{"id":50336,"date":"2026-08-19T11:14:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T16:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=50336"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:32:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:32:50","slug":"stories-science-and-the-healing-power-of-horses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2026\/08\/19\/stories-science-and-the-healing-power-of-horses\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories, Science and the Healing Power of Horses"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/source><\/source>\"Dr.<\/picture><\/a>
Dr. Angela Fournier (left) with Tracker; Liz Letson (right) with former racehorse Sonic and Tilly the donkey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just a few miles north of Bemidji State University, at Eagle Vista Ranch and Wellness Center near the shores of Little Turtle Lake, a horse and the human who has entered its space are making decisions about how the next few minutes will unfold.<\/p>\n

Does the horse approach with trust or fall back with caution? If the horse approaches, will the human welcome it or nervously back away? Will the pair seem to form a quick bond, or keep each other at a distance until the time comes for the human to depart?<\/p>\n

Dr. Angela Fournier, professor of psychology at BSU, and ranch owner Liz Letson keenly observe these interactions and look for the stories they contain.<\/p>\n

The two have spent the last dozen years developing a partnership that explores how encounters with animals can help people understand their own stories. Their work has created unique opportunities for BSU students to engage in hands-on learning and research at the ranch, generated new scholarship in the emerging field of animal-assisted services and developed a new guide for practitioners scheduled for publication in October.<\/p>\n

The book, “Bringing Science to Our Stories in Animal-Assisted Services: A Practitioner’s Guide to Blending Anecdotes with Evidence,” introduces an approach they call SAGA: Start with a story, Ask a good question, Gather your evidence, and Act on the findings.<\/p>\n

The framework encourages animal-assisted practitioners to use data to strengthen and better understand their work.<\/p>\n

“We are trying to lead practitioners through this idea that your stories matter and evidence will elevate them,” Fournier said.<\/p>\n

Stories are everywhere at Eagle Vista Ranch — for both the humans and the animals they visit. Every story of a client meeting a horse for the first time or discovering a new perspective on their lives is matched by a horse transitioning to the ranch after a previous life on the racetrack or whose owner no longer had the capacity to provide them with a home.<\/p>\n

Building a Partnership<\/h2>\n
\"A<\/a>
Sonic is one of the horses used in sessions at the Eagle Vista Ranch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Letson, an alumna who completed both her undergraduate and master’s degrees at BSU, has been using her ranch in therapy work since the early 2010s. She discovered equine-assisted psychotherapy during her graduate work at BSU and immediately saw its potential.<\/p>\n

“I realized, ‘This is powerful,'” she said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
<\/source><\/source>\"Dr.<\/picture><\/a>
Dr. Angela Fournier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/source><\/source>\"Liz<\/picture><\/a>
Liz Letson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

After completing her master’s degree in 2012, Letson was hired as a youth and family counselor by Evergreen Youth and Family Services in Bemidji. She soon began hosting therapy sessions with her clients at the ranch.<\/p>\n

Around that same time, Letson and Fournier discovered each other’s work and began exploring ways to unite their efforts.<\/p>\n

Fournier’s scholarship focuses on understanding what actually happens during human-animal interactions and how those experiences affect people.<\/p>\n

Clients who visit Eagle Vista Ranch can engage with horses, donkeys and any other animals that stop by to visit. Often, participants aren’t given much guidance beyond “find the stories that are happening on the ranch today.”<\/p>\n

“We invite them to say ‘hi’ to the horses, whatever that means for them, and then sometimes the sessions just take off from there,” Fournier said. “We create a safe space for people to engage with the horses and find their own solutions.”<\/p>\n

A person struggling with anxiety, for example, may discover that a horse responds differently when they are tense than when they are calm. The feedback is immediate and often difficult to ignore.<\/p>\n

“If you’re really tense and worked up, the horse might not come close to you because that seems unsafe,” Fournier said. “You can practice breathing and calming down, and next thing you know the horse is walking up to you.”<\/p>\n

According to Letson, horses possess unique qualities that make them particularly effective partners in this work.<\/p>\n

“They’re so sensitive. They pick up all the nuances,” she said. “When they get a sense that they can trust you, they’ll partner with you.”<\/p>\n

One of her favorite stories was of a BSU student hoping to overcome her fear of horses. During her first visit to Eagle Vista, that student hoped to gather the courage to get close enough to touch one of the horses. What she discovered was life-changing — the horses approached the student and lay on the ground around her.<\/p>\n

“It was almost like they were saying, ‘You don’t have to worry about us. You’re safe with us,'” Fournier said.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Fournier and Letson with Maverick (left) and Miss Kitty, who also participate in sessions at Eagle Vista Ranch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unique Research Opportunities for Students<\/h2>\n

Research into human-animal interactions at Eagle Vista Ranch has also created opportunities for BSU students. Fournier has brought classes to the ranch, hosted interns and developed studies examining interactions among people and animals ranging from horses and dogs to cats, rats and even cows.<\/p>\n

One recent May-term BSU course on animal-assisted services brought students from an online course to the ranch for a full day of hands-on learning. It was the group’s first in-person meeting and, for some, their first-ever visit to a ranch.<\/p>\n

“The nice thing about it was the students connecting,” Fournier said. “Having that kind of in-person experiential learning really brought them together and made them feel more comfortable.”<\/p>\n

Fournier said the program’s former interns have carried lessons from the experience into widely varied careers.<\/p>\n

“They all said that their internship here was one of the most memorable and important parts of their experience at BSU,” she said.<\/p>\n

Through their work at the ranch, Fournier and Letson are exploring the relationship between science and stories. The stories, they have found, often come first— offering experiences that science is only beginning to understand.<\/p>\n

“I would say the stories are older, and the science is still developing,” Fournier said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychology professor Dr. Angela Fournier and partner Liz Letson seek science behind stories in horse-assisted services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":50342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[977,872,25,980,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-news","category-homepage","category-people","category-strategic-plan","category-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50336"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50371,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50336\/revisions\/50371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}