Relaxed & Forward Blog

Affirmative Training: Response Time and a Hail Mary Pass

My client and I were having an online meeting. We'd been working on a systematic process of getting her and...
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Does it Feel Like Everyone is Watching You?

It's you and your horse. Sometimes people looking at him think he isn't much but that's because they don't know...
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Calming Signal Substitutions: Helping Your Horse

Most of us are old enough to remember what a rolled-up newspaper is for. Wacking the dog, of course. Because...
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What Does it Mean to be Domesticated?

If you have been reading along for the last 1300 or so weekly essays of mine, you know sometimes I...
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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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Patience in Real Time

A clinic organizer was telling me about a trainer she brought in, someone whose approach was significantly more aggressive than...
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Brain Science and the Art of Play

It's cold on the flat windy treeless prairie of Colorado. The next few months will be even colder but right...
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Relaxed & Forward in 2022. Now What?

The lockdown at the beginning of 2020, followed by months of quarantine, was a wonderful opportunity for a thoughtful assessment...
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Gray Mares, Time, and Priorities

Do you notice that it gets a little easier to be yourself every day? Public speaking wasn't the sort of...
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How Horses Train Us

You are a horse trainer. It does not always give me joy to say so, but it's true and other...
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What Does Having a Connection With a Horse Mean?

What does it mean to have a connection with a horse? You just know I'm going to be a loudmouth...
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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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Your Horse’s Memory is Your Best Training Aid.

My friend, Bruce, died from colic one year ago today. You are remembered. Our memories of...
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Does Leadership Mean Domination Now?

From a Reader: "Anna, you articulate the dance between horse and human so very succinctly. I wish it were easier...
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Boundaries: Whose Space Is It?

Horses gallop on pounding hooves that cut the ground and then melt to a stop, whiskers floating in the light....
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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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Calming Signals and Feculence

I'm responding to a request to write a few words about poop. "BM, defecation, excrement, fecal matter, the deuce, sh*t,...
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Calming Signals: Planning for Stress

Calming signals are an animal's emotional response to their environment, expressed in body language, sometimes in increasing anxiety moving toward...
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