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 The lovely Danke
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 till she settled. But, since Danke is so tall (17+hands) it was [more...]
 The author, Heather Davis, with Cheyenne
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 asked to “let go” of old tension and memory stored within the body’s vastly intelligent network of innervated structural soft tissue, will take some time to relax into the willingness to release. [more...]
 Recently my husband and I decided it was time to get rid of the burn pile. We have a small excavation project coming up that requires we finally burn the darn thing. The burn pile consisted mainly of small cherry trees we had to remove when we decided to bring the horses home. With all the rain we’ve had the pile of tree limbs, branches, and leaves were quite wet. But the task needed to be taken care of, so one sunny morning we got out there.
The whole pile burning experience was really quite a [more...]
A few weeks ago I wrote about a mare I’ve been working with. I’d only had a handful of sessions with her at that time. We’ve since had a few more sessions together. Each time the mare has improved dramatically. I just love seeing these kinds of transformations. When we first started the mare, Cheyenne, was very distant. Mentally, her thoughts were so back with her buddies. As you may recall, the first time with her in the round pen was spent mainly with her wanting to hang out in one part of [more...]
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 still fresh.
This mare is 10 years old, and pretty set in her ways of bracing and leaving when she is uncertain.
The first session I spent just getting to know her in the stall and turning her on to c/t. She got it pretty quick.
Next session in the round pen she [more...]
 Remember Pamela the, 6 year old gaited, mare I started working with several months ago? The quick recap, you can read earlier blog entries for more details, is she was very worried and tense which caused her to want to run back to the barn as soon as her beginner owner got on.
Michele riding Pamela bareback.
I actually had two simultaneous objectives. One was to help Pamela get more OK with being ridden so that she could offer a safe and pleasurable ride for her owner. The other was to help her owner, Michele, become more confident [more...]
 Never too late to start!
The last time she did any real riding was some 55 years ago! But Michele is truly an inspiration to me and anyone who meets her. She is proof that if you want something bad enough you will put the effort needed into it and you will be successful.
When she started taking lessons with me this year she thought that at her age she’d better ride western because she couldn’t imagine how she’d stay on without a horn! Over the last month or so she has learned how to post, to canter [more...]
 Danke, a tall and beautiful sensitive chestnut mare, came to me for training with quite a bit of emotional baggage as a result of some unsettling prior experiences in her life. One positive was, though, she arrived quite clicker-savvy because her owner used clicker training to teach her some tricks during several months of recuperation for an injury.
Danke is one of the most sensitive horses I’ve ever met. She has a strong sense of self-preservation. I discovered early on I could not pressure her do anything. Either she bought in or it was ‘no deal.’ If she was feeling vulnerable [more...]
 This is an update on Pamela, a horse I talked about back in February. Just to remind you, Pamela is a 6 year old Tennessee Walker who had been used as a ’show horse’ prior to being acquired by my client, Michele Williams. In the previous installment of her saga I had managed to reduce the catching/haltering process from 30 minutes to 5 minutes and I had gotten on briefly. The picture to the right is from that day. Not a pretty sight!
It is now 3 months later. Progress is slow but I generally only work with Pamela [more...]
I have been working for the last couple/few months with a 6 yr old gaited mare named Pamela. The mare is owned by a lovely, but mostly inexperienced, older couple who are so tickled with the change in their horse. When we started this mare was so not OK. The slightest sudden move would have her leaving just as quick. Even though this mare had been ridden before (in fact had been a ’show horse’) it was full of tension and worry. As soon as the rider mounted the mare was… outta there. The [more...]
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