behavior

There’s a short, half-mile trail through the woods around the back of the stable where I keep Tonka. We travel it almost everyday. We walk it after a training session in the ring as a way to relax, stretch out and cool down. Then, there are days when neither Tonka nor […]

On The Buckle

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I can’t give my horse the physical space that he’s designed for. I don’t have a hundred acres of grassland for him to roam across and graze at will. I don’t have a band of horses for him to bond and travel with. But I do understand what he emotionally and physically requires […]

Affiliative Behavior (or, Let’s Drink Together!)

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Ears are for listening. The horse’s ears swivel in response to sounds both near and far, so if you pay attention to the ears, your world opens up. My horse hears far better than I do, so by watching his ears I see things that I would otherwise not have noticed. I […]

Ears Do More Than Hear

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There’s snow on the ground. After a burst of playful cantering and head tossing, the horses settle into standing around in the cold white stuff. The routine of late winter is rather boring: eat hay outside, eat hay inside the barn. A horse is designed to walk (more than a dozen!) […]

A Walk In The Snow

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Clicker training is the term used to describe working with animals using positive reinforcement. The basic idea is that you mark the behavior that you want (often with a noise maker called a , hence the terminology) and then you immediately reward. The animal learns to work for desired consequences (as opposed […]

Believe the Ears

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I know that I haven’t posted much about Tonka recently, but I’ve been thinking big thoughts about horses, relationships and training, and I’ve needed to let my ponderings stew and become coherent before committing them to words on this blog. At the end of October I moved Tonka to a stable a […]

My Beautiful Horse

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There’s all sorts of theories about why women love horses. I’ve heard people go on and on about how women get a power rush from being able to control a large beast, and that there’s an undercurrent of sexual connotations. I don’t buy it. It’s also not just about having […]

Conversing With My Horse

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Horses are generally quiet animals. They do most of their communicating with their bodies. Why talk when a flick of an ear can bring all of your pasture-mates to attention? Once in awhile, though, a horse will use his voice. Some horses don’t like to leave the group, and, when […]

The Nicker

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The horses are shedding. They are itchy. They roll. Did I mention that it is mud season? Here Sister is showing off what mud season looks like at a New England stable.   X (the ex-steeplechase horse) has managed to get his entire right side, and all the way up […]

Muddy Horses

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