After 20 years working with horses, pigs, sheep, and donkeys as healing partners — and 14 years as a police officer before that — Carla Webb has built something remarkable. Now she’s bringing it to Rhodes Wellness College.
🎙️ Host: Jameson Dean
👤 Guest: Carla Webb
⏱ ~37 minutes
▶ Watch on YouTube ♫ Listen on Spotify
Picture this: you are in a field in Abbotsford, British Columbia. A horse stands nearby, quietly watching you. You are not performing, not trying to impress anyone. And the horse, utterly indifferent to your credentials or your self-image, reflects back exactly what your nervous system is doing.
That is the essence of what Carla Webb has spent the last two decades mastering — and what she is now bringing to Rhodes Wellness College in the form of a brand new Professional Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy Diploma, launching July 2026. In Episode 10 of the Rhodes Wellness Podcast, Carla sits down with host Jameson Dean to walk through the program, the philosophy behind it, and why she believes this is one of the most important emerging fields in human wellness.
From Police Officer to Healing Farm: Carla’s Journey
Carla did not arrive at animal-assisted therapy through a straight line. She grew up with horses, lost her father at a young age (the horses were there for that, too), then spent 14 years as a police officer — work that gave her a deep, embodied understanding of trauma that she now considers foundational to everything she does.
In 2001, she welcomed a horse back into her adult life. Around the same time, she began hearing about a growing field called equine-assisted wellness therapy. Curious and called, she started learning — from various mentors, through various programs — while quietly developing her own practice on the farm she runs in Abbotsford, BC.
“Working in policing was stressful. But I could leave at the end of the day and come into partnering with my horse — building the relationship we had together. It happened in many different ways, but the path that led me here has been from witnessing — and experiencing myself — the immense impact that being with animals and being in nature can have on so many parts of our being.”
— Carla Webb
Over the years, the practice expanded well beyond horses. Sheep, chickens, pigs, donkeys — each species, Carla found, brought its own distinct energy to the healing space. She worked primarily with children and youth. She built a full-time practice. At one point, her Abbotsford farm hosted multiple counsellors and facilitators working alongside her. The work was real, it was growing, and it was working.
Then, in August 2021, a Rhodes alumnus named Lindsey — who had been working as a facilitator at the farm — introduced Carla to Ben, the founder of Rhodes Wellness College. A conversation began. Could this become something bigger?
Almost four years later, the answer is yes.
Why Animals? The Science and Soul of This Work
Before diving into the program itself, it is worth sitting with the question: why does being with an animal actually help?
Carla offers a layered answer. Part of it is somatic. Most of the animal species she works with are mammals with nervous systems similar to our own. Being in their presence, matching their pace, learning to be present in your body the way they are — this does something that cognitive conversation alone often cannot reach. The mental processing of difficult experiences is well-understood. The somatic piece is frequently missed.
Part of it is also evolutionary. Human beings spent hundreds of thousands of years living in nature alongside animals. That history does not simply vanish because we moved into office buildings and started staring at screens. Something in us still responds — at a cellular level — to birdsong, to the weight of a horse’s breath, to the unhurried presence of a grazing animal.
“Over the last 75 years or so there’s been a real disconnection from nature. And when we become disconnected from nature and animals, we are really disconnecting from ourselves as well.”
— Carla Webb
And part of it, Carla says, is simply that animals are honest. They respond to what you bring into the space — not the story you tell yourself about it. For children and youth especially, who often find it difficult to talk about difficult things face-to-face, the presence of an animal can soften the intensity of a session in a way that no office environment can replicate.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
- Carla’s journey from policing to full-time animal-assisted practice over 20 years
- Why horses, pigs, sheep, and donkeys are powerful healing partners — and what makes each one unique
- The full program structure: four semesters, ICF-accredited coaching, a two-week farm residency, and an 80-hour practicum
- The concept of Umwelt — and why understanding how animals experience the world changes everything
- Field Friday: what it is and why it might be the best thing about this program
- Indigenous teachings, humane education, and relationship-centred leadership in semester four
- How graduates can build a practice — and the many forms that can take
The Program: Four Semesters, One Farm, Endless Possibility
The Professional Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy Diploma runs across four semesters of online learning, followed by an 80-hour practicum. The final piece — and perhaps the most anticipated — is a two-week in-person residency at Carla’s farm in Abbotsford, BC. Here is how it builds.
Semester One: The Coaching Foundation
Every student begins with coaching. This is not incidental — Carla took the Rhodes coaching program herself a year before the launch and came away reminded of exactly why it matters. Before you can work therapeutically with an animal partner and a client in the same space, you need to know how to listen with your whole body, ask powerful questions, and hold a person-centred space. Semester one builds exactly that.
Crucially, semester one is an ICF-approved Life Skills Coaching Certificate. Students who complete just this semester can go on to become Associate Certified Coaches with the International Coaching Federation. The program gives you a real credential from day one.
Semester Two: Learning to See
Semester two is where the animals arrive — at least conceptually. The history of human-animal relationships comes first: how this work has evolved from therapeutic riding and guide dogs to the wide and growing field it is today. Then comes what Carla calls the foundational skill of the entire program: observation.
Reading animal body language. Noticing subtle shifts in your client. And turning that same attention on yourself, because a facilitator who arrives stressed and dysregulated cannot hold space for anyone else. The three lines of observation — animal partner, client, and self — run through every semester that follows.
Semester two also introduces a concept that students will not forget: Umwelt. A German word meaning “how animals experience their world,” it is about perspective-taking — genuinely trying to understand what the space looks like from your animal partner’s point of view. Understanding Umwelt, Carla explains, is how you create true safety in a session.
“We view them as sentient beings. They have their own thoughts, feelings, ideas. How do we bring them in and invite them into the space without force? That mutual respect and mutual benefit — that is one of the foundational things in this program.”
— Carla Webb
Semester Three: Into the Field
By semester three, students are deepening their facilitation skills and learning to navigate the unpredictability that comes with working outdoors, with living animals, and with clients who may go somewhere unexpected in a session. This work is deliberately non-prescriptive. There is no week-one to week-ten checklist. What works for one client with one animal on one afternoon may look entirely different the next day.
That flexibility, Carla says, is actually the program’s greatest strength — and the goal of semester three is to make students so confident in their foundational skills that the uncertainty of the moment becomes something they can move with, rather than something that unsettles them.
Semester Four: The Bigger Picture
Semester four is where the program expands outward. Four weeks cover mental health literacy — not to produce therapists, but to ensure facilitators can recognise what they are seeing in a client and respond with a trauma-sensitive lens. There is also a course on relationship-centered leadership, which uses animal social structures to challenge conventional ideas about hierarchy and power.
One of Carla’s personal favourites is the humane education component: two weeks exploring human rights, animal protection, and environmental ethics, and how this work intersects with all three. The final specialized addition is Indigenous teachings with Warren Houle — bringing an Indigenous perspective on doing, being, and knowing into the human-animal relationship, and exploring what allyship looks like when this work is done in Canada.
Semester four also includes a two-week business development course, helping graduates understand how to bring this work to the world — whether that means joining an existing organization, starting something new, bringing animals into a practice they already have, or working at a sanctuary. There are, Carla suspects, untapped possibilities that have not even been imagined yet.
Field Friday and the Weekly Mentorship Hour
Two features of this program deserve special mention, because they set it apart from almost anything else in online education.
The first is Field Friday. Most Fridays throughout the program, students are invited to take their laptops outside and join the Zoom session from wherever their animal partners are. Carla might be out with her pigs. A student might be in the paddock with a horse. Another might be sitting in a garden with a dog. The class happens outside, in real relationship with real animals, in real time.
The second is a weekly one-and-a-half-hour guidance and mentorship session available to all students throughout the entire program — a consistent thread of support, reflection, and community building running alongside the coursework.
“I’ll be out in the field maybe with the pigs, and inviting students to be wherever they want to be with their animal partners. We have Field Friday — and we’ll have that most every Friday throughout the whole program.”
— Carla Webb
The Residency and Practicum: Where It All Comes Together
After the four online semesters comes the part that students are likely thinking about from day one: two weeks at Carla’s farm in Abbotsford, BC, in person, with the animals, with their cohort. Students will practise, get real-time feedback, and — after months of learning together online — finally meet the people they have been building community with.
Following the residency, students complete an 80-hour practicum at a host site. Rhodes has already begun building relationships with farms, sanctuaries, and organizations across Canada to support students in finding placements. If a student does not already have a site in mind, the program will help connect them to one.
By the end, graduates will have a personalized scope of practice — developed through the program — that reflects their own background, experience, and vision for how they want to bring this work into the world.
3 Things Carla Wants Prospective Students to Know
- This field is growing fast — and the timing matters. Twenty years ago, most people had never heard of equine-assisted therapy. Today, the field is expanding exponentially. Graduates from this program are entering a profession whose demand is only increasing, with a credential built on nearly two decades of lived, full-time practice.
- You do not need to own a farm. The program is built to be flexible. Graduates have gone on to bring this work into existing practices, schools, healthcare settings, and community organizations. If you have an animal in your life — or access to one — there may be a path forward you have not yet considered.
- The ethics are non-negotiable — and that is a feature, not a limitation. This is an unregulated field. The reason Carla built this program the way she did is precisely because she wanted something comprehensive, ethics-first, and genuinely rigorous. Students graduate not just trained, but trustworthy.
About the Guest
Carla Webb
Animal Assisted Wellness Practitioner and Educator
Program Lead and Creator, Professional Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy Diploma
Rhodes Wellness College
Abbotsford, British Columbia
Carla has been in full-time animal-assisted wellness practice for nearly 20 years, working primarily with children, youth, and families from her farm in Abbotsford, BC. She brings a background in policing, trauma-informed practice, and over two decades of experience working with horses, dogs, sheep, chickens, pigs, and donkeys as therapeutic partners. She is the lead creator of the Professional Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy Diploma at Rhodes Wellness College, launching July 2026.
Contact Carla directly at the email address in the show notes below.
Interested in the Program?
The Professional Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy Diploma launches at Rhodes Wellness College in July 2026. Find full program details under Areas of Study at rhodescollege.ca, or reach out to the admissions team directly.
Explore the Program at Rhodes →
Questions? Contact Jameson Dean in admissions at jameson@rhodescollege.ca — or reach Carla directly via the show notes below.
Animal Assisted Therapy · Equine Assisted Therapy · Animal Assisted Wellness · Rhodes Wellness College · Healing with Animals · Wellness Diploma Canada · ICF Coaching · Trauma Informed Practice · Nature Therapy · Somatic Healing · Animal Therapy Program Canada · Abbotsford BC · Podcast · Carla Webb · Field Friday
Full Episode Transcript
The complete transcript is provided below for accessibility and reference. Lightly edited for readability.
Jameson Dean: Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of the Rhodes Wellness Podcast. My name is Jameson Dean, and today we are talking all about our Animal Assisted Wellness Therapy program. We have special guest Carla Webb, who is one of the creators and leads on this program here at Rhodes Wellness College, coming this July 2026. Carla, who are you? Why are you here? Tell us more.
Carla Webb: Well, first of all, thank you so much for creating the space for us to chat today and explore this wonderful program. I’m excited to share the details about what students can expect. But firstly, a little bit about me. I’ve been doing this work for almost 20 years, and it began really with my love of animals and growing up with horses most of my life. I had a little bit of a detour — about 14 years in policing — which I always appreciate, because some of the skills I learned there are really connected to the work with the animals. It gave me a different kind of lens to come into this work from, and a much deeper understanding of trauma.
Carla Webb: In about 2001, I was able to have a horse of my own as an adult, and I started to hear about this wonderful field of equine-assisted wellness therapy. I was really curious about it — obviously because of my love of horses, but also my curiosity around psychology. That began my journey of learning more with various people throughout the years. I did start with a coaching program early on and developed my own practice as I was leaving policing. Over time I started to include other animal partners — sheep, chickens, pigs, donkeys — and it was really interesting to start to see the impact that different species can have in this work.
Carla Webb: I’ve worked primarily with children and youth, and I’ve been in full-time practice — I’ve been able to make a living doing this work. At one point we had other counsellors and facilitators here on our farm in Abbotsford. And then in August 2021, one of our facilitators — a Rhodes alumni named Lindsey — introduced me to Ben and was kind of the catalyst to get this conversation going around whether this was something Rhodes wanted to explore together. It has been a work in progress since then, and because of the time that’s gone into it, it’s a really robust, competency-based course. I’m really excited to share more about the work and how it has impacted the people that have come here. This is a field of practice that is growing exponentially, and one of the reasons I was so passionate about creating a course like this is because of the ethics and the safety involved — and doing it well.
Jameson Dean: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. Your intention to blend therapy models, coaching, and animals into a process to help humans alongside their wellbeing journey — alongside animals being present — is really beautiful. You’ve lived this. You’ve offered these sessions, you’ve seen this work in practice in and out of the healthcare industry. And now you want to bring it all together with Rhodes. Is that right?
Carla Webb: Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you bring up the lived experience. I suspect many students will also have had the experience of being supported by an animal friend in childhood, going through difficult times. That was definitely the case for me — with the loss of my father when I was quite young, and also during my policing career, when it was a great time to welcome a horse back into my life. When I was struggling with the stresses of that career, I could leave at the end of the day and come into partnering with my horse and building that relationship. The path that led me here has been from witnessing — and experiencing myself — the immense impact that being with animals and being in nature can have on so many parts of our being.
Jameson Dean: When we’re out in nature with an animal, we’re connecting with ourselves physically — walking alongside a horse or a dog or a sheep. But we’re also engaging with ourselves emotionally, spiritually, mentally, alongside a trained human practitioner who is holding space for whatever is coming up. That environment must allow for a lot of healing. Was that your experience?
Carla Webb: Yes. And what you said about a different setting — sometimes it is hard to be in a counselling or coaching session in an office. Coming out into nature, especially with children and youth who find it difficult to talk about difficult things, the presence of the animals can soften the intensity of what might otherwise be very hard. And we share a nervous system with many of the species we partner with. Sometimes I talk to clients about the stories of what maybe happened to these animals in their past and how they’ve been able to move through trauma — how we can see that in their body, in how they express. With so many modalities, we have the mental processing piece, but we often miss the somatic piece. Being in this environment, being more in our bodies, helps build the relationship with the animals because they respond to that. It’s a warm, nurturing, hopefully safe environment for the animal partner and for the clients coming in. Given how stressful the world is right now, I think this field is continuing to expand as a sanctuary for healing, learning, and growing.
Jameson Dean: I want to give a brief overview of the program. It is four semesters, currently taught online, with an 80-hour practicum and a two-week in-person residency at Carla’s farm in Abbotsford, BC. Semester one is an ICF-approved Life Skills Coaching Certificate — meaning students can become an ICF-certified Associate Certified Coach after just semester one. Carla, can you speak to the importance of coaching as the foundation before introducing the animals?
Carla Webb: It was interesting how this came about. Ben was a really big advocate of having a strong starting place for facilitation skills, and Rhodes has had a rich history of a wonderful coaching program. I was fortunate enough to take it myself a year ago and was reminded of the value of it — learning to listen with your whole body, being skilled at asking great questions. There are so many rich things about having coaching as a foundation before even starting to think about including animals. Students will have a really strong, client-centred foundation — understanding emotions and empathy — before moving on to incorporating animals into their learning.
Jameson Dean: And how does that build into semester two?
Carla Webb: Semester two is where we start to introduce the idea of working with animals. We cover the history of human-animal relationships — what that looked like hundreds of thousands of years ago, up through therapeutic riding and guide dogs and how this work has come to the forefront. Then we look at foundational concepts that thread through each semester. The first is observation — being able to observe animal body language, understand it, look at the nuances, and apply those same skills to noticing your client and noticing yourself. What am I bringing into this session today? Did I have a stressful morning? What do I need to do to come to a place where I am 100% available for my client? The observation is of the animal partner, the client, and the self.
Carla Webb: The second area in semester two is how we understand our animal partners. We view them as sentient beings. They have their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas. How do we bring them in and invite them into the space without force? There is a concept of mutual respect and mutual benefit. This is an unregulated field, and we want to do it the best way possible, with the highest ethics and professionalism.
Carla Webb: One concept I love is Umwelt — a German word that means how animals experience their world. It is about perspective-taking: how can we understand what it might be like for the animal partner in the moment? Understanding their Umwelt is how we set up the conditions for safety. And mindfulness is another core competency. Animals are mostly present-moment beings — they do not worry about the future or harbour the past the way we do. They invite us into that space.
Jameson Dean: And how does that deepen as students move through semesters three and four?
Carla Webb: In semester three we deepen all of these ideas. We look at the ethology of different species — if you want to work with horses, for example, what do you need to know about horse social structure? How do they experience their world? We have a full template for understanding each species. And then we deepen the facilitation skills. Navigating challenges. Being flexible while giving clients autonomy. This work is non-prescriptive — it is not a list of steps. It is individually based, centred on what this specific client needs. By the time students finish this program, they will be very confident in going out and bringing this work to the world.
Carla Webb: In semester four we have four weeks of mental health — not to make therapists, but so students understand what they are seeing in a client and can bring a trauma-sensitive lens to the work. We also have relationship-centered leadership — looking at how animals manage their social structures and what that can teach us about leadership beyond the colonial, dominance-based models we tend to default to. And one of my personal favourites: humane education, looking at human rights, animal protection, and environmental ethics. How does this work interact with those bigger systems?
Carla Webb: There are also Indigenous teachings with Warren Houle — bringing an Indigenous perspective on doing, being, and knowing into the human-animal relationship, and exploring allyship in a Canadian context. And there is a two-week business course to help graduates understand how to build a practice and bring this work into the world.
Jameson Dean: And the residency is semester four — two weeks in person at the farm?
Carla Webb: Yes. Students will be able to practise and practise with the animal partners here. They will get real-life feedback and support one another. I think because these students are going to have been together for such a long time, to finally meet in person is going to be amazing. And after the residency, they go out and complete their 80-hour practicum. We have already made connections throughout Canada where people can go to host sites, and we will support students in finding a placement if they do not already have one. There are just so many ways this work can manifest — joining someone else’s business, bringing animals into existing work, going to a sanctuary, starting something entirely new. I suspect there are untapped ways that have not even been figured out yet.
Jameson Dean: Is there anything else you would want potential students to know about the program?
Carla Webb: Two things. One is the weekly one-and-a-half-hour guidance and mentorship session, which will be available throughout the entire program from another facilitator or instructor. That is really exciting. And the other — I love this one — is Field Friday. Most Fridays, part of what we will be doing is being out in the field. We will bring our computers out, still on Zoom, but I might be out with the pigs, and I invite students to be wherever they want to be with their animal partners. So we have Field Friday most every Friday throughout the whole program.
Jameson Dean: Wow. I am tempted to join myself. For anyone listening and wanting to reach out, you can find us at rhodescollege.ca under Areas of Study. You can also find Carla’s contact information in the show notes below. Carla, you are also going to be teaching throughout the program?
Carla Webb: Yes. I will be doing the guidance and mentorship during the coaching semester, and once we get into semester two, I will be starting with the three-week introduction to the whole program. You will see me throughout the other semesters, and of course I will be here during residency.
Jameson Dean: Amazing. Thank you so very much, Carla Webb, for coming on today and being honest and real about the exciting work in this field and what is to come. To those listening, you can find us at rhodescollege.ca. Keep being well, and we will talk to you soon.
Carla Webb: Thank you so much.
Jameson Dean: Welcome. Bye.
Carla Webb: Bye.
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