The Importance of a Balanced Mouth

I talk a lot about setting a horse up for success.  You could go back and read this article on My Secret Weapon for a reminder.  In that article I talk about seeing the little things and how they add up for the better or worse! Horses are remarkably quick studies.  They are also designed to want to get along.  In Mary Hunter’s kind review of my book she quoted one of my favorite sayings:  “If the...

Finding what motivates a change

This week I worked with Libby, a 30 year old Quarter Horse mare, for the first time. Libby and her owner, Kirsten, were referred to me by Libby’s massage therapist, Heather Davis. Libby suffers from some lameness due to injury and hard use (before Kirsten). Not surprisingly as a result she holds her body very tightly. The massage therapy has helped Libby but Heather believed that if Libby could become more...

When Your Horse says “No” it might mean “Can’t”

On his blog Tom Widdecombe brought up the point about how important it is to get the little things right.  It is important because it is those little things that add up down the road to mean a nice ride or a less than nice (or worse!) ride.  In his article, which you can read here, he specifically mentions a problem his horse was having turning his head to the right without tipping.  He’d spent quite a bit...

It is Not About the Food

I thought I would follow up with my own observations of the experience with Danke and the massage therapist. As you may recall (and if you missed it you can read about it here) Danke was not OK with having Heather standing on the hay bale while she worked on her croup area. This was the first time she had attempted to work with her like this. In the past if Danke needed to move Heather would just stay with her...

Getting a Horse to Work WITH her Massage Therapist

By Heather Davis I am a certified equine “massage” therapist, applying principles of touch to encourage horses to release old neuromuscular strain patterns and relearn how to exist without previously held pain and resistance. Much of my work is informed by the work of Ida Rolf (known as “Rolfing” or Structural Integration), osteopathy, shiatsu, and myofascial release. Many horses, when...