Famous Cruelty, Ordinary Cruelty, and an Affirmative Solution
Another story of cruelty hit the international press last week. Operation X documented horrors happening in a well-known Danish...
Thanksgiving: Our First Horse Was a Dog
Meet my dogs, Preacher Man, Mister, and Jack. They're in the doorway to my writing studio. It's Thanksgiving night, which...
Euthanizing Your Horse: How to Trust Yourself
It's colder now. The leaves are gone. The wind charges at us from the north, and the temperature drops ten...
Horse Trainers: How Do You Know Who to Believe?
It was the end of a long clinic day, and we were wrapping up. Almost done on time until this...
We’re Not Perfect: The Great Halloween Wreck of ’23.
In my online Barnie group, we do performance art around Halloween. My horse, Bhim, along with Edgar Rice Burro, Arthur,...
Book Launch: Say Hello to ‘Undomesticated Women’ by Anna Blake
It's before dawn on a Friday morning and I'm in an RV park in Amarillo, Texas. I've been mud-wrestling...
Horses and Chimpanzees, Or Why Horses Aren’t Cuddlers
When I first moved to my farm, I pretended to be Jane Goodall. My land was a high desert...
Horses Measuring Intelligence in Humans
It's my fault for asking for blog topics. She writes, "Can you possibly do a blog post on why your...
Human Calming Signals: Help Your Horse to Take Your Cue
You think it's a simple task you're asking your horse to do. You use an affirmative approach, not willing to...
Nube: How to Train a Horse to be Patient
I don't like cameras. How you can tell is my neck swells up and my double chins flare out wider...
Human Calming Signals: Actions Louder than Words
"Anna, after reading this piece I realized that I know how to do this; just not with horses. As a...
Focus is Active Listening. Horses Do It Naturally.
I had a friend who used to write me little vignettes about the antics of her and her horse at...
Do You Have Coyote Eyes? How to Look Without Looking
Can you tell when someone's looking at you? Or maybe a child in a waiting room, or it could be...
Calming Signals: What If Horses Are Meant to be a Mystery?
I'm not sure when I started sitting on horses, but I hadn't started school. You couldn't really call it riding....
Legacy: We’re Riding for the Next Horse
Driving home through northern Colorado yesterday, I passed the Berthoud off-ramp. Otherwise known as the Grandfather Horse off-ramp. I've only...
Bhim: Through Life Drama and Training Plateaus
It's been six months now since starting Bhim's Training Diary online. But time is a fluid thing for a horse....
Nube: Ulcer Nostalgia and What I Didn’t Know
I get nostalgic for the days when I didn't know what I know now. I miss the bittersweet, marginally innocent...
Training Tip: Improving Your Eye
Sometimes we look back at how we kept horses as kids, and it seemed so simple then. None of them...