Anna Blake Another story of cruelty hit the international press last week. Operation X documented horrors happening in a well-known Danish barn, by using an undercover “groom” with a hidden camera. I won’t relate the gory details because you already know them. They are as nasty as you imagine. Repeating them feels like profanity. It was … Read more
Meet my dogs, Preacher Man, Mister, and Jack. They’re in the doorway to my writing studio. It’s Thanksgiving night, which is always on a Thursday. So, for the last thirteen years, every Thanksgiving evening (and every other Thursday night) we meet here to write my blog. It’s usually the All-Horse Channel, as I share what … Read more
It’s colder now. The leaves are gone. The wind charges at us from the north, and the temperature drops ten degrees at three pm and keeps falling. We’ve had snow, the tank heaters are in. One of my horses has grown so much chin hair that I had to let his halter noseband out. It’s … Read more
It was the end of a long clinic day, and we were wrapping up. Almost done on time until this question. “How do you know who to believe?” There were people new to horses, lifelong horsewomen, and those who rode as kids and returned later in life. The thing they all had in common was … Read more
In my online Barnie group, we do performance art around Halloween. My horse, Bhim, along with Edgar Rice Burro, Arthur, the goat, and I started work on our plan. Then, we had an epic wreck. But at least I have it all on video! We started by assembling the parts. I got some cheap and … Read more
It’s before dawn on a Friday morning and I’m in an RV park in Amarillo, Texas. I’ve been mud-wrestling with a cold for a couple of weeks now, but I’ll make it home tonight. I can hear a train whistle close by, some eighteen-wheelers getting an early start, and my dog snoring, belly-up in … Read more
There’s a woman and a tall young horse, moving in perfect strides together but with a healthy space between them. It’s as if the rope is invisible, her hands low at her sides. They continue walking, turning to the right and the left, stride by stride, with no visible cues. That sweet space between them … Read more
When I first moved to my farm, I pretended to be Jane Goodall. My land was a high desert prairie, not the jungle, and my species was horses and hers were chimps. But I focused on what we had in common. It was always about curiosity and learning. I was a kid when I … Read more
A reader request: “I hope you will someday do an article on looking at the horse’s ears and eyes to determine happiness. I see pics of people smiling on horses that are clearly unhappy or in pain or both. It boggles my mind that they are oblivious to it. Just recently saw a photo of … Read more
The short version is that my horse poked me in my sit bone, which isn’t possible, is it? But let’s start at the beginning because both my Grandfather Horse and Nube are gone now. And it’s fall, that bittersweet season. A friend had asked to ride my Grandfather Horse. He was just Spirit then, a … Read more