A Different Leg Cue
"My horse won't go forward!" the rider says. Many trainers respond with the traditional battle cry, "More leg!" What does...
Forging a Path: What to Do Next With Your Horse.
It's that time of winter when you half-think spring isn't real. Are you frustrated with how you and your horse...
Tunnel Vision for Problems and the Things We Don’t Notice
The night-feed is my favorite. In the summer, the sky and clouds are as gaudy as the underwear department...
Calming Signal Substitutions: Helping Your Horse
Most of us are old enough to remember what a rolled-up newspaper is for. Wacking the dog, of course. Because...
What Does it Mean to be Domesticated?
If you have been reading along for the last 1300 or so weekly essays of mine, you know sometimes I...
Finding the Ground But In a Good Way
Our T'ai Chi master told us to drop our weight? I was barely legal and my fledgling art career was...
Auld Lang Syne Horses
I've heard it a couple of times just today: "As we head into the third year of Covid..." It makes...
A Love Letter to Dirt.
It's the eve of Christmas Eve and I'm worried about my dirt. Maybe the world has bigger problems and maybe...
Patience in Real Time
A clinic organizer was telling me about a trainer she brought in, someone whose approach was significantly more aggressive than...
Brain Science and the Art of Play
It's cold on the flat windy treeless prairie of Colorado. The next few months will be even colder but right...
Relaxed & Forward in 2022. Now What?
The lockdown at the beginning of 2020, followed by months of quarantine, was a wonderful opportunity for a thoughtful assessment...
Thanksgiving is for the Dogs.
Here are two of my dogs, Preacher Man and Mister, guarding the back door. You'll notice they are facing the...
Gray Mares, Time, and Priorities
Do you notice that it gets a little easier to be yourself every day? Public speaking wasn't the sort of...
Is Your Horse Distracted?
You want the horse to focus on the task and do it. Let's say your horse needs to stand still....
Why Don’t You Ride?
"Why don't you ride?" It's the question we dread. Sometimes the people who ask are neophytes who don't understand that...
Human Calming Signals: What Counterfeit Means
Back in the day, there was a word used when talking about a stoic horse that who seemed almost too...
Calming Signals. You Can’t Save ‘Em All. Cat Version.
I walk in my pasture. Women of a certain over-thinking age do well to put a few miles in a...
How Horses Train Us
You are a horse trainer. It does not always give me joy to say so, but it's true and other...
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