Relaxed & Forward Blog

Nube: What Retirement Means

And so, Nube [pronounced new-bay] retired in limbo. Undiagnosable. Sometimes, the solution for a long-running struggle is to just stop...
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Affirmative Anxiety

For as often as we've watched horses run and thought them the most beautiful of all creatures, we should know...
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How Long Does It Take To Train a Horse?

I have a herd of relatively normal retired horses. And then this gang of raconteurs, misanthropes, and dangerous characters, referred...
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Human Failings, Horses, And Judgment

A four-year-old video surfaced this week and a dressage rider deeply apologized for the overuse of a whip. She will...
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How Affirmative Training Was Born.

I am not a bliss-ninny. Loitering in denial doesn't work for me. I'm a blunt truth-teller who doesn't enjoy being...
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Calming Signals: Love vs Understanding

The mare would not pick up the canter. She just wouldn’t. In her defense, the rider was off balance. Every...
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Independence, Liberty, and My Personal Shining Sea

It's officially mucking-in-a-muumuu weather here at Infinity Farm. The horses all stand in the barn's shade and watch me fling...
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Travelblog: Mister Has a Dark Night of the Soul.

Dogs. We rescue them, buy them, inherit them. They are irrepressible puppies, midlife couch-partners or milky-eyed elders with wonky ears....
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Calming Signals: Another Word for Dominant

There is a wild stallion on the ridge fighting all comers for his harem of mares. We think aggression and...
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Overthinking an Undomesticated Budgie

A bright blue flick of movement, almost too small to see. White feathers spark the light, even more startling than...
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Travelblog: How I Stole Paris

I woke up introspective on my last full day in Paris. It's the same way I wake up at home....
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Travelblog: Paris is Like Visiting an Old Lover

Paris is a city full of statues of horses. They're everywhere, I noticed on my first visit. The statues are...
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Travelblog: Late for the Funeral. By Three Years.

Words about friendship and death ahead. There, you're warned. I'm still on vacation, but I'm going to talk about grieving...
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Travelblog: Thinking About Aging in Ancient Surroundings

I was in Newcastle Upon Tyne. I had finished ripping around Scotland and arrived at my hotel, where a group...
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Travelblog: It’s a Vacation. Not a Work Trip.

My first vacation in a donkey's years started with a van ride to Denver International Airport, with the obligatory drop-off...
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Growing Up: Self-Consciousness vs Self-Awareness

My teen years were pretty normal, meaning total angst and torture. There was that summer that I used my babysitting...
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Stay in Your Own Lane

I don't mind getting stuck in traffic. It practically makes me un-American to say so. I don't love it but...
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Nube: Undiagnosable

I hope I'm not going to end up writing some kind of justification for harsh training. Usually, it's easier than...
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