Category Archives: horses, dogs & more

Mar25

the wild dog

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The other side of Cho, Spanish Galgo, and former street dog of Cadiz, Spain.  It takes a lot of restorative yoga to be able to sustain cross-country gallops when you are 17-years old.

Today I am off to Boston to teach my workshop, Cookbook for the Bonehouse.  It is exciting to me to return to Boston to teach.  Many years ago, Pam and I were among the founders of Green Street Studios, which has become a vibrant center for dance and performance in Cambridge.  I developed my chops as a choreographer in Boston, and made many dances with many fine, generous dancers.  Tomorrow’s workshop is at the sister studio, The Dance Complex, another hive of creative energy for movement and dance.  So I am going home.

And not.  I feel a profound difference now which has to do with my long absence from the conventional concert dance scene and from Boston in particular.  I am older, and I have spent the past 13 years in two different kinds of studios.  The one with the wooden floor where I move and stretch like a dancer, and the other – the arena, the field, the paddock, the stall, the saddle, with my partners, the horses.  I feel a little like the wild dog coming home after a big tear across the fields.  But there is a cosiness there too – a desire to settle and nestle into the moment.

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Mar23

the limits

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Dogs in Spain do not enjoy the same pampered lives that many dogs here do.  We first became aware of the Galgo issue through Greyhound Friends in Hopkinton, MA.  The director, Louise Coleman had just founded the American European Greyhound Alliance with a special focus on the dogs of Spain and Ireland.  She had begun to bring some dogs out of those two countries.

At the time, we had just lost our beautiful greyhound, Luna, and we wanted to adopt an older dog.  That is how we came across Gordita (above), who was ten-years old and had just delivered another litter in Spain.  Gordie lived to be 17-years old, and was the most endearing and maddening dog ever.  She had a bark that could cut glass.  Literally make you jump out of your skin. She had this wonderful, galumphing, paddling run that she kept up until about a week before she died.

Because of Gordie, I learned more than I wanted to about the sadistic treatment of these beautiful, sensitive dogs.  They are used for hunting by the gypsies, and cruelly disposed of if they do not perform or if they are too old or ill.

Many people think we should not try to save dogs or cats or children outside our own borders.  I find that argument specious.  Compassion and love are not contained by the borders of a country.  We should help wherever we can, and wherever we are drawn to help. Over the years, I have rescued cats from Russia and Mexico, dogs from Spain. I remember being in Tijuana and seeing a skeletal, mangy, white dog near the place where the ugly fence that divides Mexico and the US runs into the sea. We could not catch him.  I can still see him.  I had to let him go.

I learned something there about the limits of power.  About accepting that I personally cannot save everything.  That rankles, at the same time I know it is reasonable.   But I will always try.

Mar22

nelson now

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Today I visited a farm that has an active, heart-centered rescue program  as well as a training program for area kids. The daughter of the director told me about a competition for training wild Mustangs: 90 days to get the horse from wild to being under saddle.  The young woman is a consummate, compassionate horsewoman.  Nevertheless, that made my stomach lurch.

Here is why.  This month marks a year that I have been working with Nelson.  When I met Nelson, he was pretty wild, but not just-off-the-plains wild.  He had been living at a sanctuary for several years.  He was not able to be handled, but he was not climbing the fences either.  What I am most proud of during this year is not the big strides that Nelson has made in terms of being able to be handled, being calm, being groomed, able to take direction, or any of those training goals that we have accomplished.

I am most proud that at no time  have I done anything that was against the horse.  I never forced him, never frightened him.  And I never gave up.  I never got angry.  It is not that I have never gotten angry at a horse.  I have.  I am not proud of those moments – usually when I am riding.  But with Nelson, I never went there.  I knew that I would lose him, and because I am not holding him with ropes or reins, losing him was always on my mind.  And in not losing him, I also did not lose myself.

As a result, my most joyful time with a horse is not with my own horses but with Nelson.  The difference is that here is more being with Nelson than doing.  I am not readying him for riding, or competition, or any human use.  I am learning his language.  He is learning mine.  My intention is that he feel safe, can be calm with a human, and can have an ongoing, friendly relationship.  Remember that because he is a stallion, Nelson lives alone, apart from other horses, in his big field.

Being able to work this way is a luxury, I understand.  Sometimes, things have to happen faster.  But that is not the way that I want to work with him, or any horse for that matter. Or my children.  Or myself.  More being, less doing across the board.

Mar18

moving landscapes

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The Four Riders from Nir Nadler & Chaja Hertog on Vimeo.

My friend, the filmmaker, Alla Kovgan, sent me this video.  There are things that I like a great deal about it, but oddly, the horses feel as if they are missing.  Nevertheless, I felt it worth a share.

I am interested:  what do you see?  What do you feel?