It’s still dark out, and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed trying to pull my pants on. Isn’t there an idiom about one leg at a time? It’s something about humility, that everyone still has to do the same basic, mundane tasks. I swear I’m not looking for special consideration. One leg would … Read more
Jolene, Mister, and I have returned home. Just in time for Jolene to transform into a charming but unrepentant hellion rebel. At 22 weeks, she is the dog equivalent of a ten-year-old who bullies ants. If anything drops to the floor, she grabs it and bolts. No amount of cajoling can get it back. If … Read more
We just got back from a clinic in Wyoming, a place where the weather controls the landscape and there are more animals than people. It was heaven. And they gave us a special welcome. This was Jolene’s first work trip. It’s not a simple job for a pro like Mister, so it’s a big ask … Read more
We are camping in the yard lately. Did you do it when you were a kid? I’m hooked. Evenings are my favorite time on my farm. A prairie breeze cools the air. The thunderstorms have scared the clouds from the sky, and we all settle in to wait for the sunset. Well, not all of … Read more
Horse Training is the process of collecting good experiences. Let it be that simple. We start with something small and then add to it. It’s a simple, patient process we call successive approximation. Let’s say the horse is young, and we introduce them to new habits in short sessions. We begin slowly haltering and picking … Read more
It’s been six months now since starting Bhim’s Training Diary online. But time is a fluid thing for a horse. Bhim came to my farm for training, only a month or so, in the fall of 2013. So yeah, it’s been nine years. Or ten. Recently someone said, “Well, it’s not like you’ve been working … Read more
If it weren’t for manure frozen into the ice, we’d have no traction at all and it’s only the eleventh week of January. It’s been dark with below-freezing temperatures outside for so long that I can’t remember. I’m standing in front of the fridge, seriously considering cleaning it out. I can see a jar 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
“I have a three-step process guaranteed to transform your horse into your perfect partner and it only costs ten thousand dollars!!” How many of you are thinking about what you could sell? And how many of you have fallen for some sort of snake oil training approach in the past and are more than a … Read more