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.
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,...
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...
Homeschooling Your Horsemanship
In one online class this week, a woman in Maine said it was 90 degrees that day and her...
Part of Your Horse Stays Behind
When it came time to say goodbye to my dressage mentor, a trainer that I'd ridden with several times a...
The Best Horse Conversations Start With “No”
Imagine that each time you climbed on your horse, he began to move in a slow canter, so rhythmic and...
Advice? Take a Deep Seat and a Faraway Look…
My young horse was lame, so my mentor asked if I'd like a lesson on her horse. It wasn't a...
Take a Cue from Your Horse
He was a bright young gelding. Alert, athletic, and so willing. One day he would become the kind of breathtaking...
Horses and the Pain We Can’t Stop.
The Grandfather Horse: Dirt Bath Interrupted. We've all done it. We look at that horse and...
Saying Yes to a Horse When You Mean No
Sometimes something someone says sticks with you because it's brilliant. Sometimes it sticks because it's plain wrong. I was working...
How Humans are Different from Horses
In the beginning, a filly is born. In the hospital, a baby girl human is born. The filly stands almost...
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Enter your name and email to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.