Relaxed & Forward Blog

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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Resolutions and Horse Dreams

It's the twilight zone between holidays, meandering like a long, slow-motion hangover. I have no idea what day it is...
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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...
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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...
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Letting Edgar Rice Burro Get Old

Edgar Rice Burro runs with a gang of misanthropes. A goat whose broken leg healed stiff, so he has an...
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Nube: How We Met

one year later... I was forty- nine years old, and my upcoming birthday was hanging in...
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Calming Signals: Adjusting the Volume of Quiet

It's been quiet here. Winter is good for that and we haven't had a day above freezing in a while....
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Loafing in Limbo: Hibernation as a Training Aid

We are in Limbo. It's that week between Christmas and New Year when nobody knows what day it is. Not...
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Are You Having a Midlife Horse Crisis?

I got an email from a reader last week. She had a hard question. She acknowledges she was naive, but...
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Euthanizing and Herd Anxiety

"I’m wondering if you could address animals and grief in one of your columns. We’ve lost a horse and a...
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A Love Letter to Dirt.

It's the eve of Christmas Eve and I'm worried about my dirt. Maybe the world has bigger problems and maybe...
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Why Don’t You Ride?

"Why don't you ride?" It's the question we dread. Sometimes the people who ask are neophytes who don't understand that...
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Calming Signals. You Can’t Save ‘Em All. Cat Version.

I walk in my pasture. Women of a certain over-thinking age do well to put a few miles in a...
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A Legacy of Homegrown Ingenuity and Bull-Headed Confidence

I am the great-granddaughter of pioneers. They traveled far, mixed their blood with those not like them, and built lives...
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For the Fragility of a Horse…

"When we see horses galloping with ears sharp, tails flagged, and hooves churning up the soil, they are the epitome...
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Part of Your Horse Stays Behind

When it came time to say goodbye to my dressage mentor, a trainer that I'd ridden with several times a...
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Spring Fever, Bad Behavior, or Flight Response?

It's February on the high prairie at the fringe of the Rocky Mountains. The pond is still frozen so there...
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The Word Inside an Exhale: EASE

It's January first. The calendar has flipped over and I'm happy with the new numbers. New Year's is an excellent...
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