Wild Springs Farm

02/13/2025

All any of us wanted when we were children was unconditional love from the people around us.

And, when that love failed to come our way sufficiently, many of us turned towards animals, sometimes needing to cling to the family pet for dear-life in order to survive and receive enough warmth and acceptance to keep us going.

Animals give us unconditional love and through always welcoming our presence they give us the vital acceptance and validation that, who we were, and still are now, matters and is enough.

The dog who raced to greet us every time we returned home. The cat who always chose our bed to cuddle and sleep. The pony or horse who was always there and always happy for us to nestle our face into their neck and mane, as we allowed our tears of sorrow to flow.

I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve relayed such stories, myself included, with the oft-heard phrase being that, animals and especially horses or ponies, literally saved our lives.

I'm so thankful to these gracious beings who simply loved us as we were and demanded nothing from us except our pure love, bonds and affection in return.

For some, again myself included, it was these safe, secure and joyful animal-bonds and attachments, so utterly lacking in the human-realm, which laid down the templates for the capacity for more genuine relationships, trust and sense of security. And which filled the holes left painfully gaping by those people who were meant to pour love into us.

I for one am utterly grateful to the rabbits, dogs, cats and ponies who sustained me during those early, critical years, and know for sure that I wouldn’t have made it through without them and the life-raft they so generously and loving always provided for me..

©Angela Dunning
The Horse’s Truth
www.thehorsestuth.co.uk
https://buymeacoffee.com/angeladunning

Image by Smile.Artcraft licensed via Shutterstock.

02/11/2025

02/11/2025

Always this!

“I will not get upset with you for making a mistake, I’ll be disappointed if you chose to not learn from it.”

Let that one sink in. Coaches: understand the trust that this mentality establishes between you and your students. Students: realize that you’re holding yourself back by fearing making mistakes.

Your perception of mistakes can make or break your mentality as an athlete. Mistakes, by definition, mean something went wrong. We don’t mess up on purpose, we don’t wake up saying “todays the day I get it wrong!” When shortsighted, your mistakes can be devastating. No, you’re not winning the class. Yes, your trainer will give you constructive criticism and it might be uncomfortable but you need to hear it. Long term, this mistake likely won’t matter and you’ve just provided yourself an opportunity to learn to do it better moving forward. You have a chance to ask questions, seek learning. You found a weakness which you can now improve upon. Several potential causes for struggling with mistakes: perfectionism and people pleasing being common. Two big perception takeaways 1) state vs trait. You MADE a mistake (state) you are not MADE OF mistakes (trait). The former is empowering because it gives you room to improve, the latter holds you back because of your self-imposed feeling like a failure. 2) in shutting down when making a mistake, you make yourself uncoachable and inhibit forward movement. Instead of perceiving your mistakes as personal attacks, let down your guard to let in the learning that’s been knocking the whole time

02/09/2025

02/09/2025

Huge Thank You to Blue Crab Horse Shows at Bay View Farm LLC for a fun show. Always a fun day coming to see you all❤️ Congratulations to all of our riders for wonderful rides on a bitter blustery day! Everyone came home with a tricolor❤️

02/05/2025

Pretty much 🥴

01/17/2025

One saddle, many lives.
Opt for a used CWD saddle and benefit from a lot of advantages:
✅ 30-day trial: money back guarantee
🎁 Free protective cover and maintenance kit
📞 Personalised support from Candice on +33 7 61 71 08 89
Link in bio
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Une selle, plusieurs vies.
Optez pour une selle d’occasion CWD et profitez de nombreux avantages :
✅ 30 jours d’essai : satisfait ou remboursé
🎁 Housse de protection et kit d’entretien offerts
📞 Un accompagnement personnalisé avec Candice au +33 7 61 71 08 89
Lien dans la bio

01/15/2025

01/12/2025

This👇🏻

The Effect of a Nervous Human.... one of my favorite studies!

Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences looked at the effect of an increased heart rate in a human on the horse they were riding or handling.

Here's a link from the abstract... "Each horse–human pair walked or rode between points A and B (30 m) four times on each test occasion.

However, just before the fourth pass, participants were told that an umbrella⛱ would be opened as they rode, or led, the horse past the assistant.

The umbrella was not opened, so this pass was no different to the previous control occasions, but nevertheless there was an increase in HR for both the person AND the horse."

We affect our horses.

When looking at any training "issue", our first responsibility is to to know ourselves and explore if there's something we could do better.

Here's a link to the research article, unfortunately I couldn't find a full text version easily available online, but you can read the rest of the abstract here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S109002330900121X?via%3Dihub