Anna Blake Do you follow the Iditarod, too? Northern breeds are such athletes with their instincts on full display. These half-wild dogs are perfect. They get to run with their pack. Then they stop and all lie down to rest. They eat better than most of our dogs. And then, with very little steering, they run some … Read more
I saw a video this week that I can’t get out of my head. It lacked the drama of the usual train wrecks played for humor on social media. It was as slow and quiet as a PBS documentary. It was almost like we were peeping at the horse from a thousand yards. He felt … Read more
It’s time for my annual announcement. Your horse doesn’t have a training problem. It isn’t a brain tumor, and he hasn’t gotten into the duck chow. It’s late winteritis or spring fever. Both are bad, their symptoms are unpredictable. One day, the pond is defrosting and I think I have survived the longest meanest winter … Read more
Imagine your brain is a room. Stand in the middle and slowly turn to take it in. Would it be a cathedral with beautiful stained glass? Maybe bookshelves all around and an oversized bathtub in the middle. Sleek and contemporary or antiques and overstuffed sofas. Would it have a balcony over your horse pasture? Is … Read more
It’s springtime in the Rockies. The time change was last weekend, so I’m waking up at three am now, but there’s more light in the evening. I can see tiny bits of green if I bend over for a close look. Earlier this week we were out in shirtsleeves and now we’re halfway through a … Read more
My first ex-husband used to tease me about my frantic love of shortcuts. I was always up early, on the run, impatient as a kindergarten class five minutes before recess. My multitasking skills were nothing short of genius, I thought. I did the work of a dozen in half the time. When my plans derailed, … Read more
We are sick to death of the violence against horses. It isn’t just the damage caused by rollkur in reining and dressage, or racing youngsters until their legs break, or the tragic mess rodeo has become, or the horses being tossed to auction for the crime of being old or lame. My personal thorn in … Read more
My Grandfather Horse was so good with latches he could have broken out of Alcatraz and made it back to Colorado, but he wasn’t special. We all brag about how intelligent our horses are when they react to the sound of our car driving up the driveway. They’re geniuses when they know it’s dinnertime, or … Read more
Sometimes it happens behind a trailer. The horse needs a moment, but the human is in a hurry. Horses and humans famously define “hurry” differently. The human tries one approach, and the horse is almost ready to get in, but since the human doesn’t read Calming Signals, they give up and try something else. Then … Read more
The worst thing about remembering a horse in the past is that maybe there are current options that your horse only missed by a few years. For all that we don’t know about horses, for all the worry and grasping at symptoms, eventually all will be revealed. The stray symptoms, the unusual events, the chronic … Read more