Reading and Respecting Body Language

Learn to listen before you lead.


A short, powerful course for anyone who wants to understand what their horse is truly saying.


Every horse communicates — but not every human knows how to listen.

In this short yet impactful course, you’ll learn how to recognize, interpret, and respond to your horse’s body language with greater clarity and confidence. Whether you're a horse owner, rider, or equine professional, this knowledge is essential to building trust, improving safety, and supporting your horse's emotional and physical wellbeing.


🎓 What You’ll Learn:

In just one hour of focused video content, you’ll explore:

  • Common equine body language signals and what they really mean

  • How to recognize pain indicators before they escalate

  • The subtle power of calming signals—and why they're often missed

  • Displacement behaviors: what they reveal about internal conflict or stress

  • The importance of responding appropriately to communication cues


🧠 Why This Course Matters:

When horses feel seen and heard, everything changes—training improves, trust deepens, and stress decreases. This course helps you move beyond guesswork and into a deeper partnership with your horse.

Rather than memorizing isolated behaviors, you'll gain context and insight that helps you read the whole horse in a real-world setting.


📚 What’s Included:

  • 1 hour of video lessons with real examples and practical explanations

  • Links to trusted resources for deeper study and continued learning

  • Lifetime access to revisit the material any time


Whether you're brand new to horse behavior or simply want to sharpen your observation skills, this course offers essential, easy-to-understand guidance that will change how you interact with horses—for the better.



Start learning today and become a more responsive, respectful partner to every horse you meet.

Course curriculum

    1. Welcome!

    1. What is Body Language?

    2. Why is This Important?

    3. How to read body language: ethograms

    4. How to read body language: language signs and calming signals

    5. It’s Your Turn

    1. More resources!

About this course

  • $29.00
  • 7 lessons
  • 1 hour of video content

Meet Your Instructor

Physical Therapist Barbara Parks

Dr. Barbara Parks, PT, DPT, CERP is a physical therapist for horse and rider based in the Nashville, TN area. Barbara received her doctorate in physical therapy from Belmont University and her Certified Equine Rehabilitation Practitioner credentials from UT-Knoxville. She is also a PATH Intl. certified therapeutic riding instructor and spent some time teaching adaptive riding lessons prior to becoming a physical therapist. Barbara has a passion for positive reinforcement training and using clicker training in rehabilitative exercise and has pursued continuing education in equine bodywork, barefoot hoofcare and composite shoeing, equine nutrition, and equine behavior and learning theory in order to provide a whole-horse approach to rehab and injury prevention. She lives on a small farm with her husband, 5 horses, 4 cats, and 3 dogs.

What People Are Saying

5 star rating

Great Course!!

Christina Bitson

I love that you are helping to bring this information to the forefront of the Equine industry. Racael Draaisma is definately a pioneer and her work will hope...

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I love that you are helping to bring this information to the forefront of the Equine industry. Racael Draaisma is definately a pioneer and her work will hopefully forever help more equines feel understood. I loved your use of videos to help bring this information into the real world. I had seen many of these signals but didn't fully understand their meaning. Some such as lip liking have also been misconstrued as a sign that the horse is already relaxed, from past resources, so learning that they actually serve as calming signals was fascinating.

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5 star rating

Should be required!

Kelsey Rast

I really think this course should be required for every single horse owner or any one who spends any time with horses. The overview is so good and the exampl...

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I really think this course should be required for every single horse owner or any one who spends any time with horses. The overview is so good and the examples are great ways to teach you how to train your own eye. One of my favorite and most highly recommended courses I've taken!

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5 star rating

Really enjoyed this mini course!

M Phifer

Clear, concise, and easy to follow along. Very well done!

Clear, concise, and easy to follow along. Very well done!

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