It’s not unusual for amateur dressage rider Erin Liedle to show up at The Pointe at Lifespring, an assisted living facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she works as a physical therapist, with one of her pets in tow. Her dogs are always welcome visitors, but it’s her Shetland pony Stewie who draws the biggest crowd.  

Her service work with her pets and her career as a physical therapist for geriatric patients are only some of the many ways that Liedle gives back. Outside her job and her passion for riding, she also helps run the East Tennessee nonprofit Down and Dirty Dogs, which provides training to shelter dogs, improving their well-being while sheltered and making them more adoptable pets. 

Bridging The Gap With Service Animals

Almost 15 years ago Liedle’s main riding horse was struggling with complex health issues and couldn’t be turned out with other horses. The mare grew depressed. When a vet suggested that a smaller, gentler companion might improve her mental health and physical recovery, Liedle jumped on the idea; she was open to anything that might help her horse.  

And as one does when they need a small pasture puff, Liedle immediately went to Craigslist.

“I found Stewie’s ad and asked to meet him,” she said. “When we got there, he was covered in mud. But he was the happiest little dude, and he had so much personality. He’s the best $300 I’ve ever spent!”

In the short-term, miniature horse Stewie was a definite boost to her mare’s quality of life, Liedle said. But when the mare eventually was diagnosed with a severe neurologic condition and had to be put down, there was no question that Stewie was staying put at Liedle’s farm in Knoxville, where he lives now with her retired eventer and her current dressage mount. 

While Liedle had purchased the mini as a cute companion, she thought Stewie had more to offer. 

Liedle had been a physical therapist at The Pointe at Lifespring for only a few years when she asked executive director Rebecca Mills if she could bring Stewie in to visit the residents. 

Bringing her animals to work was nothing new for Liedle: Her agility dogs, Border Collie Graham and Border Terriers Miley and Griffin, often accompany her, encouraging and motivating the residents during physical therapy sessions and visiting patients in their rooms.

Trips to The Pointe became another way for the dogs, who Liedle says “are fantastic but need direction,” beyond their regular agility training, to feel like they have a job. And the positive impact they have on Liedle’s patients was nothing short of extraordinary. 

“One of my patients was put into hospice care,” Liedle said, “and she specifically asked for Miley. So the next day I brought her in. The patient, bed-bound at that point, asked if I could put Miley on her bed. And I did, and Miley just gently crawled up and laid down on the patient’s chest and just sort of spread herself out and lay there for a long time. She just knew. I’ll never forget it.”

Knowing how much joy the dogs brought The Pointe’s seniors, when Liedle asked Mills about Stewie, the answer was a resounding yes. 

The Elevator Pony

“I was a little worried that he might, you know, do his business,” Mills said, laughing. “But then he showed up, and he was so beautifully groomed, and he smelled so good, and he had a better haircut than most of the men who work here…

“He’s so good that we can bring him inside,” she continued. “The fact that he’s so calm and accessible and approachable just allows him to reach everyone. He just brings so much joy. How can you be stressed or worried when you’re petting a miniature horse? Or is he a pony? I’m not a horse expert—I just know he’s cute!

“He’s become a celebrity here,” she added. “We have some residents who don’t attend a lot of activities and aren’t super social. They can be hard to reach, especially some of the residents in memory care. But then one of the dogs or Stewie comes for a visit, and it’s that animal who is able to bring that resident out of his or her shell. It’s just priceless.”

Liedle remembers a particular visit when a resident on the second floor wanted to meet Stewie but couldn’t come downstairs. 

“He grew up on a farm and really, really wanted to see the pony,” she recalled. “So my colleague asked if Stewie would ride on an elevator. I said, ‘We’re going to find out!’ and that little champion, he walked right on and went up to visit that patient. It was amazing.”

Liedle said that bringing her pets to work—especially Stewie—enables her to do her physical therapy work even better. 

“For so many of my harder-to-reach patients, he bridges the gap,” she said. “He has changed my relationship with so many patients because he opens something up in them that allows them to let us in. It’s just so special. I never could have imagined that my career would have turned out like this, that I could, in this incredible way, couple my love of animals with my love for the geriatric population and get to share one with the other.”

“Erin wears so many hats here,” Mills said. “She’s an incredible physical therapist, but she goes above and beyond that role daily in everything she does. What she does for everyone here goes so far beyond a job—it’s a passion and a calling.”

Equestrian Steward

While Stewie may be the biggest celebrity living in Liedle’s backyard, the company he keeps is rather impressive. Liedle’s mostly retired eventer, Fernhill Boodle, won the amateur training level championship at the 2019 USEA American Eventing Championships (Kentucky). When “Boodle” had some off-and-on lameness issues, Liedle decided to retire him to hacks around the farm while she shifted her focus solely to dressage. 

“Eventing is a really high-risk sport, she said. “And I’d found an incredible trainer and a great group of friends in Knoxville who were dressage riders. Making the switch from eventing, which I’d done since childhood, just made sense.

“I’d always loved dressage,” she continued. “But I didn’t understand the sport in its entirety because I’d never had a purpose-bred horse to do that specific job.”

She has been riding with dressage trainer Emily Brollier Curtis for almost a decade and said that Curtis’ guidance in the sport—and as a person—has been life-changing. Liedle also credits Curtis for finding her current dressage mount, a 7-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding named No Limit (Just For You—Heriti, Vitalis). 

“Emily saw his ad and said, ‘You need to go sit on this horse,’ ” Liedle recalled. “I’m pretty calculated in my decision making, but I really trust Emily, and so I bought a ticket to Texas. I told my mom when I was at the airport, ‘I’m not going to buy this horse.’ Then I walked into the barn and realized that I was in trouble.

“Three years later, it’s the best decision I ever made,” she continued.  

And while “Rocky” has taken her to the U.S. Dressage Finals for the past three years and is beginning Prix St. Georges work, Liedle isn’t talking about their successes in the show ring. She’s more interested in what she’s learned from Rocky and the relationship that they’ve formed since their partnership began. 

“He was not the easiest young horse,” she said. “He was cut late, and he has very, very high opinions of himself. He refused to give to pressure; he couldn’t handle it. So we started off doing a lot of groundwork, and I taught him that he could trust that there would always be a release if he just kept looking for it. When he came to realize that I was never going to trap him, and that he just needed to work to figure out what I was asking for, we really started to become a team. And he has really improved my horsemanship and my riding; I have so many more tools in my toolbox now because of him.”

Once the pair sorted out those early kinks, they took to the show ring, which Rocky really enjoys. 

“His extra bravado is really working for us now,” she said. “It’s an unknown variable when you buy a young horse; you don’t know if they’ll even enjoy showing. But Rocky loves the show ring, especially the big shows. Like, he goes to finals, and he steps up.”

But she tries hard to keep her showing goals in perspective.

“I try to look at horse shows as litmus tests,” she said. “I love competing, but at the end of the day, if my horse is happy and content at the show, we’ve won already. The mental and physical health of the horse is always most important, and feedback from a show just lets me know what we need to keep working on.”

“It’s about the personal journey for her,” Curtis said. “I cannot tell you how many times she checks in with me on an ethical standard, asking if something is fair to the horse. She’s constantly coming back to that, being a steward for her horse. Her horsemanship is outstanding. She’s always questioning: Is this right? Is this fair? Am I asking the right questions? Is this too much or not enough? She’s always circling back to what is right. And because of that, her horse is so generous with her. Erin is as good as they come. The real deal.”

Liedle says that having her horses at home fosters the special relationship she has with each one of them. 

“It helps to remind me of what’s really important,” Liedle said. “I’m the person who asks Rocky to work, but I’m also the food lady and the stall cleaner, and we’re always just hanging out. It’s the absolute best when I walk out of the garage, not even going to the barn, and the horses start talking to me.

“What gets me up in the morning is knowing that these animals, whether the dogs or the horses, put their trust in me even though they don’t have to. That’s most important,” she added. “Rocky is by far the nicest horse I’ve ever had, and probably ever will have, and I just feel so blessed to be his person. God entrusts us with these animals to be stewards to them, to do right by them and take care of them the best that we can.”

But while Liedle is grateful for the animals and people in her own life, so many in Knoxville would say that they feel blessed, too, by her presence in their lives, whether it’s her colleagues and residents at The Pointe, or her friends at the barn, or the horses and dogs she loves. 

“She’s an amazing physical therapist,” Miller said. “But more than that, she’s a phenomenal human. She’s so humble. She cares so much about the people here. Really, she cares about all living things. She’s just a phenomenal person.”