Relaxed & Forward Blog

Horsewomen and the Reverse Banana Peel Approach

Do you ever just stop in your tracks, look at your (insert your choice: horse, dog, child) and go blank?...
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Calming Signals: Haunted by a Black Cat in a Pink Dress.

I was taking the trash out to the dumpster in the alley. As I reached the back gate, I saw...
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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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Affirmative Anxiety

For as often as we've watched horses run and thought them the most beautiful of all creatures, we should know...
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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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Stay in Your Own Lane

I don't mind getting stuck in traffic. It practically makes me un-American to say so. I don't love it but...
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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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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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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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Horse Training Means Affirmative Waiting

Humans, aren't we swell? Compared to horses, we have dim, frail senses, we're seven times slower in our response time,...
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Horse Trainers: How Do You Know Who to Believe?

It was the end of a long clinic day, and we were wrapping up. Almost done on time until this...
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Nube: A Living Lesson in “Less is More”

There's a woman and a tall young horse, moving in perfect strides together but with a healthy space between them....
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Horses and Chimpanzees, Or Why Horses Aren’t Cuddlers

  When I first moved to my farm, I pretended to be Jane Goodall. My land was a high desert...
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Riding Lessons: Seeing Your Horse Through New Eyes

A reader request: "I hope you will someday do an article on looking at the horse's ears and eyes to...
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Balancing Energy with a Horse

Is your horse lazy? Lazy is a name we call horses when we want to denigrate them by comparing them...
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Horses Measuring Intelligence in Humans

It's my fault for asking for blog topics. She writes, "Can you possibly do a blog post on why your...
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The Difference Between Peaceful Persistence and Nagging.

Today, I’d like to use you as a human demo horse. Please, play along with me. Let’s say you come...
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The Difference Between Training and Retraining a Horse

Lesson #1. Learning to Lead Horse Training is the process of collecting good experiences. Let it...
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