relationship building

My clients come to me with a mix of experience and training knowledge. Many of them are doing, or want to start, clicker training. Some have done a lot of research and have read books and watched videos. Some have found this training methodology on FaceBook. Almost all have heard […]

Horse Training Starting Point

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Sit in a field with horses. Listen. You hear them tearing up grass with their teeth and chewing. A swish of a tail. A hoof stomping the ground to shake off a fly. There’s rarely verbal communication going on, and when it happens, it’s brief. Perhaps a horse is out […]

Train Quietly

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At one time, Dolly was the pony of every horse-crazy child’s dreams. Snow white with big dark eyes. Petite. Pretty. Likely purebred Welsh. You could imagine her a unicorn. She lived in a small field behind her people’s house. The children rode her, but didn’t do pony club or 4-H, […]

Touching the Uncatchable Pony

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Penny is the barn manager’s dog. There are other dogs at the barn, too. There are beds for each of them. I’m not sure why Penny chooses which place to nap.   But I’m sure she has her reasons.   My animals are always letting me know that they don’t […]

Choices

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I have a friend who lives a good distance away. We both have what we consider to be “perfect” trail horses. For months now, we’ve been trying to meet at a halfway point to ride together. We were finally able to find a date, on a day when the weather […]

When To Get Off

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Tonka says that he shouldn’t have to wear his fly mask anymore.   He’s right. But I wish that he didn’t also think that now that the grass is grazed down, that the ground is best for rolling in and getting dirty.   He’s also right that there aren’t a […]

A Change Of Seasons

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Icelandic horses have, over a thousand years, adapted to the landscape. There’s a lot to adapt to. Dark winters. Snow. Ice. Rain. Wind.   Icelandic horses are stout, sturdy, have thick coats, and those hindquarters are sloped for a reason – rain and snow sheets off. There is little in […]

Icelandic Horses And The Wind

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Summer is a Quarter Horse who was rescued from the kill pen by Rita. She is one lucky mare. Rita is lucky, too, because Summer is a super little horse. Summer does, of course, have issues, but Rita accepts and accommodates them. In return, Summer adores her person. I was […]

Being Calm is Self-reinforcing

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