Relaxed & Forward Blog

A Message from Heaven (for my professional friends)

I am a woman who possesses an interesting range of enviable skills. Getting surgery is not on the list. One...
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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...
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How to Measure the Heart of a Horse

Have you experienced this? Someone says something that is a throw-away comment, not meant to be anything, they toss it...
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Nube: When He Came Home

I was forty-nine years old with gray hair, calloused banged-up fingers, and chronic lameness in my left foot. He was...
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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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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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Silent Night: The Truest Words Aren’t Words At All.

I was standing outside of a hotel at five in the morning waiting for my limo. Obviously, several things had...
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Things We Should Refuse to Train Horses To Do

Warning: Loudmouth Party Pooper Rant. I think we all know whose side I'm on in this horse training reality show....
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Best Advice for Loading Horses on Trailers

I had a clinic stop in Flagstaff where the organizer was a long-time client and hero of mine, Barb. The...
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Thank You, Mother: an Ode to a Farm

It's late afternoon as I drive along the front of my farm to the gate. The field fence is shrouded...
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The Season of Letting Go

The autumnal equinox is about change. There's a miserable fog today, dense and so uncommon on my high prairie. Chilly...
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Being the “Good” Horse Isn’t Easy.

People want to tell me about their challenging horse, the quirky one, the scary one, the kill pen (scam) horse....
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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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On The Road for Horses: Adventure, Drama, Dog Hair.

  Aftermarket radar. I hope you didn't worry I'd get lost. I installed radar and didn't...
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The Failure of Good Intentions

There was a time that I thought if I saw my horse curled to one side, itching his flank, I...
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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 Short List of Unfair Things to Ask a Horse

Old mares have a constant dilemma. They get stiff and stove-up. They're stoic so they don't whine about it, but...
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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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