What does “not conceding” mean? Oh, I can’t wait to bray about this, says this trainer whose spirit animal is a donkey. We train with Peaceful Persistence which means we are: Not aggressive, Not conceding, and Not emotional. This week I’m writing in response to a reader’s question. We met at a clinic in … Read more
A few years back, a pretty well-known trainer made a statement about using force with horses. Flat out, the craziest thing I’d ever heard. The short version was if you wanted to lollygag around your pasture, and ride like a girl, fine… but if you competed, you had to win and that meant dominating … Read more
Nube was a beanpole of a yearling. If he and Ernest weren’t trying to get me bucked off a horse… if he wasn’t eating his body weight in hay every hour… if he wasn’t listening to the Grandfather Horse tell stories about me… if he wasn’t sleeping with donkeys… sometimes Nube came to work with … Read more
“Want to go on a trail ride with me? The last time I was out, my friend’s horse slid into a ravine and broke her wrist. Bring a helmet, okay? Have you checked your girth lately? They wear out and mine is frayed but it’s fine. I know three horses who have died by lightning … Read more
In the first months after coming to our farm, it was a simple schedule for Nube: wrestle, eat, sleep, repeat. The horses were kind, but it was mutually agreed they could do without Nube’s adolescent fart games. It was great news because fart games are the bread and butter of donkey life. I’d given the … Read more
“I tried everything,” my client says. This isn’t something that I hear once in a long while. It’s a time-honored tradition, consistently stated. Sometimes, there is a time deadline but mostly it happens on an ordinary day. My client says it, so I’ll know what they have been thorough before contacting me. It’s implied, almost … Read more
Sitting in a horse pen is the easiest thing in the world. I might even like to cook if I could do it in a horse pen. I am dead certain a root canal would be better out there. We all love the sound of hay being chewed and we even like the sound of … Read more
I have a problem. I’m a clinician who loves her job and at the same time, wonders if there are better ways to do it. I’m obsessed with evolving clinics to be easier for horses and less stressful for riders. We love the camaraderie of a clinic weekend, if it isn’t our horse in a … Read more
I can’t be the only woman of a certain age whose parents thought she needed to be muffled indefinitely. They wanted a quiet polite daughter and look how that turned out. And I’m probably the wrong person to write this since I have a rescue dog that hasn’t stopped barking since 2014. Here goes anyway. … Read more
Want to do a kindness for your horse? Perhaps show your affection in a “love language” that suits horses? Did I just do that? Refer to a nineties self-help book for couples? Yes, let me give you the gist: maybe you want flowers but your partner changes the oil in your truck. Expressing love is … Read more