Horse-related Spring To-Do’s

In some parts of our horsey world, spring has sprung. Trail riding season is coming and it pays to formulate a spring To Do list and tackle it before the season is upon us. Here are some preliminary suggestions: Consider flies before they show up. […]

Snubs and hobbles can help a nervous horse

Scatterbrained horsemanship like mine has a way of leaving holes in training. That’s ok, I tell myself. Exposed holes get filled and the return to fundamentals makes for an improved horse, an improved rider, and, most importantly, an improved relationship. Read about filling Holes in […]

Groundwork helps fill in holes

Recently, I went back to basics with Jolene, the mule. We have a history of holes in our training and I figured it’d be helpful for both of us to review some basic understandings. Here are two things we worked on over the course of […]

To Wear or Not to Wear, that’s the Helmet Question

Culture and vanity vie against common sense and science in plenty of our personal decisions. Take tanning: This year, the World Health Organization added tanning booths to the list of the most dangerous forms of cancer-causing radiation. People get skin cancer and die from frequenting […]

Peters on weighty matters

Dr. Steve Peters, the neuropsychologist whose collaboration with horseman Martin Black produced Evidence-Based Horsemanship, joined the call for better horsemanship through better personal health with his recent Personal Statement, posted on the Evidence-Based Horsemanship facebook page. It echoed recent BestHorsePractices posts, which explained research and […]

Welcome Elm City Trailer!

We welcome Bobby Fantarella and his company, Elm City Trailer to the NickerNews and BestHorsePractices family! For years, Bobby was that friendly, knowledgeable guy I’d visit with at the Equine Affaire. I still have my awesome trailer (a four-horse, gooseneck by Featherlite) purchased from Bobby […]

Horse Skeleton offers nightmares, but no answers

For nights after discovering this skeleton, I had trouble sleeping. Couldn’t get the image out of my head. Instead, I extrapolated back to this horse’s final days – it died a pointless and likely painful, drawn-out death, getting tangled in branches by its blankets. Ridiculously, […]

Fatal Virus is Here

While dry weather is making wildfires a constant concern for horse owners out west, the wet weather is increasing the threat of contracting Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile virus in New England. This week, EEE was detected in York County (Maine) mosquitoes. It’s a […]

A Horse’s No Win Situation

That was the tough, take-away message from Dr. Rebecca Gimenez when asked about how to protect your horses in the event of a tornado. Close them in barns and you run the risk of harming them when the barn collapses. You may also stress them […]

Disaster Strikes. Do you have a plan?

I met up with friend Rebecca Gimenez a day after the lethal tornado plowed through Moore, Oklahoma. Dr. Gimenez, president of Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue, has seen her share of disasters and has trained thousands how to save horses and other animals from peril. […]