RELAXED AND FORWARD: Since 2010, an archive of weekly horse training essays. My dogs say it's their turn now. Happy to oblige, it's all affirmative. Including words from a gray mare on the fine art of aging cantankerously.
Affirmative Anxiety
For as often as we've watched horses run and thought them the most beautiful of all creatures, we should know...
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...
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...
Nube: Undiagnosable
I hope I'm not going to end up writing some kind of justification for harsh training. Usually, it's easier than...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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....
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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