Relaxed & Forward Blog

Nube: What If This Isn’t Wrong?

My first ex-husband used to tease me about my frantic love of shortcuts. I was always up early, on the...
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How To Buy a Horse

He was a bay gelding in his teens when we met. A Quarter Horse with a bit of a downhill...
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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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Culture Wars in the Barn

There is a recent article in the NYT about the culture wars going on in dog training that's worth reading....
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What It Means to Love a Horse

I'm talking to a new client who contacted me for help, asking them to tell me about their horse. They...
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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...
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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...
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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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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...
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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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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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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...
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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....
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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...
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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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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...
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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...
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