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Wednesday I saw a tornado.  Up close, while trapped in my car on an elevated stretch of highway in Springfield, Mass. Scary!  Funny what a random lethal event does to your head.  It’s clarifying. 

My sister, a fellow agnostic, asked me if I prayed.  The question took me off guard, and its answer surprised me a bit: I didn’t.  I’d wondered if this was “it”, and then thought, why not?  I don’t live in the area, just happened to be there at that moment as I traveled to Vermont for…

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Inspired by the "Road to the Horse 2011" on DVD which arrived last week, I've decided to implement an intensive training program to get Brody ready to be ridden.  Brody's been with us almost one year now, and he came to us with a suspensory injury.  But the vet came last week for Brody's vaccinations, and gave the go ahead to climb on and ride. Woohoo!

 

Brody may be physically ready to be ridden, but mentally and emotionally he is not.  (And, of course, there is the…

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"Respect is appropriate response to pressure."  I heard Pat Parelli say this once, and the ring of its truth is undeniable.  Whether working on the ground or in the saddle, a horse's appropriate response to pressure is essential to any activity.  Brody definitely needs (re)education on this!

 

Maybe lack of cooperation is his passive-aggressive platform for establishing dominance, or maybe I haven't been consistent enough in establishing my expectations and requiring him to…

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After a hectic week and a couple days of rain, Brody and I were both ready for some playtime. Wanting to make the most of it, I popped in my “Level 2 On Line” DVD for some inspiration and heard Pat Parelli talking about the importance of fun, for both human and horse. It’s like he’d read my mind—working on various exercises had begun to feel like……

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Please Like Me! The Power of Non-Demanding Time

Develop the Partnership you have always dreamed for!

 

You can force horses to do many things, but forcing a horse to like and trust you is impossible. A horse…

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There was a… Continue

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Hello All

 

Please take a moment to view the two attached links regarding the travesty that happened last weekend at the Festival of the Horse when…

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In December 2009, I moved Shadow to his new home. Unfortunately at the time, he was suffering from an infection in his hoof, which we have been treating with the help of hot poultices, aloe vera, onion water, and some flower remedies.



While his hoof was bad, I did some gentle ground work with him, following the advice of a wwoofer* who has many years of experience with horses and is a stringent Parelli-ite (my name for anyone who follows Parelli’s every word). She taught me some… Continue