The Vets On Horses program teaches basic natural horsemanship skills from the ground up. Our veterans will focus on reading horse behavior, communication, and establishing a leadership role with a horse. There are no therapists on staff, nor any traditional therapy included in the lessons. Our amazing horses are the only therapists. We do however work with a social worker to provide knowledge if needed. We allow our veterans to rely on the horse’s natural ability to read and detect anxiety in humans and their ability to mirror this anxiety back to the participant. This immediate biofeedback helps our participants relearn how to self-manage their anxiety disorder. The way we have come to explain this to our veterans is to understand that the horse is a fight or flight animal and in many ways this is how our veterans perceive the world after trauma. A horse is constantly on guard watching for pray "an attack" an immediate way out or just simply being "spooked".  Once a participant understands the correlation and the connection the real healing and wall breaking begins and with that a whole new perspective on life beings. In a nut shell - This emotional mirroring is extremely effective, and within 4-6 weeks of instruction, we see smiles and self-confidence where none existed before.