Horses are capable of great caretaking.
Tag Archives: riding
The good boy horse
The good boy horse is one who continually does what is asked. For some trainers and owners, this is exactly what they want, a horse that does not offer any challenges. For some good boy or girl horses, life is good enough that there is no need to question too much. For others, they have had their wishes trained out of them.
Moving in and out of connection
One thing that new liberty students may find troubling is their horse moving in and out of connection. In the beginning, when the student first gets a connection on the ground, real movement together, it’s very exciting. It feels wonderful. Then the horse decides to break connection and go visit with someone else or another horse. The student looks over at me, crestfallen, as if to say, what do I do now?
The difference between “doing” and “being” with horses
The Liberty Foundations are a forever thing with horses. Just because a horse has been taught them by other horses, for example, it doesn’t mean he or she stops doing them.
Ultimately we all want horses to do something specific with us. In order for that to come about, the horse will do the something best if first brought into relationship.
Continue reading The difference between “doing” and “being” with horses
The horse/human care priority list
One day some years ago I was riding my gelding Khami at a fast trot along some side trails, then dropping into a sweet arroyo, then swooping back out of the sand to head up a rocky hillside. The light and shadows created by low hung branches played across the canyon, the sun kissed the tips of my horse’s flying black mane as we moved along together, feeling as one, like we had done for so many miles before.
Not all hearts and roses with horses
My Valentine’s Day message is: it’s not all “hearts and roses” with horses!
Students may embrace Liberty Foundations and find their horse miraculously comes into relationship. Horse owners are in heaven thinking that they’ve achieved this blissful state with their horse so easily.
For the horse who has done everything
My gelding Khami inspired me to write this blog. But he’s not the only one: there are others I have worked with over the past years who are like him in one way or another.
May the herd be with you
In the pasture, the horses usually gallop off to one particular favorite place, up over the ridge to where some colts are stabled. Then I hike up there and my mare Zuzka rounds everyone up when I ask the horses to come back with me. This time, my gelding Khami took over, and he got everyone going.
Do Horses Have Precognition?
I talk a lot about “being in the moment” with horses, but I have not said much about something I’ve been noticing with my own horses over the years – precognition.
10 New Year’s Horse-olutions for 2015
It’s 2015! I started to write a bunch of resolutions for working with horses – “horse-olutions” I call them, and then realized: I don’t like New Year’s resolutions!
