Calming Signals and Pain
First, last, and always, make sure your horse is sound. That's the warning that any decent equine professional gives...
Trust: A Suspension of Disbelief.
You love horses. No, you really, really love horses. Because they are so amazing. We share videos of blind horses cared...
Circles: A Soft Bend
I'd led a sheltered life. I was thirty years old before I visited my first Saddlebred barn. I was just...
Riding the Middle: My Horse is Lazy.
My horse is lazy. He won't go forward. He doesn't listen to my legs no matter what. Do I need...
Too Much Love: Is it Partnership?
Last week I answered a reader question about Making War on Horses and it got a predictably positive reception. It's...
Making War on Horses: Is it Leadership?
By reader request: "Horses need a dominant leader; you have to make him respect you." "You can't let him get away...
Escape the Death Spiral: Asking For a Step.
Let me begin by defining a death spiral. It's asking a horse to do something he just avoided, by circling...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Waiting
The air goes still on the prairie during that instant when my finished inhale lifts gravity and just before the...
Leadership Percentages and Confused Horses
Pause here. Look in his eye. He's sensitive and intelligent and looking for a partner who's his equal. If we're...
Common Sense about Horse Communication
The first thing to remember about horses is that their senses are just better than ours. I’ve never trusted my...
Teaching Your Horse to Relax
The rider said that her mare had an undeniable "rushiness" and was always tense. The mare is five years old...
Learning to Love Negotiation
Rule number one about horses: There will be a high learning curve. Most of us are drawn to horses because...
Mounting Block Conversations
This is Andante. He likes to have a conversation at the mounting block. He wasn't always like this. In his...
Calming Signals: YOUR Response.
Photo by Sheri Kerley I'll start with the bad news. For those of us who grew...
Concept Clinics: A different approach
I've been thinking for a while now about the process of learning. It could have something to do with the number...
Release: The Unflattering Truth
A few weeks ago, I was standing, talking with a client at the end of her lesson. She was at...
How to Defuse a Horse Bomb
Maybe you're mentally arranging your to-do list, or rehashing an imaginary rant about something that happened at work, or just...
Calming Signals and Equine Gastric Ulcers.
These are two of my favorite topics and I write about them often, but this post is about how calming...
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