Photo & Poem: A Cure for Sadness
Jerk out the fencing staples and carefully pocket them, leave nothing in the dirt. Pull the sagging wire fence...
How to Have a Conversation with Someone Who Doesn’t Talk
People talk to horses constantly. The words are unintelligible most of the time, to both us and the horse, but...
Photo & Poem: I Cannot Know
We became strangers. I thought I knew her so well; that place just back from her ears where her...
Calming Signals: Trust Above Training
It was my job to haul him to his new trainer. He was a bright young gelding, some would call...
Photo & Poem: When the Sunset is Through With Me
The sunset plays me. In the heat of the day, colors are flattened by glare and searchlight bluntness, work...
Calming Signals: Do You Tease Your Horse?
There was a time that I had a basset hound named Agatha and a bunch of friends with toddlers. It...
Photo & Poem: Sentient
Long in the tooth, people say. Gray hairs dusting his temple, this gelding plays the part of good uncle,...
Aggressive or Assertive?
She was a breathtaking draft-cross mare who I met at Duchess Sanctuary this year. There was just a presence about...
Photo& Poem: Go Fish
Mom took us kids in the station wagon to the church bazaar. Homemade women’s goods for sale; boring cross-stitched...
Affirmative Training for Colts and Fillies
Foals are irresistible. They are precocious and lively; they cavort and air gallop and sleep flat-out. When they wake...
Photo & Poem: Faraway Friends
I would show you the adolescent Canada geese on the pond. Better behaved than we ever would have been,...
Brain Science as a Training Aid
It was a two-day-long science class and we were promised a brain dissection. I signed up immediately and have...
Photo & Poem: Dwindling Light
His swayed back so warm in the late afternoon but he doesn’t lie down. His shoulders bear his weight...
Fear, Shame, and Affirmative Training
This is a photo of when you first fell in love with horses. Maybe you dreamed it and it...
Photo & Poem: Dry Thunder
The draft horses galloped out of the barn and down the fence line, stood on their hind legs, pawing...
Confidence Lost and Found
We thought having a horse would make everything perfect. It's a dream most of us were born with; we...
Photo & Poem: Hand
One draws attention, standing by a tolerant gelding and playing the horse whisperer, tickling withers, teasing his whiskery muzzle....
Affirmative Training and Spoiling Horses
Most of us hear voices. We might be working with our horses on an issue and floundering in the moment,...
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