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...
Book Launch: Say Hello to ‘Undomesticated Women’ by Anna Blake
It's before dawn on a Friday morning and I'm in an RV park in Amarillo, Texas. I've been mud-wrestling...
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...
Nube: How a Horse Taught Me a Canter Cue
The short version is that my horse poked me in my sit bone, which isn’t possible, is it? But let’s...
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...
The Difference Between Training and Retraining a Horse
Lesson #1. Learning to Lead Horse Training is the process of collecting good experiences. Let it...
Focus is Active Listening. Horses Do It Naturally.
I had a friend who used to write me little vignettes about the antics of her and her horse at...
Calming Signals: What If Horses Are Meant to be a Mystery?
I'm not sure when I started sitting on horses, but I hadn't started school. You couldn't really call it riding....
Human Calming Signals: I Want my Horse to be Fearless.
So, you want a horse that doesn't spook? Don't we all? Great, you wanna look for something over 25...
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...
Affirmative Training is Fine, But What-if…
A few years back, a pretty well-known trainer made a statement about using force with horses. Flat out, the...
Problem Solved: Space to Breathe.
I'm walking next to you and I'm talking loudly. I am so close that you feel the heat of my...
Affirmative Training: The Opposite of Dominance Isn’t What You’d Think
Sitting in a horse pen is the easiest thing in the world. I might even like to cook if I...
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....
Cleaning Out the Toolbox
If it weren't for manure frozen into the ice, we'd have no traction at all and it's only the eleventh...
An Invitation to a Clinic in Your Home
I have a problem. I'm a clinician who loves her job and at the same time, wonders if there are...
Nebulous Lameness. Nebulous Anxiety. And a List.
Your inner monster screams, "Just Kick Him!" but you don't. You aren't that person. You don't use spurs or whips....
“Why Don’t You Post Training Videos?”
Photo by Ilona Gerou It was at the dark ages of VHS, long before the...