CREK’s Evidence-Based Equine Development Method
Dr. Laura Pettler
“My mission is clear. I fight for truth in murder cases because victims deserve justice and their families deserve answers. And I fight for horses let down by humans to turn pain into purpose and failures into opportunities.”
— Dr. Laura Pettler, Forensic Criminologist and Co-Owner of Crossroads Ranch
Figure 1. CREK Evidence-Based Equine Development Method
As a forensic criminologist specializing in solving complex death cases, it took me more than 20 years to invent The Murder Room Death Investigation Method. As an equestrian for more than 45 years I’m excited to share that I’ve now used the Murder Room Method as a foundation to build CR Equine & Kennel’s (CREK) Evidence-Based Equine Development Method.
Our System Determines Our Outcome
Our training program is both an art and a science grounded by four Pillars of Knowledge.
Psychology
Health
Conformation
Performance
We gather and analyze data from the four pillars to build individual training plans for each individual horse at the cellular, physical, and psychological levels.
An “Unsolved” Horse?
Figure 3. CREK’s Equine Selection Method
For me, just like unsolved death cases, horses can be unsolved as well. When we walk into a death scene we most often don’t know much about the decedent. I always teach, “Start the investigation where the investigation starts.” For death cases that’s normally with the 911, but for some of horses purchased for rehoming, “the investigation” starts at the “scene” or, the somewhat controversial, horse auctions.
Most of our sale horses come with little information. Sometimes the “owners” share non-verifiable information and it’s up to us to decide if we believe them or not. Most of the time I do not. I am an expert in statement analysis. I pay very close attention to everything someone says and doesn’t say. I observe body language, word choice, sentence structure, and other things in communication. And I do the same with the horse. When we are looking for horses to add to our program without valid and reliable information, we select horses based on art and science. On the science side, we observe and study their conformation, behavior and performance. On the art side, I hone in on my gut feeling about the horse, my connection to the horse, and degree to which I believe we can re-home the horse. But even with all of this analytical work, buying horses under these pretenses is precarious and a slippery slope at best. Can we say “roll the dice?”
Changing the Way Find Your Equine Partners
One of the many things that makes CREK special is our philosophy for what you should get from us. We are not horse traders. We are not trying to get rich. We are on a mission to leave the world better than we found it. As a forensic criminologist specializing in solving extremely complex staged domestic violence homicides, I fight an uphill battle every day. It is very emotionally taxing not to be able to “fix it” for families in agony and only be able to help by offering information about their loved ones deaths.
I have always been obsessed with animals, a rescuer, and I have a servant’s heart. My mission is clear. I fight for truth in murder cases because victims deserve justice and their families deserve answers. And I fight for horses failed by humans to turn pain into purpose and failures into opportunities. And that’s where you come in…
If I could, I would keep them all! I’m sure some of you might feel the same way too. I know I cannot do that but what I can do is bring horses into our program that will thrive with you! But buying a horse can be a scary experience. Especially when you fall in love with a horse but cannot get there to see it in person.
And of course, we can literally buy almost anything online these days right? Horses are no exception. However, I am not a fan of buying anything without a ton of research and information. And the online horse auctions seem to be limited in what information they offer. To that end, CREK’s program is designed to be fully transparent to give you peace of mind in buying your new equine partner from us.
CREK’s Evidence-Based Equine Development Method:
A Brief Overview
Figure 2. CREK's Evidence-Based Equine Development Method
So, now that you know you’re getting piece of mind from us on the rehoming side of the house, now let’s discuss how we get there. Best me start by saying that building The Murder Room Death Investigation Method took years. It is never “finished” per se because I’m always adding to it to make it better. Recently, I decided to embark on taking the Murder Room Method and considering it as scaffolding for building our program. I know what Todd and I do on a daily basis, but seeing it on paper makes a huge difference. As I mentioned above, we buy “unsolved” horses. That means we buy horses based on conformation, psychology, and performance that have been dumped at horse auctions. These horses are at risk many times for being sold for meat and being shipped to Mexico or Canada for slaughter. There are really good horses at the horse sales. Really good. Do you have to really know what you’re doing as far as picking them? Oh absolutely. Have we purchased some that don’t thrive no matter what we do? Of course. But the majority are diamonds in the rough who have had a tough go at life along the road and who really need a soft place to land so they can meet their potential. This makes me happy. Solving cases makes me happy. But helping animals as well, really makes me happy.
Our horses are really cool. Most are draft crosses, friesian crosses, and gypsy crosses. Every once in a while, we will pick up a super talented “outside” breed horse, but generally speaking we stick to what we love the most. Our horses make excellent fox hunters, trail horses, dressage, hunters, and police horses. We build the foundation, you pick your discipline.
“If It Ain’t Written Down, It Didn’t Happen”. That’s a quote we use in criminal justice that means best document everything really well or what you think or know might not be admissible in the courtroom. So using the construct of our program, I take the same approach by documenting every horse’s journey that comes through our gates. Our program is comprised of six stages. It is a program designed to teach horses how to thrive with humans. It takes anywhere from 30 days to years for a horse to complete. Obviously, horses that come in very young take longer to complete the program than horses coming in in their teens. We do rehome foals, but most of the horses we aim to rehome are fantastic horses who were thrown away by people who never saw the horse’s heart, mind, soul, and potential. I tell our horses all the time, “I see you. I understand. I got you. You’re a good horse!”
Mustard Plus Ketchup Makes?
Our system uses a six stage process. The first three stages are yellow. The middle two are red? And what color do you get when you mix them together? CREK Orange! Our system is fool proof because you have to do everything in the yellow and everything in the red in order to get to orange. Easy!
In 1956, an educational psychologist named Benjamin Bloom argued that people learn by gathering knowledge, understanding the knowledge, applying the knowledge, analyzing the application, synthesizing the analyzed pieces, and evaluating the end product. We use Bloom’s Taxonomy to gather knowledge about our horses, how we come to understand the information, to creating a plan for applying the knowledge, to analyzing the execution of the plan for each horse in a study called Hippology, building a performance training plan for the horse, synchronizing the horse’s health, conformation, and psychology with its performance, so we can not only honestly tell you when the horse graduates, “Ok here is what the horse is and what is can do.” And, and, and, like every credible expert witness in court, I can back it up with science and documentation (see the common thread for how I operate in my life in homicide lol?").
Stage 1: Knowledge
Step1: Veterinary Care. The first thing we do when we bring a new horse in for training is quarantine the horse away from our herd pending veterinary examination. Fordham Mobile Equine Veterinary Service, owned and operated by Dr. Daniel Fordham, DVM, is FANTASTIC! Dr. Fordham takes excellent care of our horses with tons of knowledge and medical professionalism. Your new horse is thoroughly examined, vaccines are administered, teeth checked, soundness checked, nutrition, deworming, and hoof care are determined.
A note about our opinion about aging horse teeth: The quality of horse teeth material for aging purposes is dependent on environment and genetics just for starters. There are countless reasons horses bite things and run their teeth along various materials. They can develop very bad habits by doing things of this nature that can limit the quality of the information we seek from their dentition. Additionally, it is important to recognize that horse teeth constantly erupt, so if the environment changes, bad habits can develop or disappear altogether, habit can change too, both of which scenarios must be considered when aging a horse based on teeth alone. We include photos of teeth in their file to share with anyone you’d like to have review them. Unless we have verifiable registration documentation or the foal is born on our farm, we will clearly state the very best information we have pursuant to the age of the horse based on our veterinarian’s opinion. Pre-purchase examinations are always welcome for any horse you’re interested in at CREK, you’re welcome to hire the vet of your choice to come to our farm who can help you determine the best age range for a horse based on whatever criteria you choose.
Step 2: Psychology & Performance. Now that we have a baseline on health and conformation, we use our scoring system to capture and record all health and conformation information and begin to examine the horse’s psychology. We want to know what makes your new horse tick: identifying personality traits, how the horse feels, how the horse thinks, and how the horse behaves is where we start. Then we examine the horse’s performance. We document all of this information in the horse’s case file so you can review what we found when we brought your new horse into our program.
Stage 2: Comprehension
Step 1: Create a plan. Now that we have acquired the necessary baseline information for your new horse, we create a formidable plan for helping to make that horse thrive. Any treatments or health issues are incorporated into the plan to resolve at Dr. Fordham’s direction. Any farrier issues are addressed and the horse is set up for success with Purina Mills Horse Feeds and free choice fescue round bales.
Stage 3: Application
Step 1: Full DNA Panel. We love Etalon Equine Genetics. They offer equine DNA testing that helps us build our knowledge about your new horse towards developing a specific plan for success. Not only does this panel tell us about what breeds are present each horse, the description of Etalon’s Pro Panel + Ancestry is as follows, “Performance: Gaited (DMRT3), Height Prediction - (H1) (H2), Myostatin (Sprint vs Endurance), Temperament (Curious vs Vigilant), Color & Pattern, and Health & Diagnostics: Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), Brindle/Incontinentia Pigmenti (IP), Cerebellar Abiotrophy (CA), Chronic Idiopathic Anhidrosis Risk (ANHR), Congenital Stationary Night Blindness (CSNB), Dwarfism - ACAN1-5 (DWF), Equine Arteritis Virus Resistance (EAVR), Equine Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy Risk (EHMR), Equine Metabolic Syndrome Risk (EMSR), Equine Recurrent Uveitis Risk (ERUR), Equine Recurrent Uveitis Severity (ERUS), Foal Immunodeficiency Syndrome (FIS), Fragile Foal Syndrome (FFS or WFFS), Friesian Dwarfism (FRDWF), Glanzmann Thrombasthenia (GT), Glycogen Branching Enzyme Deficiency (GBED), Hereditary Equine Regional Dermal Asthenia (HERDA), Hoof Wall Separation Disease (HWSD), Hydrocephalus (HDC), Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis (HYPP), Impaired Acrosomal Reaction (IAR), Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa (JEB1), Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa (JEB2), Laminitis Risk (LAMR), Lavender Foal Syndrome (LFS), Frame/Lethal White Overo (LWO), Lordosis - Swayback (L), Malignant Hyperthermia (MH), Multiple Congenital Ocular Anomalies (MCOA), Myosin-Heavy Chain Myopathy (MYHM), Myotonia (MYT), Naked Foal Syndrome (NFS), Occipitoatlantoaxial Malformation (OAAM1), Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (PSSM1), Recurrent Laryngeal Neuropathy Risk - Roaring (RLNR), Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID), Squamous Cell Carcinoma Risk (SCCR), West Nile Virus Severity Risk (WNVR).
This extensive panel is 100% worth the $329/per horse we invest so we understand your new horse at the cellular level so we can work to design training that is best for this personality type. We need to understand your new horse as an individual so we can ensure what we’re doing helps them thrive once they get to you!
Stage 4: Analysis
Pettler’s Research-Based Hippology. Victimology is the study of victims. As a criminologist, I have studied hundreds of them. Hippo is the Greek word for horse. Hippology is the study of horses. So based on my decades of study on victims, I used Pettler’s Research-Based Forensic Victimology as the foundation to build a Research-Based Hippology System! Nerdy, I know lol. Anyway, bare with me here, I realize those of you who are true crime fans are watching Forensic Files collide with Heartland. Yep, that’s me. But why? Do we need a Hippology System to analyze horses? I would argue that for our program, we do.
Our goal is to build horses and dogs that thrive with humans. You cannot do that without a system. And within the major system, you have to have lots little systems that will analyze microcosms of data too. Ok, so we’ve had Dr. Fordham vet your new horse, then we had our farrier, Chris Philemon, trim and care for his/her feet. Then Katie Ostrom, our head trainer, evaluated the horse’s baseline performance. Now this is where I really come in. Studying everything we can about this horse and working to build a foundational training program that will soon enable you to take your new horse in a direction where you both can find success.
Stage 4: Analysis
Step 1: Training Interrelationship Matrix. Next, now that we’ve analyzed all the data we can gather on the horse from our four pillars: psychology, health, conformation, and performance, it is now possible to structure our Training Interrelationships Matrix to meet your new horse where he/she is to build a solid foundation of training.
Analysis means “to break something apart, study each individual piece, then reassemble as a newly understood whole.” Our Research-Based Hippology gives us the foundation to do that so we are constantly working towards training goals that meet with thriving with humans.
Our horses go through various types of performance training in Stage 4. In tandem with behavioralism, health and wellness, we work with the horse’s anatomy to instill lasting training to serve as the foundation for the horse’s desired purpose.
Stage 5: Synthesis
Step 1: Pettler’s Equine Scoring Method. We revisit our scoring matrix now a second time to bring it all home! After extensive training in Stage 4, the horse is now ready to synthesize all those newly trained pieces together towards Stage 6: Evaluation. In this stage, we work to fill in any outstanding training holes we can readily identify. At this stage all our horses have achieved their training milestones and are ready for their next big adventure with you!
Step 2: Veterinary Care. Just like when the horse arrived, now the horse is ready to thrive with you! We have Dr. Fordham examine the horse again and provide a written report of what he finds during this exam. We address any outstanding health issues and get the horse fully ready by floating teeth, additional vaccines, or whatever is necessary for your horse to be fully set up when you pick up or he/she is delivered to you.
Stage 6: Evaluation
Now we have built a horse! From the day your new horse arrived at CREK, he/she has been loved so much. I am an animal crazy person lol. I love them all even though I know I cannot keep them all. Some of the horses that come to us come from dire circumstances. I get it. I’ve been in dire circumstances too. But for horses it can be deadly. Deadly because they could be sold off for meat exported to Canada and Mexico…yes Canada. In Stage 6 we evaluate the horse. This is were we give our final sign-off and present the horse to you for rehoming. We have invested a lot into your new horse. You’re not buying sight-unseen even if you never come to our farm to see your new horse before you decide to make him/her part of your family.
SOLVED! Nothing makes me happier than to hear my team say “solved!” Another murder case solved! Another family has answers and maybe another victim will have justice. And realizing I cannot help these agonizing families more than I do with the Murder Room Method, the worst part is that I can never fix it. Regardless of all the tools we have to make cases fly, we cannot restore life. Families often never recover from the trauma of losing loved ones to various types of death. And sometimes I think the same about horses: will they or can they recover from abuse, neglect, and being thrown away? Some can. And they do. And our method proves that when we use the data from the four pillars of knowledge: psychology, health, conformation, and performance we can help horses who have no one, who don’t know what love is, who have never had their own human, who might not trust humans, who no one ever took the time to teach, turning them into thriving members in the horse world.
There are thousands of horses being shipped to slaughter each year in the United States. There are 7.5 million horses living with humans in the United States today as well. Even though I cannot solve every unsolved murder and even though I cannot make every horse in dire straights part of the CREK family, I continue to be grateful for the opportunities I do have to help as much as I can leave the world better than we found it. As we say at Laura Pettler & Associates Death Investigations #RiseAndSlay and as we say at CREK #RideAndSlay. We can all use our lives to make a difference.
Ride and slay,
Dr. Laura Pettler
The North American Destrier Horse Registry
On May 19, 2020, the American Quarter Horse Association announced that 6 million horses were registered with their association with approximately 78k new foal registrations per year. In comparison, the Friesian Horse Society of America reported 14,000 registrations total in spring 2023 with approximately 450 foal registrations per year. Additionally, upon the 25th anniversary of the first 16 Gypsy Vanners imported to the United States, by 2021 there were approximately 8,500 registered with the Gypsy Vanner Horse Society alone. With such low numbers in the USA, Friesians and Gypsies are unique and special for many reasons. But like true crime in the podcast industry, the horse world is saturated with numerous registries some of which are great and some maybe not so great. But one new registry one stands out from them all partly because they have a pointed mission: The North American Destrier Horse Registry. This is a great article about the mission of the NADHR and the revival of three ancient breeds now eligible for registration in the United States: the Destrier, the Courser, and the Palfrey. Like Gypsy Vanners and Friesians, Destriers, Coursers, and Palfreys are rare and unique steeped in exotic historical context. They are medieval warhorse breeds. Draft horses, Iberians, Friesian, and Gypsies are part of their foundation. These breeds and combinations thereof were bred to carry knights and warriors into battle, pack supplies, and pulled wagons just for starters. NADHR's Kade Bartlett and team are working tirelessly to encapsulate, recreate, recognize, and celebrate these ancient breeds through all their efforts in the North American Destrier Horse Registry. CR Equine & Kennel LLC Crossbred Friesians, GVs, & Jack Russell Terriers are proud members of the NADHA and we specialize in ancient breeds, specifically Friesians, Gypsy Vanners (cobs), and now Coursers and Palfreys. We are excited to have one Courser DNA tested, evaluated, approved, and registered so far. Three other horses we currently have are pending DNA towards eligibility consideration for potential evaluation. As an entrepreneur, inventor, author, lifelong student, dog breeder, equestrian, and the other hats I so willingly choose to plop upon my head lol, I understand and appreciate the daunting task of massive new undertakings. Undertakings that might look like impossibilities to some, but to their visionaries they are well worth the hard work. The NADHR is comprised of an exemplary group of individuals who are excited to welcome you and work together through education and experience. If you are into horses, but especially interested in ancient breeds, warhorses, draft crosses, etc., the NADHR is for you! Check them out and please share if you should so choose. In continued servitude to our beloved ancient breed horses, -Doc xo