thank
you for that question.
And I am daunted by the challenge of
answering it and doing it justice,
Rupert Isaacson: make it subjective.
It's, this is just gonna
try my best interpretation.
Yeah.
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Finally, we have taquine
equine integration.
If you know anything about our
programs, you know that we need a
really high standard of horsemanship
in order to create the oxytocin
in the body of the person that
we're working with, child or adult.
So, this means we need to train
a horse in collection, but this
also has a really beneficial
effect on the horse's well being.
And it also ends your time conflict,
where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
am I going to condition my horses and
maintain them and give them what they
need, as well as Serving my clients.
Takine equine integration aimed
at a more adult client base
absolutely gives you this.
Brandy Tomhave: So.
Well, first let me start
with the traditional role and
then I have to come clean.
The Native American Humane Society
focuses on, focuses upon companion
animals, so I'm more able to speak
to dogs, but absolutely, you know,
we, we, horses are a huge part.
Horse culture is a huge
part of native culture.
Hmm.
And and I have seen all the
same things that you have.
And let me start by saying that
native American people try, there's
576 federally recognized tribes.
All of them are different.
They're not a monolith.
Each has its own culture,
history, practices, language,
historically and today languages.
But what they share is a extraordinary
bond with animals because native.
Culture across the board is
one based upon relationality
and that we are all relations.
So, you know, we are
relations with horses.
We are the relations of with dogs.
Mm-hmm.
And I think that's very different
than non-native cultures, at
least here in the United States.
And I'll just link my
conversation to that.
And so we have had relationships
with animals since time immemorial.
And and we don't distinguish between
the spiritual and the scientific.
It's the same.
Okay.
And we all carry our own medicine, so.
Horses and dogs are part of tribal
ceremonies and songs and practices.
They are embedded in religions
and native religions.
So it's not all uncommon for the a tribe
to traditionally view a dog as being the
messenger from this world to the next.
On the Navajo Nation there's a little
dog that looks like a chihuahua that is
believed to have protected their winter
God the, the deity known as a y Bache.
And so that dog still factors
into y Bache ceremonies.
I have never been a part of it.
It's, I can't speak about a Navajo
ceremony beyond that, which you know,
I have, that little bit has been shared
with me by very close Navajo friends.
So I think that horses and dogs have
always played a profound role in
tribal cultures in terms of informing
us as human beings, who we are and
our place in the universe and our
relationship with all beings today.
And then as a practical matter moving
forward, I think they were certainly.
Allowed to just be companions.
Archeologists have dug up bones of
native people in California recently.
Where the animals are buried with humans.
We are assuming that, that there
is a relationality there, right?
Native leaders were photographed
for formal portraiture in
Washington DC cradling puppies.
So there's a re relationality, and yes,
and also they were used to pull tvo.
These are the dogs the horses in war.
Navajo people are shepherds
and you know, obviously for you
know, sheep dogs and hunting.
And so for practical purposes today,
there is an extraordinary, ranching
tradition with my husband's comes from a
family of ranchers from the Fort Brisel
Reservation in North Dakota, and that's
the home of the Mandan Hiza and RA Nation.
And a lot has changed.
The US Army Corps of in of
engineers flooded the town that
my father-in-law grew up in.
So the place is unrecognizable from
what it was just two generations ago.
And yet the ranching practices
have continued as though
nothing has changed, right?
So, horse culture is really important
and manifests in all kinds of
ways, including rodeo and rodeo.
I think the only thing that's as big as
rodeo in Indian country is basketball.
And also you asked me part of why I
got into this, you know, I was working
basically within a kind of public
safety sphere of the Navajo nation
trying to help missing and murdered
persons and their families find justice.
And in the course of that.
I unfortunately came face to face with
instances of animal cruelty and abuse
because there is no greater indicator
of future human violence than past
human violence against an animal.
And that's a greater indicator of
future violence than violent human on
human violence, which I think is really
Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
Interesting.
That is interesting.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
And, and so I actually was
sent photographs of animal
abuse on the Navajo Nation.
And and to me, this is the
final manifestation of the
trauma from genocide mm-hmm.
Is when you lose your own humanity.
Yeah.
And that's really what the Native
American Humane Society is about, is
helping tribes themselves restore,
reclaim,
and restore the human animal bond
that has always existed since
time, Memorial time immemorial.
But that, you know, the consequence
of genocide has, you know, really
compromised because colonization
is still a daily reality.
For a lot of native people.
It's not something that they're
reading about in a history book.
They're still, you know, they got
up today and are still living the
consequence of that based upon the
policies and practices Absolutely.
Of the US federal government.
And that directly affects everything.
And when people are profoundly
traumatized they bring that trauma to
every relationship, including, especially
I think with the most vulnerable
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
The helpless.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: The helpless.
Those would be animals.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, I get it.
And what's interesting to me is that it's
very natural and understandable if you
are a people that have been colonized
to look at the process of colonization
as that people to your people.
You know, I, I, my family's incredibly
mixed, but on my father's side, it's
Litvac Lithuanian Jews who got out because
of the pogroms, the killing of masculine
of Jews in the 19th century there.
And sort of that's what sp, you
know, sent them to the Americas
and to South Africa, where my
family's from in the last 200 years.
This process of genocide weirdly, often
fueled on horseback has been going
on since about the early Bronze Age.
So that's about 4,000 years.
And of course, where does it start?
Eurasia, it starts in Eurasia and
the step peoples who would've been
not unlike Native American peoples.
Mm-hmm.
And it's interesting, if you
go to Mongolia, you know,
it's really interesting.
You look around and go, oh, this must
be what America kind of looked like
before the white people showed up.
You know, because it's of course
Brandy Tomhave: just,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
I have
Brandy Tomhave: to tell you
that I have a very dear friend,
Uhhuh,
Who is Navajo and lives and
works out on Navajo, and she
went to Mongolia by herself.
She's very interest.
Okay.
And she got there and she said, I traveled
all the way across the world only to
find people who looked exactly like me.
Exactly my relations.
I got the biggest kick out of that
Rupert Isaacson: Eve.
And to the, to the degree that
Athabascan, you know, native American
languages seem to either originate
in Northern Asia or vice versa.
We don't, we'll never know
which one, but we know that
it's a similar language route.
And you know, you, you're with the, the.
Horse tribes of the step, and they're
living in ge yurts, which are not
dissimilar from Hogans and so on.
And then you go north into Siberia and
they're living in teepees and yeah.
Speaking language, it sounds quite same.
And, and a very similar spiritual system.
Healing system express with the round
drum, the way of dancing, the way
of chanting, the way of da da da.
And of course, this actually
goes into Europe too.
If you go across into Northern
Scandinavia, you're gonna find
this with the Saami people.
These are the last, if you like,
indigenous people left in Europe.
But of course, everyone in
Europe is indigenous too.
The Celts, the Vikings, you know, they
were all the people who were there.
Yeah.
Right.
And we've all been killing each other.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: With great enthusiasm
and committing genocide upon genocide
on each other since the first person
threw their leg over the back of a horse
and realized it made you super human.
And it seems to have started in a place
in western Russia called Lake, where
people began to breed horses for a higher
wither about 4,000 years ago, the way
you could actually fix a saddle because
truly wild horses or have no wither
so saddles, they're hard to stay on.
Mm-hmm.
And they exploded out of
there and killed everybody.
And, and Mongolia, as you know, became the
most violent culture on the planet for.
Centuries, you know, KU, k Genghis,
Khan, Tamerlan, these people who
would like explode out of their,
kill everybody from the Pacific
to the Mediterranean for 20 years.
And then Atilla, Lahan,
you know, all these people.
And then sort of run out of energy
retreat back to the heartland
and then half a generation later
explode out and do it again.
And then somewhere in the 17th century,
some Tibetan monks wandered over the Altai
plateau into Mongolia and just started
talking about this thing called Buddhism.
And like in a generation, they kind
of went, oh yeah, we don't have
to do that genocide stuff anymore.
Yeah.
It's kind of a stupid idea.
Yeah, let's just have a good time
here and you now go to Mongolia.
And they're like the coolest
people on the planet.
And that trauma that then went obviously
to the new world and everywhere else
that was colonized was just simply
the process of colonization that'd
been going on within Eurasia forever.
And then it just, when people
figured their way across the
big oceans, well they're just
gonna go do it over there now.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And also the people that
they found in Africa and Native were also
doing, frankly, doing it to each other.
They were not saints.
And so, okay.
We're all as bad as each other.
Mm-hmm.
Except for the hunter gatherer
people who don't do that stuff.
But anyone who is a herding culture
or a farming culture does this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And
so we have more in common
than we think we do.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: I also posit that
within white America, there is a, and
we haven't talked about black America,
obviously there's also an inherited
trauma of how they arrived because a
lot of people arrived in America because
they were fleeing what was not so
great in Europe and encountered great
hardship when they got to the Americas.
'cause there were, you know, you could
be exploited pretty well and a lot of
people, you know, arrived there also as
indenture, indentured labor and slaves.
So the first slaves were actually
Irish and then they ran out of them
and then started thinking, hmm, those
West Africans look quite useful.
Let's get them across into the Caribbean.
And, you know, brutal.
And now we are all coming out of
this and looking at each other
going, well, we're all still here.
And you know what?
We all love our dogs
and we love our horses.
Is it not time to.
Just admit that we're just all the same.
And I think what you are doing is so
much a part of that and that this debt of
gratitude that I've got to Native America.
So for those who don't know the, a
lot of people know the story of how I
went to Mongolia with my son, but what
they don't know maybe is that there's
a follow up book called The Long Ride
Home, which details the three journeys
that I was told to make by the Mongolian
Shaman ghost after he did his healing.
And the last of those was
on the Navajo reservation.
And I had already had a lot of
adventures on the Navajo reservation
working in the human rights sector as
a journalist for sort of 10 or 15 years
beforehand, I fell into it following
the story of an amazing woman called
Roberta Black Goat, who refused.
Yeah.
You know, remember her?
Yes.
Yeah.
She refused to move from that
contested land that the Peabody
Coal Company were gonna blow up that
sacred mountain and she wouldn't go.
That makes sense.
And I went and stayed with her for a
while and back in the nineties and was so
privileged to see that traditional life.
And anyway, so then I eventually end
up there with my son and a healer
whose name, his real name is Chi,
but he was also known as Blue Horse.
And we call him Blue Horse in the book
because we wanted to protect his identity
a little bit because he was still.
We didn't want him getting overwhelmed,
but blue horse is often what he went by.
And he would use horse energy after
he healed my son, the healing rituals.
And then we sweated on my son's behalf.
But then he also did a, a ritual
with making the fire and then
in the ash, seeing the patterns
in the ash and interpreting what
might be still be in my son.
That need was unhelpful
and needed to come out.
And then after we'd sweated all day,
my wife and I, not Rowan, we didn't
put him through the sweat lodge.
And then the dawn leaving the corn
pollen ceremony that was done at
dawn on the rim of the canyon.
My son was still very using, very
scripted language at this point and
you couldn't really have a conversation
with him or like back, back and forth.
Like we are.
We get on highway I 40, interstate
40 heading out of the Navajo
reservation towards Albuquerque.
And as we go under Mount Taylor,
which as you know is the Eastern's
boundary, there's this like truck
stop in a McDonald's, you know,
very prosaic after we've done this
beautiful ceremony and so on and so on.
And there's a truck stop and
McDonald's and in their, of
course there's these terrible.
Horrible drinks, slushies that have
the, all these chemicals in them.
And I, my son wants one, and I don't
want to give him one because I know
he'll send him nuts and he has a big
meltdown and we get back in the car
and I'm like, oh God, you know, of
course you're gonna have a meltdown.
You know, you know, go on then.
You know, just knock yourself out.
You know?
I was grumpy because I hadn't slept.
And, and he goes from the back, he
goes, I'm not being grumpy, Dan.
I'm just telling you what drink I want.
And I just pulled over on the shoulder
and went, who are you?
And from that moment on, we had actual
conversation, and it happened right
through and after these ceremonies,
and I could go into more amazingness.
That's happened on the Navajo
reservation, but the practice of
horse boy method, which is how a lot
of people have come to this podcast.
And now my work would not have
happened, but for the input of
Navajo Nation, native America.
And there was a generosity there.
I think that's what I'm trying
to put my finger on, that
said, look, you're a white boy.
Your people have done terrible things to
our people, and we're frankly angry about
it, but we see that your son needs help.
And we are not gonna be wankers.
We're absolutely gonna help him.
And we just have to live
within that ambivalence.
And the help that they
gave him was top notch.
Talk to me about the concept of
generosity, animal to human, human
to animal within Native America.
And for people who are listening
or watching this who are
practitioners of animal assisted
stuff, what can we learn from that?
Brandy Tomhave: You ask
great questions, Rupert.
I think that, as I said before,
every tribe is different, you know?
Yeah.
And I, I, I don't want to gloss over that.
I, I, I want to really recognize
and, and ensure that we're
Rupert Isaacson: indeed, but one can make
generalizations even about, say Europe.
Okay.
We're all different
nations and then we, yeah.
European nation, we a
thousand different nations.
And it's the same, but we can
also talk about Europe, you know?
Yeah, yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
So that said,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
It is such a a, a, a, a moral foundation.
It's such a, a, a foundational value with
an every tribal community i, I know of.
And it is, it's, it is how you begin and
the demonstration of generosity is really
how you begin and end every interaction.
I think that has been my experience.
And so there is an expectation of
generosity as well in some communities,
like, the Pacific Northwest communities
what we hear in my family call the
fish tribes you know, there's potlatch,
there's a whole tradition of potlatch,
communities, you know, where it's very
ritualistic and and very you know,
ceremonially ostentatious and that,
you know, you give, give, give and
then the, the, the extent which you
can give your status goes up, right?
Like there's a, there's a direct
correlation between the, the capacity
to give and, and and your standing
that is very specific to them.
I too have experienced what nothing like
you and your son, but my experience as an
outsider in tribal communities with whom
I've worked is extraordinary generosity
to me and and a willingness to give me.
The benefit of the doubt mm-hmm.
To
have faith that I am who I say I am,
and I am there for the reasons I state.
Mm-hmm.
And
that's pretty extraordinary when
you think about how, how much
native Trust has been betrayed.
Mm-hmm.
And yet it's it's still a social Um hmm.
What's, what's the term I'm looking for?
It's, it's, it's a social construct
that is very, it's a system of
Rupert Isaacson: ethics.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
There, there you go.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
And and I think that I, i not sure if this
answers your question directly, but I,
in terms of between humans and animals,
there is an understanding that anything in
everything an animal gives you is a gift.
And it is to be respected
and honored, um mm-hmm.
On a spiritual plane.
And there is, so there is a
reciprocity between humans and animals.
That is I think very special
within tribal communities.
It's, it's, it's recognized in a very
special way and honored Ceremonially.
Ceremonially, but then even
just casually, socially.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: They're not so much seen
as and again, this is a generalization
and I apologize for that, but
they're not seen as beasts of burden.
They're seen as relatives.
Rupert Isaacson: This is the key.
I think.
So while you were talking earlier,
I was looking up on my phone
Cartesian relationship to animals.
So as you're probably aware, there
was in the 17th century a bloke
called Decart who was a philosopher.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And he is basically more or less
considered responsible for the shift in
Western thought to materialism, to saying,
you know, for example, consciousness
comes from the brain, or the universe
is just a physical thing, or animals
because they don't speak and express
emotion in the way that humans do,
although they kind of do, I dunno how
he could have come up with that really.
Because I mean, anyone observing a
mammal, you know, it's not that hard.
It's not that different from us to say,
well, that means they don't have souls.
And if they don't have souls.
Then they just be suburban and
therefore they don't actually suffer.
So it doesn't matter
how much you abuse them.
Brandy Tomhave: And it's
a very atomized view.
Rupert Isaacson: It is, it is.
Now, it was not always the
European view by any means.
So, you know, you talked about like the
potlatch and that kind of gift giving.
That's Viking culture, right?
And that's Germanic horse culture.
The goths, the vandals, the, you know,
you talk, but what it, what that Cartesian
thing does come from is a little bit the
ancient, the cultures of the ancient world
starting in Mesopotamia, going into Egypt,
then Greece and Rome, which were basically
justifying slavery, you know, and again,
we haven't talked about the experience
of of, of black America and of course
black America and Native America often
quite intertwined because Native American
generosity would often give sanctuary to
runaway escaped slaves, which would bring
down the wr of the feds upon the Native
Americans, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And there's many black native American
tribes from the southern US all the way
down into Central and South America,
like the Garner and okay, okay.
The Mosquito Indians and so on, Seminoles.
But this Cartesian view of animals
I think was just a kind of an
inheritance of a certain kind of.
Ancient world urbanized justification of
enslaving any entity, human or animal.
And that, of course in the 19th
century expressed itself in
America as manifest destiny.
And therefore, well,
you can't stop progress.
So these people are in the
way, and it doesn't really
matter what we do with them.
And anyway, we're again, give them the
roads just like the Romans did, gonna
give 'em roads and things like that.
So, you know, it doesn't really
matter what we go in there and do.
And therefore it doesn't matter to
the animals that what we do to the
animals that carry us in there.
Mm-hmm.
So I think by the time, say, native
American people sitting on a horse, were
looking across at, say, a settler or a
US cavalry man sitting on a horse, then
you'd have two very, very, very different
perceptions of what this horse meant.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And what's
Brandy Tomhave: happening in that moment
Rupert Isaacson: and what this
land meant and what this human
relationship ought to be.
Because we also know that the vast
majority of Indian tribes actually were
quite good to the whites when they first
showed up and then regretted it later.
That generosity, again,
my feeling having spent a bit of time on
in Native America is that could we, as the
white inheritors of that decar, Cartesian,
I think is the word viewpoint, who are now
going Yeah, of course animals have souls.
Of course we must have relationships
with animals of course.
And now that, you know, you got the
Native Americans probably looking
at there going, yeah, no, no shit.
Sherlock, you know,
Brandy Tomhave: well they think about one
health, the whole notion of one health go.
It's like,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Have you
Brandy Tomhave: heard that one?
Yeah, right.
No, no.
Rupert Isaacson: Talk to me about that.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt.
No, no,
Rupert Isaacson: please.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
So one health is this concept, right?
That animal health and human health
are completely interrelated and
therefore must be considered together.
And, you know, the world
Health Organization has a
big one health program, okay?
The United States at least, I
don't know what time it is, they
used to have a one health program.
Really, I can't give up.
Okay.
Yeah.
But you know, it's just for native
people when they hear about One
Health and these fancy found basically
white, highly hyper educated white
professionals come into their community
to tell them about One health.
What they're really doing is saying back
to native people what they have always
known and have never stopped practicing.
And that is that, you know, the human
life and animal life is completely
interconnected, and that is true
on the spiritual plane as well as
the, the practical physical plane.
And so of course our health is
interrelated and that's not any kind of
aha moment in Indian country, and they
just sort of chuckle, you know, because
they tend to be a very polite people.
And so anyway, yeah, that's one health
and it feels kind of like an appropriation
of an essential native value that,
you know, sort of Western medicine
has figured out how to commoditize
and, and brand, but we're all for it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Provided, yeah.
Put the money where the
mouth is if possible.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: If if someone is
listening to this conversation from, say,
Slovakia or.
Pakistan, let alone Leicestershire
in England or Ohio in the States.
And they are practitioners, let's say
they animal assisted practitioners.
Doesn't have to just be equine.
What would be the sort of, it
doesn't have to be the one thing,
what would be the paramount things
that you think they could learn from
the Native American way of relating to
particularly companion animals that could
help all of us better our practice, no
matter what culture we're coming out of?
Brandy Tomhave: You
know, this is so simple.
I fear it will sound trite, but I'm
gonna share with you something that
someone recently shared with me that
just really landed for me and has
been changing for me as a person.
And it is so simple, which
is to recognize that,
that maybe.
Our job every day is really simple,
and that is to be a good relative,
be a good relative to these animals.
When you really boil something down
to, to something that basic, all of
a sudden anything seems possible and
practical, like what does that mean?
What you know, this is, you know, my
dog Luke and the Choctaw people raise
these cattle hula leopard dogs to hunt
for bears and, and pigs in the swamps.
And and he loves to get in on a good
zoom call, so my apologies, but no,
Rupert Isaacson: he's a gentleman.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
I really try to be a good relative
to Luke, which means that I try every
day to put myself in his place and
think what's a good day for Luke?
And make time for that and do that thing.
And I think that I'm not
well traveled like you are.
I haven't been all over the world,
so I don't know what would resonate
for people outside the United States.
But if it's someone in Ohio, like
you mentioned, I think it would
be to understand that when you
are treating when you're dealing
with an a companion animal, the.
You are dealing with a companion.
It doesn't matter if
they're an animal or not.
Mm-hmm.
It's the companionship that, the, the
whole thing, everything should pivot upon.
So you have to deal with
both ends of the leash.
Right.
Don't just treat the animal.
Treat the animal and the person who
is their relative, it's like cancer.
Cancer happens to the whole family.
You can't just treat the patient,
you treat the whole family because
otherwise the patient won't do well.
The patient will not thrive.
And I think you could
Rupert Isaacson: actually say
the same for autism and Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Serve the whole family.
Absolutely.
Serve
Brandy Tomhave: the whole family.
I think that, and so,
yeah, be a good relative.
Rupert Isaacson: Be a good relative.
That doesn't sound trite at all.
Okay.
Now speaking of being good relatives
couple of challenging questions back
to the perception from outsiders
of how animals might get treated
differently in Native American context.
And again, I think this will
help us understand about our
relationship to animals in general.
So I was recently at a equine
conference in the USA another
one after we've met in Florida.
And it is part run by people who are
very much Mustang Mustang advocates.
And one of the topics of conversation
that came up in these presentations
was that there is a problem.
I was told on Reserv Indian
reservations where Mustangs are
rounded up wholesale and sold for meat.
I don't know if this is true or not.
And they were saying this is part of
the general problem 'cause it's also
going on outside of Native America.
But they said, you know, we can, we
can affect it to some degree within
white America, but Native American
nations are, they're sovereign
nations, so we can't really go in
there and do anything to better the
the lot of those mustangs there.
And I heard that and I was like,
well that's interesting because,
you know, I know the plains cultures
in particular, the Western American
cultures of Native America to be
very horse friendly, very pro horse.
So I wonder what the real story here is.
And of course, of course I thought of
you and I thought, I wonder what Brandy
would say if she was in the room.
So this is kind of my ch chance to
ask you a little bit about that.
What, what do you think?
Yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
Well, so.
I think this is really complicated.
Yeah.
And my time to confess, this is why
the Native American Humane Society does
not include within its scope horses.
Okay.
Because it is so complex.
And honestly, if we can be impactful, you
know, regarding companion animals will
have really done a good job achieving
a, a a, a mission for native people.
This is complicated
because of the land, right?
Mm-hmm.
So I'm gonna tell you I don't have a
definitive answer for you, but I can give
you a couple of scenarios that Right.
And I'm not
Rupert Isaacson: looking
for a definitive answer.
Answer.
I'm looking for a discussion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
So, the Salt River Pima Indian tribe
in Arizona have an extraordinary
program that is a WildHorse sanctuary.
Mm.
It's, it's amazing.
And the next time you're
here, we should go there.
Salt
Rupert Isaacson: River Pima in Arizona.
Brandy Tomhave: Salt River.
Yeah.
In Scottsdale.
Ah, you usually said
Rupert Isaacson: that
Sounds like Phoenix to me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: You associates Scottsdale
with, you know, country clubs and
Rupert Isaacson: golf courses.
Yeah.
Resort
Brandy Tomhave: living.
Sure.
But the Salt River Pima are
still there and they have this.
Extraordinary WildHorse,
you know, Mustang sanctuary.
Mm-hmm.
The same is true of the Hoopa Indians in
Northern California on the Pacific Coast.
The two could not situationally
be more different from each other,
and you are absolutely right there.
There is this thriving, beautiful
horse culture within Indian country.
And also we have a little land problem.
There's a once a really funny native
comedian named Charlie Hill who
went on David, the David Letterman
show a nighttime talk show here
and said you know, so Indians
have a little real estate problem.
And that real estate problem
is a real problem for animals.
Two legged M four-legged.
And, and for wild horses especially.
So Indian reservations are primarily,
not exclusively, but most of,
mostly comprised of federal land.
That means it's not private land.
It cannot be owned in fee.
It cannot be bought or sold.
It's being held in trust
for the benefit of.
Tribes by the federal government.
That means there is no property tax base.
And that is why you don't see animal
welfare programs and systems on
Indian reservations because a tribe
doesn't have the capacity to raise,
raise revenue for animal systems
like local towns or counties.
The way all that stuff
is paid for is to, can
Rupert Isaacson: I just go
devil's advocate for a moment?
'cause I can hear a whole bunch of
Americans saying, what about the casinos?
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
So the casinos are the most regulated
tribal casinos are the most regulated
businesses in the United States, right?
And who benefits the most from
tribal casinos are states.
And that's pursuant to the federal law
that allows tribal gaming the Native
American Indian gaming actor niga.
And so that's all been negotiated by
the federal government and the states.
So the states get the most and the
extent that tribes, tribal casinos are
profitable, they are typically being
managed by the big gaming concerns.
Right?
So, I would just like to say for the
record that what you see when you
see a successful tribal casino is
not a moneymaking machine that is
exclusively for the benefit of the
tribe, which is what we all assume.
Right.
And so, you'd be surprised.
Rupert Isaacson: Would, or, or
hope, we would hope as well.
Oh,
Brandy Tomhave: right.
We would hope so.
But that's usually not the case.
And then those monies are
already identified in terms
of how they can be spent.
So that's, that's why not, and then,
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Good answer.
And,
Brandy Tomhave: and then those monies are
prioritized for, for human needs education
is at the top of every tribe's list.
Every tribe that has a
casino is spending money.
They're, they're plowing it
into education, housing, senior
services, stuff like that, including
my own, the Choctaw Nation.
So, that's why not the tribal casino.
So now you've got land that
can't, there's no tax base for it.
And you have federal agencies that really
dictate what can be, how that land can be
used, what can be done on the land and out
west it's the Bureau of Land Management.
Yeah.
And, you know, BLM are really the
the decision makers when it comes
to wild horses in the western part
of the United States, which is
Rupert Isaacson: including on Indian land.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: And so, the
tribe has a seat at the table,
but BLM is calling the shots.
Rupert Isaacson: I see.
Brandy Tomhave: And so the decision
making is structurally complicated.
The agendas are nuanced and
mm-hmm.
And competing.
And so for example, if you have
a, a herding nation, right?
Mm-hmm.
You have grazing permits
mm-hmm.
And people who have grazing permits
and those grazing, if you can't own
land, having a grazing permit is the
only chance you have to exert agency
over land as though it is your own.
Right.
So
what a wild horse can represent to a
native family with a grazing permit
who's running sheep, is like an
existential threat to their own existence.
And it's likely that a tribal
community where there's a lot of
hurting is also a tribal community
where there's a lot of poverty.
So the opportunity.
To make money
Rupert Isaacson: by
herding those wild horses.
Yeah, yeah.
By herding
Brandy Tomhave: those wild horses may
look different to them than to me.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: And I have, yeah.
So it, so it does happen.
Mm-hmm.
It is controversial within tribal
communities because you have traditional
families who think it's an abomination,
that it's a betrayal of traditional
Native American beliefs, and then you have
other families who think it's survival.
Yeah.
And it's, it's us or them.
And and I don't know how to
mediate that because both are true.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I, I, I hear you.
And I don't think there's an easy answer.
It's an interesting discussion because
it, it brings up this whole other
discussion of, you know, are horses feral
in the United States or are they native?
Because although the conquistadors
did bring them back, they had actually
been here they had been present some
thousands of years before and then had
gone, and that's why they thrive so well.
Because it is actually original
habitat and it creates a really
interesting ecological discussion.
Particularly, as you say, if the
people having that discussion or
leading that discussion are the
descendants of the conquistadors.
And I don't think we're gonna arrive
at a definitive answer, but I think
what's useful about those types of
questions is that they just draw
attention to the fact that there
are all, all sorts of ambiguities.
And to get anywhere real in
life, one actually has to deal
in ambiguity and compromise.
I think you answered that very well.
I've got a second question, which is,
I know of one good, doesn't mean that
there aren't others, but I only happen to
know of one person who's really working
in the equine assisted sphere within
Native America and making a difference.
There's a woman called
Jessica Jessica White Plum.
And I want to get her on this show
and I can't find her email address.
And I, I keep trying because she was on
Warwick Schiller's podcast, the Journey
on podcast, which is really good.
And I've met her and she's doing amazing
work with that in Native America.
And I, I would like to get involved.
And then I had also spent some time
on the Nez PE reservation years ago
when I was following the release of.
Of wolves into the American West.
And I followed that in its early
stages in the nineties as a journalist.
And you, you may well be familiar with
this, but it's very interesting, you
know, in Yellowstone the wolves were
released and the, there's no doubt
that the ecology benefited massively.
And then the Wol have since gone
out and colonized many other places.
And some people love
it, some people hate it.
But what's nice is they're back
in the neighboring state of Idaho.
So that was Wyoming, Montana,
as you know, in Idaho, which
has a sliver of Yellowstone.
The government moved in very quickly
to try to scupper and sabotage the
Wolf Free Introduction program there.
And it was the Nez Pece Indians who
stepped up casino owners Interesting.
And said, actually, for us, the
wolves are a symbol of family.
We want them back.
And they funded it.
And but what they also did, as
you know, the Nez pe, they're
very much a horse culture.
Mm-hmm.
And appaloosa horses in the us
Well, that's the Nez PE Indians.
Any of us who own an appaloosa
have ever owned an appaloosa.
Okay.
Maybe they actually came from Kanab rubber
lines brought over by, from Europe by the.
Spanish.
Okay.
But nonetheless, taken by the Nez
person, whole culture and a whole breed.
And they had a program for quite a
long time with youth which I looked
at a little bit when I was there
with appaloosa breeding and training.
Are you aware of what's going on
within Native America, within these
sort of equine assisted things at all?
And ha what if, so I know this
is outside of your dog companion.
Yeah.
But, but what, are there conversations
going on and what are you aware of?
Brandy Tomhave: So, I'm not
aware of enough, as much
as I should, so, uh mm-hmm.
No, I, so I just wanna mention, yeah,
I've heard of Jessica White plume too.
I similarly would love to chat with her.
So maybe you and I can,
Rupert Isaacson: Jessica,
are you watching this?
Can you?
That's right.
Yeah.
if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on
this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
you've probably also always wondered a
little bit about the old master system.
of dressage training.
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony
program, we outline there step by step
exactly how to train your horse from
the ground to become the dressage horse
of your dreams in a way that absolutely
serves the physical, mental and emotional
well being of the horse and the rider.
Intrigued?
Like to know more?
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
Check out the free introduction course.
Take it from there.
Brandy Tomhave: So I, I would love
to be a part of that conversation.
So, I think I could be wrong.
So anyone out there please note, take this
with a grain of salt, but I think that the
program in the Nez per Tribe was started
by a Navajo gentleman named Rudy Shialla.
Have you ever heard his name?
I
Rupert Isaacson: have not.
Please tell me.
Brandy Tomhave: So Rudy recently passed
away, and, he's a extraordinary person.
He's the kind of guy who found
a way to wear horses into every
conversation inside the fi.
The first five minutes didn't
matter what you're talking,
Rupert Isaacson: that's like me.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
It, it really didn't matter.
He will, would link
everything back to a horse.
Okay.
And,
So he was born and raised on the
Navajo Nation, a traditional,
in a traditional Navajo family.
And he found a way to walk in both worlds.
And he went off and got his PhD and fell
in love with a Native American woman
who is not Navajo and I think in Idaho.
And and raised a family there.
And for many years ran a horse
program for the NS per tribe.
And I believe it's the one you're
describing that's a youth program.
Mm-hmm.
And
he, Rudy just recently passed away.
You might be interested to know that Rudy
in the final years of his life was working
very hard on establishing a registry
of what he believed to be the original.
American horse that was a, a Native
American horse that was a smaller horse.
And that there he was working with
the University of Kentucky doing this
genetic research and he wanted to
bring back the original native horse.
I don't know more than that, but it's
a shame that Rudy left us before you
two getting a chance to meet each
other because I have a feeling that you
would have been, become dear friends.
I will say something that I hope,
I don't mean disrespect to our tribal
partners or my, you know, native
friends, but I think that there is so
much unmet need in tribal communities
that the needs of individuals who have
learning differences or neurological
differences or I hate to use the
term disabilities, but you know Sure.
Just, you know, different disabilities.
They, there are not
enough services for them.
They're not enough a
part of the conversation.
And so I think that
this is very new mm-hmm.
In most tribal communities.
And, I am going to seek
them out though now.
And I think that
this is gonna sound terrible.
Rupert, I, I don't, again, I'm gonna,
I am afraid to say this, but I'm
gonna go ahead 'cause I feel like
I'm safe and you're really candid.
And so here I go.
I think for much the same reason why
the needs of dogs are not at the top
of a priority list, because they're so
busy trying to deal with the, the needs
of two legged family members, housing,
clean water, you know, electricity,
access to broadband, all those
things, they just don't make the list.
And similarly, they are trying, they're
trying so hard to deal with the needs
of, of mainstream tribal members.
They have, they oftentimes just
don't have the bandwidth to deal
with special needs because basic
needs are still front of mind.
And because the federal government
has not probably the Indian Health
Service is the primary agency to provide
healthcare in, in, in tribal communities.
And I know that this is emergent, right.
I'm not the first person to say
this or to recognize this, but
this is still relatively new.
Yeah.
New.
And so, yeah, I don't know.
I wish I did.
And I'm gonna seek that
out and I'll let you know.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, here's
a, here's a question then.
I mean, I think I'd love to
collaborate with you and, and with
Jeff and that's your husband and
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
If you
Rupert Isaacson: actually, I'd like
to get him on the other show, which
is live free, ride free to talk
about his career in Indian law.
Actually maybe both of you together
because that's a different conversation
and I think we, we touch on a
lot on human rights on that one.
Okay.
That's my other podcast.
Okay.
But
I work so much in the USA and
horse Boy originated in the USA.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And I owe such a debt
of gratitude to Native America for my
son, for my career, because also my break
into human rights journalism was through
the Cree Indians up in Northern Quebec.
We haven't told that story yet, but
they gave me my first big break.
Brandy Tomhave: Oh
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Quickly I was living in Canada trying
to establish myself as a writer.
I'd gone to Canada 'cause I was in love
with a Canadian girl who dumped me.
And then I kind of survived
and broke into journalism and
got wind of this story that.
A government hydro company called
Hydro Quebec was going with the
government there to flood an area the
size of France, the size of France.
France is quite a big country.
Quebec is huge, as you know,
it's the size of Western Europe.
And this was below James Bay.
This is all Cree land.
And they had actually done something
quite similar in the seventies and had
to pay a big reparation to the Cree.
And the Cree had done
something very clever.
They'd gone, they'd used a lot
of that money to send a bunch of
their people to law school 'cause
they knew it would come back again.
And it did and it came back bigger.
And what was going to happen, it was
reckoned was that the flow of water
the displacement was going to cause
the earth crust to shift locally, which
had released mercury from the bedrock.
It had already happened, but on
a much greater scale and poison
everybody, you know, in that catchment
area, which included, you know,
people down in the United States.
And the Cree were trying to bring this to
the attention of the New England states
who were gonna buy the hydro power.
And, and this was a big story in
Canada and it was all over the
papers, but it wasn't really being
reported in the us It certainly wasn't
being reported in the UK or Europe.
So I rang.
A large London paper from my
sort of slightly homeless life
in Montreal and said, if I got
you this story from you kids in
Brandy Tomhave: Montreal.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And they said,
well, we've got no idea who you
are, but you know, go get the story
and send it to us and we'll see.
And I did and I went up there and
I didn't have any credentials.
And the tribal council who I had
the band council who I had contacted
when I arrived, they looked at me
and my photographer, who was just
my friend who took good pictures
and said, where's your winter gear?
'cause it was March and it was, you know,
it's James Bay, it's like serious winter.
And we said, well, we're wearing it 'cause
you know, we're Canadian boys, right.
And, and they just laughed
at us and said, okay.
They took us and they kidded us out
with caribou, moose, skin Parkers
and leggings and stuff up to here.
And they took us out onto the trap
lines and they showed us a way of life
of people still living under canvas,
people still living in tps, living off
the forest and saying, you know, I don't
know if your people back in London will
value this, but this is our life and
our culture and this is what's at stake.
And they.
Chartered like a sea plane for us to
go up into these, you know, it was
thousands and thousands of dollars
that we could, normally you'd need
a budget for this from a newspaper.
I didn't have anything.
They just did it.
I, anyway, I came back with the story
and I published it and it broke the
story in Europe and it was my big break.
And the, the Cree were
actually successful.
They, they, they fought off
Hydro Quebec and they taught
me a really valuable lesson.
They not only gave me generously,
my first big break, but they
at their own expense really.
But they showed me that those human
rights endeavors against the odds often
actually work if a small group of people
get together and sort of decide to.
And then that played out into my later
life with similar types of work in
Africa and the Kalahari and so on.
And then later, of course, with autism
advocacy, you could argue that I got my
apprenticeship in all that from the Cree.
Wow.
Who owed me nothing.
So I feel like I have a debt to settle
with Native America for my career and for
the health of my son and for the birth of.
Horse boy, which happened in Coman, which
is Central Texas, which by the way has
no comanches in it because the genocide
was pretty darn, you know, thorough.
Complete.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
And I would like to give my services, so I
don't want to do it in a way of, white boy
comes in and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I just want to collaborate
our technologies and say,
well, what can we do?
There is a need, as you
say, within special needs.
There is a need within animal
welfare, but there's also a lot that
we can learn about animal welfare.
Mm-hmm.
Outside of Native America.
It's both.
It's, it's, it's not a one-way thing.
Are you up for it?
Shall we give it a go?
Brandy Tomhave: Oh my God, absolutely.
Geez.
And that five seconds, I was wondering
how he's gonna convince you to to
work with me in, in my capacity at
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I was
hoping I was gonna convince you.
Well, great.
Well, I'm, yeah.
Right.
Brandy Tomhave: No, absolutely.
Absolutely.
There's something I wanna share with
you that is kind of a callback to
the earlier part of our conversation,
and this is something that I.
Am am still on a journey of
learning from my Navajo sister
and she's an extraordinary person.
She has advanced degrees.
She works within a healthcare
system at a very high level.
She's asked to speak in New York City
and Washington, DC and and she's speaking
with pharmaceutical companies and medical
technology companies and thought leaders
in public health in the United States.
And she lives, traditionally, she lives
in a place near the Grand Canyon on the
Navajo Nation, where she and her family
only recently got indoor running water
and electricity, and they really struggled
over that because it's a trade-off.
Because so she is a national expert
and spokesperson on a specific topic
in public health, Western medicine.
And she is a traditional Navajo woman who
is a practitioner also of Navajo medicine.
And she works in a hospital and
you know, lived tradit, went home
to a additional home site that she
shares with her husband and sons.
And and she is not atypical.
That's pretty common there.
Mm-hmm.
This ability to work, walk in both worlds
and to maintain a balance between them.
And I'm sure you know this, but
the, the Navajo word for what we
would trans say is balance is and
is the
ethical north star of the, of
the dine of the Navajo people.
And
it's a really profound concept.
And you know, it's interesting
you were talking about, you know,
balance on a horse and our balance
with, with animals, you know, the
idea of not only relationality, but,
but balance between ourselves and
within ourselves is really central.
To everything.
And when I first went to work for
the Navajo Nation and I, I worked in
their Washington office and my job, I
was an employee of the Navajo Nation.
This was before I my husband and I
struck out on our own and created
this tribal advocacy consultancy,
which we've had for almost 30 years.
But I learned from all my Navajo teachers
and I learned all the stats about
the Navajo Nation you know, the lack
of paved roads and running water and
electricity in homes and all of that.
And collectively when presented
all at once, it has the
same effect as poverty porn.
And this person who I've been
describing to you who I consider we
claim each other as sisters one day
she said, you know, Brandy, for, for
many of us, that's a lifestyle choice.
And I just stopped dead in my tracks
and she said, we are choosing to
maintain our traditional way of life.
And I teased her.
I was like, oh my God, you're off grid.
You're just Navajo's off grid.
And like, so yeah, they've
always been off grid, right?
It's not some, you know, new
green initiative that they're
getting tax rebates for.
That's something that I
try to remember always that
what we think we see when we visit a
community that is so different from our
own, and that is really ancient, what
we think we see may not actually be what
we see because we don't have access to
the information and, and knowledge that
would, that's necessary to decipher it.
Yeah.
And that's only gonna be provided to you
when you've earned the trust of folks
with that, when you've only earned their
trust to, to be given that information.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
And so, I guess how that relates
to our conversation about animals,
it's so obvious, but bears repeating
when you visit a reservation and
unless you're from there, you're a
visitor and should behave accordingly
that there's a really good chance
you don't know what you're seeing.
Mm-hmm.
And you have to humble yourself to that
reality and understand that what is
our objective, which might be safety.
Right.
Like everyone has to be safe, and so
all the dogs have to be inside and all
the children accounted for that might
not be their highest cultural value.
Maybe theirs is Jose.
Maybe it's balance and balance
and safety are not the same thing.
And, and you know, I I just
wanted to share that with you
because our conversation has
sort of reminded me of that.
Yeah.
And I just wanted to thread that through
it because it has been so impactful
to me because as a lawyer mm-hmm.
As a, you know, social justice warrior
I really thought that I was helping.
Right.
And I think you will see when you, if you,
you know, ever take a look at the Native
American Humane Society website mm-hmm.
That you are not gonna find poverty porn.
You're not going to find it.
What's poverty
Rupert Isaacson: porn?
That's a great term, but I've
not heard it until just now.
Brandy Tomhave: Wait, it might be, it
might be one that until this moment
we only was only ever uttered in my
house, you know, images of a people.
That are bleak and only look at them
through a lens that it's, it's a window.
Yeah.
And you're just looking
at the desperate straights
Rupert Isaacson: to make yourself
feel better about yourself.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Well, yeah.
You're, you're, you're basically imposing
upon a people a narrative that basically
says, look at these poor people.
They have nothing.
They need everything.
We must help them.
And it's, there's a lot of like
child international hunger campaigns
that, you know, feature poverty porn.
It's terribly effective as all porn is.
Like what's, there's arguably no more
effective communication than pornography.
But what does that really, that
Rupert Isaacson: used to be
the case until social media.
Brandy Tomhave: Okay.
Okay.
Right.
You could tell it used to sex
Rupert Isaacson: cell was the Yeah.
Now we've realized no anger and fear.
Cell being Rage.
Rage, rage cells.
Yeah.
Rage.
Brandy Tomhave: So I mean, as well-meaning
as that is, it can also be dehumanizing.
Sure.
'cause if you're the subject of
that narrative you likely don't
want that to be the only thing.
That is said about you and, and,
and it feels very exploitative.
Yeah.
And,
And so, and I will just share
this getting back to animals.
That is the, the system of funding animal
welfare really rewards that, right?
So that if you go into a community
and you do a mobile spay neuter you
know, clinic, let's say, gosh darn
it, you're gonna get on social media
and you're gonna show the most vivid,
Rupert Isaacson: gonna show the need.
Yeah.
Absolutely need.
You
Brandy Tomhave: gotta show the need and
you're gonna be rewarded for the need.
And it's a head count and
it's a heart heartstring pull.
And and, you know, native people are sick
and tired of being the subject of that.
Hmm.
Because what it's really doing is
it's objectifying and commoditizing
a situation and that you may or may
not understand that you may or may
not have been given permission to even
you
know, claim in any way.
And yeah, and it's disrespectful.
And I think getting back to being
a good relative, it's kind of
like taking pictures of of uh mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Imagine if someone came into my messy room
and took pictures of my messy room and
put them on a website about how we need to
relieve people from living in messy rooms.
Brandy Tomhave: Oh, you're a hoarder.
Rupert Isaacson: Say, yeah.
Hey, I didn't give you
permission to use that picture.
And they're like, you know what?
Room's such a mess.
Ru Yeah.
Yeah.
You need, it's like,
Brandy Tomhave: I, I, I go to the YM YMCA.
Right.
And you're not allowed to take
pictures in the locker room.
Yeah.
Because it's, you're so vulnerable, right?
Yeah.
You don't want taking a picture of you're
like, oh my God, look at this woman.
Yeah.
And you know what?
I have these comm the picture
it is of like, oh my God,
look at this pork community.
It's, it's just, we, we
can do better than that.
We can be better, better
relatives to each other.
Well, it's
Rupert Isaacson: what's really
interesting about the point that you
make there is that's of course how
often people perceive special needs.
Yep.
And it, it comes from a good place.
I mean, and if you were, if you're running
the Native American Human Society, you
do need to let people know why there
is a need and why they should donate.
And at the same time, you want to be
respectful and, and, and it's all about
that, that treading, that ambiguous line.
Again, I think the only way that
one can really do that well is
by giving the people who one
is trying to serve the voice.
So you know where I'm lucky, say with the.
My relationship with Rowan.
You met Rowan.
You saw Rowan speaking.
Brandy Tomhave: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So, you know, and
he's sort of telling his story and
explaining how autism feels from
the inside and what his relationship
with animals has been and so on.
And so he's an advocate for why animal
assisted therapies should be supported.
He's exactly the person who should be
saying it because he is the recipient
and he's now actually part of a PhD
program that's happening at Manchester
Metropolitan University in the uk
looking at how to better equine assisted
practices for autistic people by finally
consulting with autistic people and
to who have, who have un you know, had
equine services and saying to them what
worked well and what should change, you
know, entirely rational thing to do.
That study happens to be run by somebody
who is, runs a horse boy program,
you know, and, but, you know, yeah.
Within the, within the, an equine
assisted world, I've also seen very
much the opposite way, which is we are
the therapist and we are God and we.
Provide the service and look at these
poor people who need the service.
And you can absolutely see
why that mindset comes about.
And I can't condemn it because
it's understandable, but it's too
simplistic and it doesn't bring
about the real change, which is
self-advocacy, self agency to say,
well, are we, are we services that
train people as they would in
any walk of life to go into
their professional lives later?
Or are we just leading kids around
for a pony ride saying, oh, how sweet.
There's an evolution there.
It might have started that way,
but it shouldn't stay there.
And I think what you are doing, you
know, is say, well, there is poverty.
But there's also a different
way of relating to animals.
Perhaps some of those animals are
actually happier and better treated
than animals that might be outside
the reservation, even if it might
not appear that way at first.
And similarly within
the human communities.
And at the same time, some of
the animals are abused and some
of them really do need help.
And some of the humans are abused and,
and one does not negate the other one
needs to hit it bang in the middle.
That's, but as you say that discernment is
hard to come by if you haven't, you know,
spent your life doing that kind of thing.
You know, as you say, what you
see may not be what is Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: I, I'll tell you
what, I think that humility and
advocacy are hard to hold at the sink.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: And
Rupert Isaacson: so true.
Brandy Tomhave: And
Rupert Isaacson: true.
So true.
Brandy Tomhave: You know, I
Rupert Isaacson: so true, so true.
Brandy Tomhave: Guilty you know, guilty
Rupert Isaacson: myself.
I have, yeah.
Guilty I have.
Yeah, absolutely.
Brandy Tomhave: And because it gives you
Rupert Isaacson: power.
Being an advocate does give you power.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That can be intoxicating.
Yeah.
Yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: yeah.
Yeah.
It's very seductive.
Mm-hmm.
And it's very, you know, there's
a, a, it's easy to lie to yourself.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh.
And righteous anger is the worst
kind, because that's when people
really do the bad stuff is
when they are justified in it.
Brandy Tomhave: Right.
Right.
That's
Rupert Isaacson: when you've
gotta watch out for your soul.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: I wanted to just I wanna
say I'm just so thrilled for Rowan and,
and, and for, you and, and his family and
his friends, and everyone who, who love
him and have been part of his journey.
It's, I only got to meet him
for a few moments and he's
just such a badass, isn't he?
And yeah, he just is, he's just great.
Yeah, he is.
And you know, you you know, inviting me
to to work with you and, and, and maybe
collaborating with Native American Humane
Society is so exciting because what
I wanna share with you, and I, I just
want the chance to say this out loud.
It's often said that there is a res dog
problem on Indian reservations, but I
think it's entirely possible that the
dogs are less a problem than the solution.
They may be a problem right now in
terms of daily nuisances regarding
the small stuff in life, like, I don't
know, noise and, and mess, right?
But when it comes to the more complex
stuff, they might be the solution.
One of the real challenges on
every reservation, which again is
directly part of the continuum of
genocide, colonization, trauma,
is mental health and suicide.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: And when you think
about horses and dogs, you know,
and honestly I have friends who
would kick me if I didn't say that.
Native people just think of
horses as big dogs, right?
They're, they're companion animals.
So I have a, the president of
our board whom you met, Dr.
Michael Yellowbird who like my husband is
a member of the Mandan Hi Andra Nation.
He is like, we have to start bringing
horses back into our mission.
And I said, but Dr.
Yellowbird, we're just
focusing on companion animals.
He's like brandy, they
are companion animals.
And and of course he's right, right?
Yeah.
But because we're not trading in
poverty porn, I don't have the
budget yet, but we'll get there
and I'm sure with your help, we'll,
that will happen sooner than later.
But here's the thing.
In a community where
pe children are killing themselves,
what's easier, more readily
available source of comfort.
Could there be than a companion
animal, whether it's a horse or a cat
or a
dog.
And they've not been, no
one has like built programs
around that in Indian country.
And I would really love it if we
could start helping folks think about
that and think about what that could
mean for them in a way that resonates
culturally and, you know, you know,
kind of like vibrates for them.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I feel we need to get Jessica
White plume into this conversation.
Yeah.
And yeah, because I think this is
exactly where she's been working.
And get some, get some mentorship.
Get some direction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, because
Brandy Tomhave: like they say,
like, we are our own medicine.
Yeah.
But we can't access it, you know?
Isn't that a shame?
Yeah.
And so I, I, I'm I'm the crazy woman
who's saying, no, dogs aren't the problem.
They, they're, they're the answer.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
No, I think you're right.
I mean, back to, back to, you know,
us in Missoula eight, 10 weeks ago
with the presentation going
on about homeless and dogs.
And thinking, yeah.
You know, those dogs are
keeping those people alive.
Did you
Brandy Tomhave: see the dog that
was in the sleeping in the guitar
case across the street from event?
Yeah.
There was a homeless gentleman who
was busting on the street corner and
and there was his dog very happily
sleeping in the, in the guitar case.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely, absolutely.
Okay, I'm intrigued and I'm gonna
throw this out here as a challenge.
Readers not readers, viewers, and
listeners, if you are in the equine
assisted world in, or the animal
assisted world in North America,
do you want to get
involved in this as well?
Come on.
This is gonna be so cool.
Why would we not?
It's adventure.
And
what better way to pay our debts,
heal our wounds, explore the west?
Well, the whole thing actually, not
just the west, you know, but not to
go in with a sense of white Indian,
Indian, white how about people and
animals, but people who are of the place.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: Who can orient us?
So many of us are so lost.
Doesn't mean that they have all
the answers, but they've been on
that land a long time and they
will certainly have some answers.
And we, if we can humbly give what
we can give and collaborate and let
the animals kind of be the medicine
to heal that stupid monkey
shit that we get up to.
'Cause yeah, you know, you're a dog.
You're, you are.
Luke back there isn't relating
to me as white or you as native.
He's just looking at the two monkeys
yabbering for two hours, you know?
Yeah.
And he loves us each unconditionally.
It's just the Yaba monkeys, you know,
who happen to be his companion as well.
Brandy Tomhave: That's right.
Rupert Isaacson: So maybe we yaba monkeys.
Can
you know it Tribe is such
an interesting thing.
I'm a great believer in it, you
know, my family's very tribal white
Africans are very tribal as well.
They've learned, you know,
but so are, so are Europeans.
You know, the Scots hate the English.
The English, you know, the Welsh
hate, the English, the Irish hate the
English 'cause of our tribal histories.
Then you go, you know, village to village
within England, and the people from
that side of the county have always
fought with the people from that side
of the county for the last 10,000 years.
And, you know, then it all culminated
in our World War ii, which is our
glorious expression of tribal warfare
that made us realize that maybe we
can't quite go on like that anymore.
But tribe is also community.
There, there, there, there are the,
there's the, there dysfunctional tribes.
Tribes that eat, eat themselves.
And then there's the tribes that
actually look after each other.
And when I'm doing horse boy
method trains, I'm always talking
about how you cultivate tribe.
Because that is the fundamental
human way to live on planet earth.
No matter what continent
you're talking about.
That's what's needed.
And if it's the animals that bring
us back to that, well, let's do it
and go into service because that's
where our quality of life is.
What are animals but nature?
What is nature but the planet?
What is the planet?
But what we rely upon if we can
treat a dog well, if we can treat
a horse well, we've got a better
chance of treating each other well.
Got a better chance of.
Making sure there's food in the fridge
and not, you know, actually having a
planet in another couple of generations.
So we know that all of this is connected.
We know that the better side of
tribalism, not the worst side of
tribalism is where happiness lies
medicine, as you would say.
You know,
I think it's time we just got on with it.
Brandy Tomhave: You know, we all
carry our own medicine because we all
carry our own stories and we would do
well to humble ourselves, to listen
to each other's stories, I think.
And I think that
gathering together around animals
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Brandy Tomhave: Could create
an opportunity to do just that.
Where
daily life otherwise prevents
those kinds of moments of
community and a deep introspection
Rupert Isaacson: and stories
can divide as well as unite.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: If the stories, blood
feud, the stories, your grandfather
did that to my grandfather, right.
If the story is your people did
that to my people, that can be true.
But there's also another
story of common humanity.
Mm-hmm.
That's also true.
We, but I, I, I totally hear you.
It, it's animals that allow
us to hear that second story.
Brandy Tomhave: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's more
necessary now than ever.
That's in part because I'm 61 and I wanna
get something right before I go, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think you've
probably got about, you've probably got
more decades than you think, so you can
Brandy Tomhave: Well, no,
I'm, I'm not planning on going
anywhere, but I feel like
Rupert Isaacson: Yes, I hear you.
That I hear you.
Such
Brandy Tomhave: important work, right?
Yeah.
I suggest to the Native American Humane
Society without knowing anything about it.
And I think Native American
was my buy-in, but humane
Yeah.
Is
what is keeping me
because Absolutely.
Because that is such a pro profile.
Found word that is so
needed now more than ever.
Not just, I mean, I was, yes.
I, it feels really prescient because
I'm, you know, older and I want to, you
know, be a part of something that is
that important, but because of what's
happening in the world right now Hmm.
And I know that for a lot of
us, we don't know what to do.
And it's, it's scary.
It's God, it just feels like,
you know, like kind of the
doors of hope are just shutting.
Right.
And, but there are
opportunities to come together.
Mm-hmm.
And, and, you know, and animals create
really wonderful, organic ways to
do that that are accessible to us.
Yes, they do.
And, and I think that and in that way,
they are going to, if, if you feel
isolated, if you feel disempowered, if
you feel lost, you know, if you can find
community with animals and with other
people who wanna have this dialogue around
animals, that's something we can do.
And we don't need anyone's
permission to do it.
Yeah.
And I think it's really necessary
and it could be transformative.
Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
For some
Brandy Tomhave: of us,
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
If we can get the interspecies thing
a bit better, we can probably get our
intra species thing a bit better, right?
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
No, I hear you.
Well, I'm in.
Okay.
And I think a lot of our
listeners are too, so
Brandy Tomhave: Awesome.
Rupert Isaacson: I'll have a chat with
some other people In Horse Boy World,
there is a, we, we are having this
conversation in end of 2025 fall of
2026, there is going to be a neuroscience
conference with a movement method,
which is our one-horse therapy approach
which we get asked to put on by Eastern
Virginia Medical School, which is part
of we, part of dominion University.
And it's about movement and nature and
the mind and mental health, particularly
from a pediatrician's point of view.
I think maybe I, let's meet there and
there'll be a bit of a gathering of the
horse boy folk, and let's have a bit of
a breakout session and talk about this.
That sounds wonderful.
All right.
And I think I might be starting a program.
Or not me, but one of the people
who was actually at the conference
we met in, in Missoula, her
family ranch is in North Dakota.
And we're talking about where
you are now moving to, we are
talking about getting a program.
So anyway, things are
clearly coming together.
Let's, let's chat and see what we can do.
I'm I'm, I'm so up for the adventure.
Brandy Tomhave: Well, me too.
And boy, I would love for you
and, and Rowan and and your wife
to come visit us in North Dakota.
It would be amazing.
I think you have to
bring your sleeping bags.
We might have you in teepees.
But
Rupert Isaacson: so up for that,
Brandy Tomhave: you know, the
next time we chat I'll be there.
We're okay.
Meeting in April.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
And then I, yeah, we'll, and let's
get you also and, and Jeff on the
Live Free Ripy podcast and Okay.
That conversation.
Yeah,
Brandy Tomhave: just stay in touch.
Rupert Isaacson: I will.
Alright.
I guess we're at that two hour mark,
so it's probably time to say Aone.
I will see you on the next one.
Oh my
Brandy Tomhave: God, wonderful.
Rupert Isaacson: Rather than goodbye.
This has been so great, Brandy.
Thank you so much.
Brandy Tomhave: Thank you.
I I'm really grateful to have met
you and Rowan and for you to be
willing to keep that conversation
going and I'm very curious and
excited to see where it takes us.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
All right.
Till the next time.
Alright,
bye.
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