Today I am grateful for yesterday’s beautiful weather, that we got to spend many hours out with the horses yesterday, that my ankle seems to consistently hurt less than it did 6 months ago, that I have heat on this cold snowy morning, that I woke up feeling rested, and that we have a lot of patients we get to help feel better today at the hospital.

We spent nearly an hour just washing Sugar’s hind end yesterday. Since the weather was so nice and warm, I decided to take advantage of it and help the poor girl out. She has chronic diarrhea, she has had this for years now, some days it is better than others no matter all the things we have tried to help fix it. Regardless, she always has a lot of stuck on dried debris under her tail and between her back legs. Good thing she is such a good, patient girl. It took me a long time to bring a bucket of water from the house and try to soak all the crusts off of her skin. Then rubbed coconut oil (my product) on it, rinse with a hose, repeat. And again. Her skin was raw by the time I was done, and it took an extraordinary amount of time to scrub and soak all that stuff off from deep between her thighs and in her tail. She was so patient though and I sure hope she is more comfortable now. At one point she accidentally slapped me with her poopy wet tail and smeared brown poop water all in my face. The things we do for love!

Next we decided to work with Cesar again. I would love for us to be on a roll and really spend a lot of time advancing his education, especially since right now he is the only horse of the 9 sound enough, or who even wants to do riding training with us. So he so willingly came in, got saddled, and then we worked on lunging him for a few rounds in the round pen, then again with side reins on, then he was feeling good and warmed up so we actually had him do a couple of canter rounds (a new thing for him and he was a little uncoordinated but got it done), and then finally I rode him, several rounds just at a big walk, and then finally ended with a good trot round, and he was happy, licking and chewing in contentment for a job well done, and he really super enjoys being the center of attention. He enjoys the attention so much, he doesn’t even mind about the working part, and the working part is so good for him mentally and physically. He did great! No hints of even thinking about bucking or acting up, he seems to really enjoy it.

After that we had a lot of mucking to do. Without the tractor to move big bales of hay from the barn to force the horses to walk (and poop) in other areas of the property, they now hang out right by the barn all day and night, so this means much more manual labor for us, too.

After all that poop water splashing, I took a long shower, that is for sure! All in all, it was a wonderful, although exhausting way to spend a Sunday.

Today is MLK day and we should all take a moment to think about him, what he accomplished, his resolve, and how his passion changed our world for the better. We could all use a little passion to help bring more good, love, hope, joy and compassion into the world. And I may not be nearly the force MLK was, and still is, but I am sure motivated to do my part to also make the world a kinder, more compassionate place, through the use of R+ animal training. So if you have not checked it out, please do find the community we created on the ResqRanch homepage. It’s not just a community, it’s a huge amount of free resources, pretty much everything I could ever want to share with you, on positive reinforcement animal training. And if you have checked it out, but need some help personally from me, to help bring about the transformation you seek in the relationship with your horse, then I am here for you, check out this link here, and for a limited time it’s half price https://www.resqranch.org/drqsaccelerator-a so there is no excuses for not getting closer to achieving your horse dreams in 2026, the year of the horse!

​Remember everyone, it’s a brand new day, there will never be another one like it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to any of us. You can make the choice, today, to show up, fully present, and prepared to make it the best day of your life. Take a moment to think about that right now. Take a deep breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Bring in what you need, and let go of what you don’t. You got this. Make it a wonderful day everyone, and if there is anything I can do for YOU, I am here for you. Have the best day EVER!

​​​​​​Check out my YouTube channel for a daily "Good Morning!" from the rescues and lots of free tips and training resources. https://www.youtube.com/@the1drq