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My first experience with wild horses came more than 20 years ago in Arizona when I worked with a horse whisperer who caught wild horses off the Hopi reservation. Steve Harris also trained BLM mustangs, both fresh and spoiled, and difficult domestic horses. Cowboy Steve Steve was a working cowboy for 25 years on ranches in Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington. By the time I met him he’d become a horse whisperer with a program for training wild horses. Along with the program came the design for Port-a-Flex Safety Round Pen. Round Pen A round pen is a small corral, usually 50 feet in diameter.Read More →

try BarbaraEllinFox.com

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Horse whisperers learn to recognize and reward “try.” What is “Try” “Try” is the smallest, sometimes almost imperceptible, effort the horse makes to do what you ask. It may be as big as a change of direction or as small as a sigh, a twitch of an ear, a change of the eye, or a muscle relaxing in tail. It is the smallest most minuscule effort the animal makes. Sometimes it’s the best he can do, the most he can give. To Recognize “Try” You have to know the animal. By know, I mean you have to be able to recognize tension, resistance, fear, needRead More →

Horse Whisperer BarbaraEllinFox.com

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What’s in a Name? I’ve mentioned in my post Horse Whisperer, What Does it Mean? the label horse whisperer was glamorized by the 1998 movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. But my research showed that Sparks’ depiction of horse whisperer had flaws. There are a lot of labels that dance around this type of horse training but it’s difficult to define something that doesn’t have a definitive name. Each label contributes to the definition, only the problem is that the crux of this method is an esoteric gift.  The label natural horseman or natural horsemanship was made popular by Pat and Linda Parelli, andRead More →

real deal BarbaraEllinFox.com

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In the 2007 movie “Wild Hogs” four middle aged suburban men take a motorcycle road trip to California on a search to find themselves. Along the way the four biker wannabes get into a mess of trouble when they run into the Del Fuego motorcycle gang whom they believe are the ‘real deal.’ The wannabes stand up to trouble and find the men they want to be. They also discover that the Del Fuegos are posers. Before the action starts we meet Paul, the owner of the local image bar where Doug, Woody, Dudley and Bobby hang out to fulfill their motorcycle fantasy. Paul isRead More →

Desperation BarbaraEllinFox.com

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Has desperation ever driven you to try something new? When you’re well educated in your field and you’ve been at your craft for a long time it’s easy to become skeptical of new methods. That’s the way I was about horse whisperers twenty-five plus years ago until a situation put me at a point of need. This particular situation requires remembering disappointment from the past, not a fun road to travel. God tells us in Is. 43: 19 & 20  “Remember Not the former things, nor consider things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceiveRead More →

Horse Whisperer BarbaraEllinFox.com

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Being labeled a horse whisperer has not always been good for the person or the horse. In the 17th century there was a possibility that a person caught speaking to animals would be accused of witch craft, something that did not usually end well. The Following is an excerpt from J.S. Rarey’s Art of Taming Horses, copyright 1859. “In a work printed in 1664, quoted by Nolan, we have a melancholy account of the fate of an ingenious horse-tamer. “A Neapolitan, called Pietro, had a little horse named Mauroco, doubtless a Barb or Arab, which he had taught to perform many tricks. He would, atRead More →