Show Me the Way: Adventures in Tracking Training by Jenny Pavlovic The task was to teach each dog to touch a glove held in my hand, then to touch the glove on the floor, then to cross the room and touch the glove on the floor. The idea was to teach the dog to indicate when s/he had found the glove (or “article”) when out tracking in the great outdoors. In tracking practice or competition, another person would have left a track with articles (gloves, socks, bandannas, or similar) with their scent for the dog to find along the way. I would be following the dog on a long line, but in a test I wouldn’t know the locations of the articles, so the dog would have to sniff out each article and clearly indicate it to me without backtracking. Read More

Bull's Eye! Lessons I Have Learned about Roosters from John Quincy by Lisa Steele, Fresh Eggs Daily We have been keeping chickens for several years, but have always bought sexed chicks so we have never had any roosters. Then this past spring, we hatched our own brood and out of 17 chicks, ten ended up being roosters. We obviously couldn't keep them all - the neighbors would have organized a lynch mob to protest all the crowing and our hens would have had something to say about it too - but I fortunately was able to find good homes for all but an Olive Egger named John Quincy Adams. Read More

Reading Books, Touching Hearts by Jenny Pavlovic Last month I wrote about Godwinks, and I’ve written about my dog Chase many times. You may have read the story of how Chase and I came together in the book 8 State Hurricane Kate: The Journey and Legacy of a Katrina Cattle Dog. The short version is that I met Sarah while caring for rescued animals in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. We stayed in contact after we returned home to Virginia and Minnesota. God winked one day when “Fred” caught my eye as I viewed Sarah’s rescue website, www.lostfantasystables.com. Despite his unhappy expression, the little guy was cute. He had the sable coloring and white ruff of a collie, with red and white speckles on his chest and legs. I felt an immediate connection. Read More

The Puppy Who Came with Godwinks By Jenny Pavlovic For Christmas, my mom gave me a book about Godwinks, amazing “coincidences” that are really winks from God. My mom said that God winked when, through an amazing set of “coincidences”, my cattle dog puppy Bandit found me in 2004. This story is told in “Bandit, My Bolt Out of the Blue, My Miracle” (http://www.omegafields.com/blog/bandit-my-bolt-out-of-the-blue-miracle/). Read More

Find Cash In Your Tack Box: Get Ready For A Spring Tack Sale by Editor and publisher of www.good-horsekeeping.com ; Laurie Cerny Nearly every 4-H horse club and many breed and show organizations now sponsor spring tack sales or swaps. “For horse owners these tack sales can bring in some extra cash and they’re also an incentive to clean out tack boxes and tack rooms,” says Laurie Cerny, editor and publisher of www.good-horsekeeping.com. “If you’re not using it, or if it doesn’t fit – whether it’s tack or show clothing, it should go.” Read More

by Jenny Pavlovic - Willis and I were in the backyard for his last potty stop, late at night. It was almost Halloween, and the moon was just about full. I heard a rustling in the leaves and saw a small rodent coming into the yard under the chain link fence on the south side. I turned and moved toward him, to steer him away from the house. Willis followed me and the rodent paused, then turned and went back out through the fence, shuffling it seemed, by the coarse rustling of leaves. Willis and I went back to our games so he could unwind a bit before bed time. A few minutes later, we were both paused by a loud rustling of leaves in the woods behind the yard. Was it a coyote? A dog? A deer? A mountain lion? Read More

Marketing Your Horse Business through Social Media, Part 4 How to Sell through Your Posts on Social Media By Randi Thompson, Founder of the Award-Winning “How to Market Your Horse Business” website Welcome to the fourth and final article in my series, “Marketing Your Horse Business through Social Media.” Here’s a quick recap of Parts 1-3: In Part 1 we explored how having a presence on social media can benefit your offline, “real world” horse business. Part 2 focused on developing a content strategy that becomes the foundation for all your online marketing. And in part 3, I covered my magic “Rule of Three” and introduced how to use your comments to create relationships and attract those who are looking for what you have to offer. Now in Part 4, we’ll go even deeper into how to use your posts to promote what you have to offer as you continue to build your network. Read More

article by Jenny Pavlovic Remember when Jeanne met Sam in Wisconsin near the orange moose (http://www.omegafields.com/blog/meant-to-be/)? In September, my cattle dog Bandit was traveling with me. On our way to visit family, we made a pit stop near the orange moose. I took Bandit out for a potty break, and then realized that he had not seen the moose before. I’d expected him to be distracted by the geese swimming in the pond by the parking lot, but he paid them no mind. As we approached the orange behemoth, Bandit stiffened, then crouched and emitted a low growl and a series of small “woofs”. His eyesight is not his best sense, and he had not caught the scent of this giant orange statue that demanded his attention. He just knew that it was a very large hoofed animal that must need to be herded. Read More

by Julia Dake - I start this tale by saying that I am new to riding in the South. I have ridden many miles in the Sierra, the redwoods and along the coast of California. But I have returned to the land of my girlhood recently and found the riding to be very different. The sandy wide trails, the ancient oaks covered in Spanish moss and the very flatness of the land are all new to me. One of my first trail rides in the south began with the guide telling me “If you come across an alligator on the trail, don’t ride over it”. I thought to myself; You have to tell people this?! Add in the humidity and the afternoon thunderstorms and it couldn’t be any different from the trails I’ve ridden in the West. Read More