Relaxed & Forward Blog

Calming Signals: How to Show Love

"How do you show your love for horses, then?" A clinic participant asked me at the end of a long...
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Life Coach: The Goat Version

It was a beautiful end-of-summer afternoon, just about feeding time. Cupid had been with us a few months by then....
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Photo & Poem: Holiday Place

  You had a plan for how this would go when you left home. Longing for a thing different than...
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Calming Signals and Color: Do Horses Understand Laughter?

  Every week new research comes out, some more ethically tabulated than others, about science proving horses are intelligent; an...
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Photo & Poem: Tea

  Stomping in the back porch to knock the dirt off my boots, there’s too much wind to work outside...
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What is an Ethical Ride?

  We are great horse owners. We love our horses. Some of us compete and some stroll around the pasture,...
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Photo & Poem: Goodnight

  Leaning on the gate. Checking water tanks at dusk, one last glance at the herd before heading in. Feeling...
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The Advantage of Less Time

It's the second big freeze here on the farm and it isn't even Halloween. Much too early for such polar...
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Calming Signals and the Myth of Desensitizing

  This chestnut mare is all that. Alert. Intelligent. Willing. And in possession of the quickest response time of any...
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Photo & Poem: The Call

  To feel the red soil, fine dust to pea gravel, with each toe through the sole of my shoe....
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Calming Signals: A Vow of Silence

By now you should snort out loud when someone says their horse is ignoring them. Really, is there a more...
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Photo & Poem: Herself

  No shy curve, she takes a direct line. The big mare trots up with authority, her ears shouting orders...
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Calming Signals and Implicit Bias.

The Barnies are really hitting their stride. I started an online subscription group earlier this year called The Barn. Soon...
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Photo and Poem: Black Bay

  She was for sale: a black bay Arabian mare and I was looking for a beginner lesson horse. Tacked...
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The Real Helmet Heroes. (#ihad, #riders4helmets)

This week was ordinary in the horse world. We love horses, who have the quickest response time of any domestic...
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Book Release: Going Steady, More Relationship Advice from Your Horse

Tada! It's here! Going Steady, More Relationship Advice from Your Horse is now available. Find the links for ordering through...
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What to Do When You See Cruelty

It was a sadly normal week in the larger horse world. Horses got hurt and humans waged war with each...
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Authorblog: A New Book. Does It Count If I Haven’t Suffered Enough?

Writing Stable Relation, my first book, took me sixty years, give or take. Okay, I exaggerate, but I had anxiety...
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