On the value of saying Thank-You

The other day I was behind this woman in line at Walmart. She had a little 3 yr old boy with her who was working quite hard to get her attention. And it was working although it was mostly her saying “Now quit that,” and “Stop it,” and...

A Better Way to Deal with Bad Behavior

Recently, on the Yahoo Classical Dressage group talk has turned to how to deal with ‘bad’ behavior such as biting and kicking. Absolutely all agree that this is not something that we ‘wee humans’ can really tolerate since our bodies are pretty...

The Right Way

On the DressageDisgrace.com site there is a discussion about some videos which have been posted as representatives of the ‘right way’ to do dressage. The idea is to identify riders who are not using rollkur as a regular part of their training program and...

Classical Schooling with Kalman de Jurenak

Right now, I don’t know if I’m inspired or just plain envious.  Lovely horses, ridden beautifully.  This was an interesting video because it begins with a rider on a 3 year old horse who had just been ridden a few times.  The horse is calm and relaxed and...

Whole Heart, Whole Horse by Mark Rashid

In Whole Heart, Whole Horse , through stories about his days as a kid working for the “Old Man” as well as people he’s met through years of doing clinics, Marks brings the process of building trust between the horse and rider to life.   As is typical...

Developing a Soft Feel with Clicker Training

I’ve been working with a new horse recently. It has been so interesting because it has given me a chance to really think about what I click for in the beginning, especially when the horse isn’t “with me”. I wanted to write it down while it was...