Does Your Horse “Respect” You?
I'm just the sort of old-fashioned cowgirl/dressage queen/dork that loves the concept of respect. Philosophically and in real life, I...
Calming Signals Aren't Calming
Lots of the people who come to Calming Signals clinics are bright-eyed and hopeful that I have a signal to...
Photo & Poem: Scream
Her small exhausted body wobbles, too frail to run on uneven hooves, no energy to eat. Don’t call her...
Battlecry of the Gray Mare
Sun's up, I've thrown hay, and now I'm in the shower. My second-best thinking happens here because there's a window...
Heart Horses
"He's my Heart Horse," she says by way of introduction. A hush falls over the room. Or maybe that's just...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Smile
A proud gray horse with a soft eye. Dwarfed by his manner, I almost don’t feel the barb of his...
Middle Path: The Curse of a Self-Aware Mind
We think too much. We're mostly introverts with an inclination toward perfection, and we think too much. Oh, and we...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Serene
The cowboys I knew didn't dress like the movies. No neckerchiefs or fancy Mexican spurs. They wore easy smiles under...
Calming Signals and Pain
First, last, and always, make sure your horse is sound. That's the warning that any decent equine professional gives...
Circles: A Soft Bend
I'd led a sheltered life. I was thirty years old before I visited my first Saddlebred barn. I was just...
Photo Challenge: Structure
This horse covers the ground more quietly on four hooves than my old feet can manage, dynamic strides so...
Leadership Percentages and Confused Horses
Pause here. Look in his eye. He's sensitive and intelligent and looking for a partner who's his equal. If we're...
Touchy About Contact
Question from a reader with a mouth-sensitive green horse: " ...when I watch a video of me riding I worry that...
Circling Back: How We Became One.
We were hooked and it was written all over us. The first weird looks passed between our parents. We were...
Part Two: Norman, Is That You? (The Reactive Horse)
Last week, I wrote about horses who are The Strong Silent Type. This horse is the opposite. Describing him sounds...
Photo Challenge: Grace-ful
It's an intimate moment, a recognition of soul, held and acknowledged, then returned in kind. Softly now, abide. .... Anna Blake at...
Safety and Being a Spoil Sport.
I'm a riding instructor. Wait, it's worse than that. A riding instructor who has read the small print of her liability...
Photo Challenge: Chaos
There's a kind of grace in the slippery unbalance of chaos when I remember it's only the rear entrance of...
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