Lone Heart Ranch

07/10/2023

06/22/2023

If you are needing a laser or a massager for your horse, Troy's products are the best! Use our discount code LoneHeartRanch to save 10%!!!!

Brandenburg Equine is a trusted supplier of quality equine therapeutic equipment, performance products, supplements & supplies. Helping the horse help you!

05/19/2023

Troy's new lasers are here!!!! 🎉♥️

A quality class 3B Cold Laser therapy device (LLLT) with (5) 808nm laser diodes -(10) 650nm laser diodes. Cold Therapy Lasers are 95% effective for pain relieving & anti-inflammation in many cases. This handheld laser has MORE 808nm diodes and is stronger than other similar handheld lasers on the ma...

04/16/2023

Do more of what makes you happy!

03/25/2023

We will have fresh HOT cinnamon rolls tomorrow morning, along with coffee and hot chocolate. ☕
For lunch we have smoked pulled pork and hamburgers 🤠♥️

03/23/2023

Respect is non-transferable. Just because I have earned a horse's respect does not mean that I can hand him over to you and he will respect you the same way. Each person is responsible for gaining each horse's respect. - Clinton

03/23/2023

So hard to teach "feel" .... This explains it 🤠

Once the horse gets to responding, then you try to get the response you are asking for with less. You try to cut down what you are applying and get more response with less pressure, until it almost gets to be just a thought." - Tom Dorrance from the book, "True Unity"

03/23/2023

Troy's lasers are the best, We have been using them for years! For a discount, use the code LoneHeartRanch 🤠

A quality class 3B Cold Laser therapy device (LLLT) with (5) 808nm laser diodes -(10) 650nm laser diodes. Cold Therapy Lasers are 95% effective for pain relieving & anti-inflammation in many cases. This handheld laser has MORE 808nm diodes and is stronger than other similar handheld lasers on the ma...

03/18/2023

Perfection in the barrel race is a bad thing.
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Often we try to achieve perfection and strive to control every movement.
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The reason this is a bad thing is because at competition speed we are unable to mechanically place every foot.
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At speed the horse needs to have some accountability and that can not be achieved if we don’t train for some accountability.
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This means we have to allow for mistakes and then to correct the mistake.
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In this process the horse learns where to place their feet and body. They also learn confidence.
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If you are a perfectionist you will have to learn to let go a little.
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Remember trust your training, do your job, and your horse will do their job.
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📸 Bee Silva
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03/15/2023

Deep...

03/15/2023

♥️

🥰 Put your daughter in the barn.

Put an animal before her and watch as magic takes shape.

Watch as she learns every aspect of that animal.

Watch as she learns to care about herself.

See character built. See self respect blossom.

Put your daughter in the barn.

Stand quietly by as she watches life begin and end. Feel her Spirit find its confident path.

Let the barn teach the lessons of life as only the barn can do. From good sportsmanship to a humble champion put your daughter in the barn.

Let the stalls bear witness to her tears over that first crush. Let the shavings and straw with a pitchfork in hand bear the brunt of her anger.

Put your daughter in the barn.

And when time comes calling and adulthood looms...
What an amazing daughter you will see.

All for the love of a beautiful barn.

Put your daughter in the barn.

Written by: Mackenzie Grove

03/09/2023

Troy Brandenburg has great equipment for horses, that work well on people, too 🤠🤠.
Go to Troy's Brandenburg Equine Therapy page to order. For a discount on his Lasers and Massagers, put LoneHeartRanch for the discount code!!!! ♥️♥️

03/07/2023

03/07/2023

My Equine Thought of the Day:

A good horse isn't one that slides 30 feet or jumps 4 feet,
it's not a horse that only wins blue ribbons or checks
It's not a horse that's a world class mover
or a horse that runs a 17 barrel pattern
or scores a 75 in the pen
It's not a horse that's perfect every ride
it's not even the worlds most bombproof trail horse

A good horse isn't an imported warmblood
or a flashy blue roan by Metallic Cat
It's not a horse with a set of incredible papers
or who's a stunning palomino
It's not the horse with the nicest head, longest tail or flaxen mane

A good horse is a horse that makes you smile,
a good horse is a horse that makes you grow as a rider
A good horse pushes you out of your comfort zone while giving you confidence
A good horse makes you think, makes you pause, makes you ponder and fuels your passion
A good horse could be your heart horse, or a sales horse or the local lesson horse

A good horse could be the one that chips in at the fence, that drops the hind lead if you
are not perfectly positioned or that cheats you on the corners
A good horse could be the pony that stands rock still when the kid forgets to tighten
the cinch and is hanging under it's belly

A good horse isn't defined by color or s*x or breed or price

A good horse isn't a $50 sale bargain or a $50,000 futurity purchase

A good horse is whatever the rider makes of it.........

Jen Bulger
Rocky Mountain Performance Horses

03/05/2023

"We don't expect the child to write his name the first day or two in school. As soon as he learns to sit down in class and listen to the teacher, he is not immediately expected to write his name.....but we expect immediate learning from a horse. We expect the horse to go from kindergarten to the eighth grade, to high school, to college without enough time, preparation, or consideration for his thoughts and feelings. We often don't even get him into a learning frame-of-mind before we begin to train him. We don't even have him relaxed and confident, where he can sit down in class and just listen. We skip all that preparation because we are so superior, or neglectful, or lazy. Because we haven't prepared ourselves to recognize the horse's feelings." - Ray Hunt

Photo of Ray by Eclectic Horseman Magazine.

03/02/2023

Ray Hunt explained horses so well ♥️🤠

"Don’t present things that are too hard to learn, don’t be arrogant. Allow the horse to learn in his own way. This takes discipline and maybe that will be the hardest thing for you. When you’re riding, try to do more by doing less and less. You have to be on the spot every moment because that’s where the horse is. Don’t worry, he’ll teach you if you let him. Fix it up and let it work. Turning loose means that when you reach for him, he softens. That goes for you too. It should be like silk all the way," he says, then turns his horse to go. He pauses. "It’s hard to teach what I’ve been talking about all week because the first thing you need to know is the last thing you’ll learn. But I can tell you this: when you get to square ten, all of square one will be in it." - Ray Hunt.

Ray's quote is from an article called ' Ray Hunt: The Cowboy Sage' written by Gretel Ehrlich which appeared in the Shambhala Sun, July 1998 - http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1991

Image of Ray is by Ron Volmershausen and was taken in Branxton, NSW, Australia.

02/28/2023

Effort is a decision. And, it is the most important decision you will ever make.

Making the decision to put forth effort won’t necessarily guarantee success; but, deciding not to put forth the effort will almost certainly guarantee failure.

When you choose effort day after day, there will come a day when you will no longer have to chase after success – instead, success will begin to chase after you.

02/26/2023

♥️

It was during a visit to my equine chiropractor, when a cowboy from a nearby ranch pulled into her yard with his loaded trailer.

We chatted amicably for a while about the price of hay, yearlings and all the ice underfoot. He then said that I might want to stick around, to observe one of his ranch horses that he’d brought in for treatment. I am in such admiration for those crusty old souls who are now realizing that their trusted partners, these horses who help earn their living and keep them safe, are deserving of body work and all the care in the world.

You know, before it’s too late.

Uncomfortable memory reminds me that in our family, it was not always this way. Too many excellent working horses went to their early graves without ever having had a saddle fitting, a chiropractic work up, a deworming, or a dental visit. Yes, that shadow reaches across my memories, though forty, fifty years ago and more, we just didn’t know there were kinder ways.

I can only vow to do better with what I’m learning on my journey. Anyway, back to this man we’ll call Joe, and his horse.

“It’s the darnedest thing. I can do anything with him, rope and tie off on any cow. But no matter how many years I’ve known and ridden him, every single time I pick up a saddle blanket, it’s as though he’s never been touched by the human hand. He’s a stranger to me. We work through it, I think it’s better and we go off and do our day job. The next time, you’d never know it. Every single day is day one. Is he just quirky, or what?”

Well, that perked my interest and after seeing to my own horses, I followed Joe and his Quarter Horse into the barn.

This was a solid and proud middle-aged gelding. Brave, wise, high-mileage, he gave absolutely no clue as to what his owner had just told us. He was obviously well-handled and trusted his man implicitly. There was no outward evidence of poor saddle fit. There was no sign of trouble at all, really, until the chiropractor reached up to put a little cloth on the horse’s back for some routine massage.

Suddenly, the doe-eyed gelding threw his head in the air and all four feet left the ground. No matter how much he was allowed to see and sniff the little blanket, he would not allow it onto his back. Watching, I could see that the horse was not afraid of the object. No, he was afraid of allowing anything to touch him from above. Worse, somehow, was seeing his shame and upset at not being able to be ‘good’ for Joe.

A few minutes later, we learned of the likely reason why.

“I’ve seen this before,” said the chiropractor. “Come and feel with the ends of your fingers underneath his coat, all along his back.” We had to really concentrate and work our fingers as close to the horse’s skin as we could and then, the answer was revealed.

There were ridges, about three or four inches apart, scarring this horse all the way from mid-neck, to his loins. Over and over again, we could feel something like faint claw marks in parallel lines, running from front to back.

Cougars, or mountain lions, are plentiful along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, the place where so many ranch horses run out and call home. The chiropractor, who specializes in these hard-working horses, has seen a surprising number with similar ‘behavioural issues’ and tracks along their backs. She went so far as to surmise that this is why the northwest part of the continent is known for producing these 'broncy' horses. That whether or not the attack was first hand experience, as Joe’s horse had survived, this fear of predatory cats is now built in to their very DNA.

We have owned a few such horses, looking back. Even now, there will be mornings I’ll go out to do chores and the whole herd is pulsating with fight or flight. They’ll almost run to stand on top of me, the air is so electric. Big cats are a fact of life here, living as we do in these hills along quiet, tree-lined creeks. Most times, we’ll go our separate ways but every now and then, our worlds collide.

“What am I going to do with him, then?” asked Joe. A practical man, he just wanted to know if this could be worked around, or if his partner was always going to have to relive this trauma upon every saddling. He was advised to simply let the horse know that he was understood, that this had been a bad thing to happen but that it didn’t mean he was a ‘bad’ or stupid horse. Basically, Joe had only to honour this horse’s story and say that he understood. He would simply stand and hold space—that is, just wait—until the horse was ready.

The older cowboy and I exchanged glances, for that seemed altogether too woo-woo. How could a lifelong quirk be made better by simply telling a horse that you believed his story?

A few months later, I ran into Joe in town. “How’s your horse doing?” I asked. “Is he any better to saddle, or…?” Joe interrupted me with a smile.

“He was wide-eyed and worried when I went to ride him next time. So, I figured, what the hell? I told him I knew that a lion had tried to get him but that we’d be okay. I said that I wouldn’t school on him for being daft and by God, if he didn’t put his head down and just let go a huge sigh. I did the same thing and then, we saddled up and went to work. I think if someone else tried, he’d go back to being jumpy but you know, it’s amazing, what happens when they know that you know.”

It's a powerful story of trust and rebuilding relationship that I’ve long thought I’d like to share with you. Horses or humans, we hold an incredible life force that allows us to rise again… if only we’ve been heard.

02/20/2023

🤣🤠

🤣🤣🤣

02/17/2023

Yup!! 🤣🤣🤣

02/09/2023

🤣

I believe it!! 🤣🤣🤣

01/22/2023

♥️🤠

"With the horses, you can’t let them call the shot part of the time and then you call the shot part of the time. They’re not really designed to be your leader, but they can be a great partner, but you need to lead, and they need to respect you and respond with respect. Don’t think of respect as a dirty word. You need to respect them as well." - Buck Brannaman

01/15/2023

What fun it was hosting this Round Robin! Thank you to everyone that participated!!! 🤠♥️

01/15/2023

Can't say this enough times...you can learn something from anyone. Maybe it's how not to do something. Lol. Sometimes it's something you use later down the road.

01/14/2023

We will have concessions available today! Smoked pulled pork sandwiches 🤠♥️

01/09/2023

The Round Robin is already full for This Saturday!!!

12/24/2022

Wishing everyone a Merry Merry Christmas 🎄❤️

11/24/2022

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

11/24/2022

Happy Thanksgiving!

11/12/2022

Some random pictures from this week at the barn ❤️

11/12/2022

Elizabeth does amazing work! ❤️

11/11/2022

Learn about our ground breaking research on the benefits of using blue light therapy.

11/08/2022

Beautiful evening and moon 🌕