This episode marks the beginning of what Jec and I believe will be intermittent commentary on a troubling trend we are seeing in the horse world.  Led by certain entities - and by entities, we mean individuals, teams, and the programs and platforms they generate -  there’s an increasing focus on what we’ll call for shorthand the warm and fuzzies.

Let’s define the warm and fuzzies here as strategies, practices, ideas, methods, marketing, and proclamations that may indeed serve the human and her need to feel connected and in a relationship, but, in fact, don’t serve the horse one bit. Or, even worse, they confuse or neglect the horse.

The target audience for the warm and fuzzies is the recreational woman rider. We sometimes see this audience sucked into the belief that they are making real connection and real progress with their horses. The reality looks a whole lot different. The horse is left in the dark and the so-called journey is nefarious at best. The result is a whole lot of sanctimonious feel-good sessions among this population of warm and fuzzy followers. How is the horse helped and what’s getting accomplished? We are not sure.

We’ll be talking about this development in On the Fence segments as well as Coaches’ Corner episodes with guest trainers. If we are striving make horses’ lives worthwhile and productive, we feel it’s incumbent on us to call out bad practices – even and really, especially, if they make us humans feel good.

Who better to kick off the conversation than our own WiseAssWallace. WiseAssWallace is a long-time, beloved guest columnist for Cayuse Communications. From his pasture in southwestern Colorado, he’s on a quest to improve horse-human connections and make lives better for his fellow equines.

WiseAssWallace has a series of videos and articles. In this episode, we’re featuring five short pasture monologues as WiseAss holds forth on the concept of feel, on gear, and naughty habits humans develop. We’re running them one after another, in short order. You can read and watch all five here or if you’re so inclined, just circle back and listen to Wallace again here.

Our title sponsor is Lucerne Farms, producers of quality forage feeds.  And Lucerne is this fantastic company in northern Maine. And forage is chopped, packaged hay. After hay and grass, it’s pretty much the best alternative. Way wiser than grain. Check them out at here or at your local feed story.

And thank you, Redmond Equine and Pharm Aloe – two sponsors with no-nonsense products for your horses. 

We thank Kate’s Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. Comment or send us a suggestion and you'll be qualified for our monthly Patagonia WorkWear drawing. 

Don’t forget to check out the great selection of books at Cayuse Communications and on Jec’s store page. There is still time to order books for Christmas and Cayuse has a Buy one get one free offer going on. So git to it!

Thanks for listening, y’all!