Relaxed & Forward Blog

The Art of Un-Training a Horse

    The first video is of a Mustang, proud and breathtakingly beautiful. He's a burnished smoky buckskin, with a...
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Grumbling and Stumbling Toward Change

I'm coming up on the anniversary of moving to my farm twenty-five years ago. It coincides with my dysfunctional affair...
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Deconstructing Horse Aggression

When I got home after school, I walked in the front door, dropped my books, and walked out the back...
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The Home Barn and Separation Anxiety

May I brag? I have that strange career where I travel a lot, see beautiful country as a routine part...
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Nube: What Retirement Means

And so, Nube [pronounced new-bay] retired in limbo. Undiagnosable. Sometimes, the solution for a long-running struggle is to just stop...
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Human Failings, Horses, And Judgment

A four-year-old video surfaced this week and a dressage rider deeply apologized for the overuse of a whip. She will...
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How Affirmative Training Was Born.

I am not a bliss-ninny. Loitering in denial doesn't work for me. I'm a blunt truth-teller who doesn't enjoy being...
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Calming Signals: Love vs Understanding

The mare would not pick up the canter. She just wouldn’t. In her defense, the rider was off balance. Every...
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Independence, Liberty, and My Personal Shining Sea

It's officially mucking-in-a-muumuu weather here at Infinity Farm. The horses all stand in the barn's shade and watch me fling...
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Calming Signals: Another Word for Dominant

There is a wild stallion on the ridge fighting all comers for his harem of mares. We think aggression and...
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Nube: Undiagnosable

I hope I'm not going to end up writing some kind of justification for harsh training. Usually, it's easier than...
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Allowing Horses the Time to be Curious

I saw a video this week that I can't get out of my head. It lacked the drama of the...
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Interior Design: Do It for Your Horse

Imagine your brain is a room. Stand in the middle and slowly turn to take it in. Would it be...
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An Affirmation of a Life Shared with Animals.

It's springtime in the Rockies. The time change was last weekend, so I'm waking up at three am now, but...
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Nube: What If This Isn’t Wrong?

My first ex-husband used to tease me about my frantic love of shortcuts. I was always up early, on the...
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The Joy of Imperfection

We are sick to death of the violence against horses. It isn't just the damage caused by rollkur in reining...
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Nube: More Dark Clouds and Questions With No Answers

The worst thing about remembering a horse in the past is that maybe there are current options that your horse...
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Trainer Love: In Memory of Seri

Seri died this week. She was never my horse, but she is part of the trainer I've become. Seri was...
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