Cow Work: Brain Development & Agility Training for Your Horse

Outside of the ranching world, entire populations of riders don’t know and don’t want to know about stockmanship. Ranchers and cowboys are considered reckless, rule-less, a bunch of Yahoos. In my experience, however, some of the savviest horses and riders have ranching backgrounds. These men […]

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Peters presents Horse Science Seminar

For the second time this year, HorseHead’s Dr. Steve Peters will team with West Taylor for a Horse Science Seminar. The two-and-a-half day event will be hosted by the National Ability Center, in Park City, Utah, July 7-9. Peters, co-author with Martin Black, of Evidence-Based […]

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To Test Smarts: Ask a Horse a Horse Question

If you want to measure a horse’s smarts, don’t give it math problems or ask it to distinguish musical genres. Instead, test its ability to solve horse problems. That’s the message from scientist Frans de Waal of Emory University. Dr. de Waal, who works mostly […]

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Of Horses, Cows, and Humans

Recently, Dr. Steve Peters traveled to Idaho to visit informally with stockmen and livestock researchers from Treasure Valley Community College, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho. He was introduced by local and international stockman Martin Black. The pair co-authored Evidence-Based Horsemanship. They will […]

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Know Your Horse-unculus

In the world of neuroscience, researchers and instructors have developed the “homunculus” to show through exaggerated size those areas of the human body which we know to have a greater representation of neurons in the somatosensory cortex in the brain, the main sensory receptive area […]

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Close Encounters with the Amygdala

I live in a rural town and don’t travel much. But last month, I found myself driving my truck camper through St. Louis. In heavy traffic. In heavy rain. In darkness. I grew disoriented and nervous. My heart rate increased. My hands gripped the wheel […]

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Why the Long Face?

Horses – like zebras, deer, and other large prey animals foraging mostly on grass – have a head that’s perfect for what they’ve been doing for millennia: grazing in mostly open spaces and steering clear of predators. Despite the perceived calmness and neurological homeostasis in […]

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What’s NOT in your Horse’s Head

Horses are not people. We know this is true. But attend any horse event, enter any tack shop, open any horse magazine and you’ll come away thinking otherwise. You’ll be convinced horses have feelings, motivations, and goals. We tend to replace their simple needs with […]

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Learning to Embrace Discomfort

“Your circle of comfort and your horse’s circle of comfort – they must constantly expand, otherwise they will shrink.” That’s what horseman Randy Rieman once told me. I’d thought I could hang out in comfort, where my horse and I would coexist blissfully and enjoy […]

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Wobble Board Science

Most of us will not pursue a neuroscience doctorate in between trail rides and hay tossings. But we can skim equine neurology’s surface to improve our horse-human connection. We’ve talked about dopamine, the feel-good brain chemical. But there are scores of other chemicals in the […]

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