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Anything we do with a horse is about the relationship. It is never just about the horse’s response. It is always about the dyad. We bring ourselves in whatever emotional state we are in to the horse, and that is why the horse reflects what we bring in his response to us. That is why people often say your horse is your mirror. We often do not show up prepared to interact with a being, a being with feelings and needs of their own. We forget to fully see the being. We show up to ride. To jump a course, to practice a test, to race around barrels, to chase cows. To halter and bring our horse to the vet. We show up with an agenda and an expectation of how it will all go. Sometimes we show up distracted and not even thinking about what we are doing. We...

Why Your Barn May Need A Barn-wide Nervous System Reset You know that feeling when your barn no longer feels so fun? When the mood feels off? When the people and horses don’t look relaxed, and the riding isn’t that inspiring anymore? You go to the barn, and the horses seem upset and uncomfortable, and you are there because you should be more than because you want to be? Sometimes the horses get worried, anxious or upset first. Perhaps there has been some shift in their herd dynamics. Perhaps one dysregulated horse has upset the others. Then you go to ride your horse, and he seems cranky, so he makes you cranky too, and everything at the stable seems a little less fun. Other times, everyone, including the horses, is just a little worn out and a little worn down. Everyone is burning out. That’s when you know it would be a good...

It was a misty June day in Vermont when we pulled up to a lovely old weathered barn. The aisle was blocked off on both sides by a padded chain. The old thick wood floor was strewn with hay, and there were 4 or five loose horses walking around in the aisle, lazily cleaning up the hay. A few horses were on the outside of the barn in a paddock, hanging their heads over the chain, looking into the barn. It was a nice scene, and although a little disorganized-looking, the feel and the horses had a good vibe. I immediately felt that this was a place of healing for horses, a low-stress place. A cheery woman named Heather entered the barn and introduced herself as the owner of the rescue. She steered me towards a beautiful loose bay horse on the right. “This is Chewy”, she said. She explained that...

On June 6th, I taught a one-day clinic at REIN Rescue in Rutherfordton, NC. REIN Rescue specializes in taking in young feral and wild horses that would otherwise likely be shipped for slaughter in Mexico (before the New World Screwworm outbreak shipping ban). REIN staff takes their time gentling and lightly starting these young horses so that they can find forever homes. It is an excellent, kind and beautiful place for these horses to start their lives in a human world, and it shows in their lovely, well-regulated eyes. I spend time there most weeks helping these mustangs and feral horses learn to trust, connect and adjust to humans. I teach them to trust me, but mostly they teach me more and more about their world. They teach me how they see the world, how they are always doing exactly what they feel they need to do to keep themselves...

Listening to specific auditory frequencies tuned to 432Hz (Healing Frequencies) promotes relaxation. Much like mindfulness and meditation, these sound therapies can encourage brainwaves to shift into calmer alpha and theta patterns. They also affect the autonomic nervous system by lowering sympathetic dominance and encouraging a parasympathetic state. Both effects on the brainwave entrainment and the autonomic nervous system lower heart rate, slow breathing, and improve heart rate variability. Additionally, they can reduce stress hormones such as cortisol while promoting the release of relaxing neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. Just like with meditation, the longer one makes a practice of listening to them, the more long-term effects they will have on one's overall wellness. The wonderful thing for horse owners to know is that listening to these same healing frequencies tuned to 432Hz, which can help you to be more relaxed, is also beneficial to horses. Horses and humans have a great deal...

I was lucky to have a Welsh Mountain pony when I was young. His name was Cloughan, which means "stepping stone" in Gaelic. He was a white pony with gray dapples that eventually became all white as he aged. He had a long gray mane and tail and a very round belly. He was a confident and content pet and companion. I used to spend a great amount of my time with him. I rode him everywhere around my family's farm in Vermont. Sometimes we would take off down the dirt roads near my house exploring together for the better part of a day. I was six or seven and it wasn't very clear who was really in charge sometimes. My legs barely reached to the end of the saddle, and sometimes when the grass was long and green Cloughan could not resist stopping and dropping his head and...

Have we only left our horses their dreams? Have we not taken their agency, their will to choose their friends, to stay with their families, and to spend their time as they choose? Go where they might. Encounter their own challenges and find their own moments of harmony and beauty, fill their bodies and minds with the full essence of being a horse as a horse was created to be. Do we remember to thank our domestic horses every day for what they have given up to be in our yards, pastures, fields, ranges and barns? There is no comparison between the life of a horse as it was meant to be and the one we give them. We must remember that horses' minds and bodies are still tuned in to their nature, which has been taken out of its rightful place. Some deep calling in our domestic horses must yearn...

Maybe man, in all his arrogance, was not above the beast for the power of his mind like he thought he was, but was the only beast that had not been streamlined, did not know how to fit properly into his role in nature, did not know his place in the universe and how to live in harmony with his world. Perhaps he was the beast that did not understand the universal language but instead stuck blindly to the man-made languages he had learned. So impressed by his intelligence and ability to create his artificial world from nature. He has become obsessed with death because he can not stop it. He never learned how to fully see, feel and listen like the rest. He got far too interested in just his kind and ignored all the others that made the world whole. Perhaps man is not the advanced beast he...

The above video and the two videos below capture the drama that unfolded as we sat on a sand dune on Shackleford Banks watching the two-stallion band of feral ponies I wrote about in the two previous blog posts, see here and here. I had wanted to find this band when we set out on this particular day because I had wanted to see if the mare the lieutenant stallion had chased down the beach (see here) had rejoined his band. When we located the band, as I had suspected, the mare was not with the band. The other mare that 12N had brought back down the beach was there. She was grazing with the band. We located the band very close to where we had seen them the first time. We sat down on a dune far enough away not to disturb them, but close enough to watch...