Click Cvak

  Few are the fortunate who have enough time and money to keep their own horses on their own property. Most of us work hard enough to maintain our giant pooping lawnmowers that we don't have time or money for the facilities to keep them ourselves. So we pay others to do it. Yes. We know we are crazy. We are in a program. Most boarding facilities have a string of clients, all different kinds of owners from little pony clubbers to young and single professionals, to soccer moms, to retirees. Bring all those different types of people together, and you are sure to have conflict.                Especially with such an opinionated and stubborn bunch as are horse-crazy females. Most people say they hate barn drama, and try to avoid it at all costs. But I say, get ahead of the shit storm before it shits all over you. Steer into the skid, piss into the wind.  Don't know how to become the most hated, drama-causing boarder? That's why I'm here!...

 Most people who hear me babbling away with Aston ask me if he understands English.  Not surprising. We live in the northwestern Czech Republic and I am pretty much the only American up here that I know. I work in the Czech language, deal with errands in the Czech language, have my friendships in the Czech language, and yes, have even given police reports and testified in court in the Czech language. I am immersed in Czech anywhere between 6-14 hours daily. When I go to the stables, my happy place, to get away from regular life, naturally I speak English. It is my mother tongue, the language in which I first heard "darling," "I love you," "good job," and "no, we don't fart in public."  Aston's voice commands are (mostly) in English, and I chatter with him during our trainings in English. Surely he can tell the difference in the sounds between English and Czech, but whether he "understands" one more than the other is hard to say....

 T here are book smarts and there are street smarts.  Book smarts can talk circles around street smarts... until the street smarts have had enough, then they fold the book smarts up and put them on the ground.  Such was my experience when Aston Martin was dropped into my lap and suddenly I had to raise him. (!!!)   I had spent my life studying equine behavior, anatomy, physiology, history, training theory, and spending as much time as I could with experts in the field, riding and caring for horses. Surely I was the best qualified to take on raising an orphan. As I knew, horses are designed to live outside in a herd 24/7, have grass or grass hay as the foundation of their diet, and they grow thick winter coats if we humans don't interfere with it by blanketing them. And if they live in a herd, they will get enough exercise on their own and don't need humans to interfere with them for exercise.  (As an aside, for a healthy adult horse, *most* of the time this is t...

                                                                                               Photo: Jana Bačíková Coming from a non-horsey family, I was richer than the poorest and poorer than the richest in the horse world. I worked hard and was grateful for everything I got, especially to my supportive parents, but  I went off to college without a horse of my own. After completing my studies and moving to Europe, I found the horse of my dreams. I budgeted and saved, planning to buy her after her last foal was born.  She died in labor of a uterine rupture, leaving a colt who could have been her clone. I took him on as my own, naming him Audeamus (Let Us Dare in Latin). From that point on, I beg...