Good Morning! Or What I Learned at FHOTD

Whew. I am so glad to be home!

I missed you guys so much.

My stint in over at Styx...I mean FHOTD taught me a ton.

Some bad, some good, all of it a definite benefit for our blog, Mugwump Chronicles.

I've been immersed in the world of snark long enough I might as well purge myself and talk about the bad first thing.

Writing over there was a lot like herding ADD, rabid, feral cats. Trying to dodge all the infected claws made me start to want to bite back. I'm not that kind of writer, horseman or person.

I was continually amazed at how so many readers were intent on dissecting my presumed bias, my writing style, my lack of education (how the hell did they find out I never made it past the 2nd grade and the only training background I have is from Earl Bob's Fourth Generation Parreli Video School?).

It got to where I was throwing in a bone of contention just to see if anybody could read past it to find my real point.

Although it was amusing, at least to me, I was pretty disheartened to see how few actually figured out the direction of my posts.

My life training horses has changed me on every level. I became kinder, more thoughtful, more open to all aspects of life. I'm nice to dogs, kids and people with different perspectives.

I know many an old cowboy who can't spell worth a damn who can train circles around me and most of those who think they know horses. As you guys know, on this blog, I have always wanted to hear from everyone with a story to tell or some training advice and have never allowed any criticism of how they might string a sentence together.

Part of my reasoning goes back to my opinion that horse training isn't rocket science and the education needed to truly become Horsaii doesn't come from books. It has paid off and we've always gotten wonderful input over here from people from all walks of life.

The sheer anger emanating from so many of the posters really threw me. How can you be successful in centering yourself with your horse and not have it seep out to the other living, breathing beings around you? Serial killers start by burning ants with a magnifying glass and build from there. Just sayin'.

What did I like? The discussions in the comments. They would start by screaming and bashing and jumping up and down. Then a few people would start to defend me.

Then the personal,back and forth bashing would commence.

After the slap fest died down an actual conversation would begin. This is where I loved it. There were great ideas and thought provoking insights, there were people who began to look at different aspects of things and intelligent discussion.

That is the part I would like to see over here. I'd like to have more conversation with you guys, more arguments, more opinions. I don't see why we can't and still avoid the fisticuffs.

While Cathy was heading FHOTD I steered away from her subject matter, just as a courtesy. Now, I see no reason to hold back from expanding our horizons. The slaughter debate, bad training methods, current breeding practices, all of these things interest me and I'd like to be more pro-active in writing about them.

Being a typical Mugwump, I can't just come out throwing my opinions around. I'd rather do the research, present both sides and learn from you guys. So I'm looking into adding a current events page. We'll cover the good, the bad and the WTH? parts of the horse world.

It will be in addition to, not taking away from our old format. I have to admit, while it's kind of scary over there, those posters kept me on my toes. I think I was needing a kick in the butt and some new insight to keep the Chronicles fresh and exciting.

Also, I want to get the Equine Mind Meld up and running. We'll present a training question and get input from everybody, different approaches, different ways of untying the knot. This has been a personal pet project of mine for a long time and I'm ready to start playing with it.

Because I'm a complete computer boob, I'll be asking you for help on getting all this stuff set up, but I think it will be worth it.

There are some great people who read FHOTD. I hope some of them stop by and join in on our kinder, gentler sight.

I'm looking forward to a new site design, hopefully with easy to read and cruise additions. Any ideas on how we can expand and grow are welcome.

I can't tell you how nice it is to be able to barf on the keys again and tell you anything that comes to mind.