The Soul Of A Horse Blog

In the Beginning… A Pregnant Mustang for Christmas

by Joe

January 3rd, 2009

From the journal January 3, 2009 – On the evening of December 20th, 2008, we arrived home with my Christmas gift from Kathleen, an untouched pregnant Mustang adopted from the BLM in Reno, a six-year-old buckskin lady who chose us – well, chose Kathleen. I had missed her completely in our survey of the 150 or so mares in the five-and-over pasture at the BLM facility the week before.

Just imagine being the very first person ever to be touched by a wild Mustang, and being the first person to touch her foal. Shivers skitter up my spine every time I think about it. Two horses Read More→

Categories Mustangs, Trust Yourself, Wild Horses
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Q&A with Joe Camp

by Joe

April 29th, 2008

1) There are thousands of horse books on the market. Why did you write another one?

I didn’t actually. I mean, yes, of course, it has to do with horses, but first and foremost it’s a story. I’ve spent most of my life telling stories, most of them involving animals. And I found this one particularly fascinating. Two complete novices-my wife and I-leaping into this enigmatic world of horses literally without a clue. The mistakes, the fear, the fascination, and the frustration with some of the answers we were getting. And ultimately the discovery that something was very wrong in this world of horses. Read More→

Categories Barefoot Horses, Building Trust, Diet & Nutrition, Natural Boarding, Natural Training, Relationship, Trust Yourself
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There’s No Such Thing as Domestic Horses

by Joe

March 24th, 2008

It took me three years to finally boil this journey of ours down to a single simple point as it relates to how horses are supposed to live. It never ceases to amaze me how I can have something right in front of my face and not be able to see it because it’s camouflaged by some predisposition or learning sequence. Like this old logic problem: What do the words, first, hijack, and crabcake have in common? Stare at that for a bit and if you get it quickly, you’re doing better than I did. I spent several hours before finally, in desperation, I began to assign numbers to the letters, looking for some commonality of sequence, or totals, or something. Only after a number was attached to each letter did I see it. The answer literally leaped off the page. Do it yourself, assign numbers… ie: a=1… b=2…z=26, etc. You’ll see it very quickly. That’s the way it was with this concept of so-called domestic vs wild horses. How do you explain Read More→

Categories Barefoot Horses, Diet & Nutrition, Make a Difference, Natural Boarding, Natural Training, Trust Yourself
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On Trial and Error

by Joe

January 17th, 2008

For years I’ve called the process of making Benji movies trial-and-error film making. I always – well, usually – know what I want to see up there on the screen, but almost never know how to get it on film. I remember late one night in Oregon on Benji the Hunted there were about twelve of us crammed and bundled around the camera which was sitting on the dirt pointed down at a tiny little cougar cub who was supposed to be looking up at Benji, pleading with his eyes to not be left alone to be eaten by some larger predator (his mama had been shot by a hunter). The look in the cub’s eyes had to be right. It had to make us (the audience) choke up a little, feel the plight of this poor helpless baby. So there we were, this huge crowd of people all scrunched in a ball gawking down at this wee cub with a bevy of bright lights in his eyes, and I was supposed to be holding the “look” of the cub (as if he were gazing up at Benji) and I was also supposed to be doing something that would evoke just the right expression. Something that would make the cub’s eyes beg pleeeze don’t leave me here… Read More→