Book Review: Undomesticated Women by Anna Blake

This is a very entertaining book. It follows the travels of Anna Blake as she and her dog Mister drove 14 thousand miles in eight months pulling an A frame trailer she calls the Rollin’ Rancho

This book takes Anna to clinics she had arranged in advance and takes us with her as she crosses the USA through 30 states and from ocean to ocean. She introduces us to the women in her clinics and their horses. She has some moments of difficulty following the directions of the GPS woman who often leads her seriously astray! I have several quotes from this book that I would like to share with you. First, how she feels about horse horror stories

“Horse trainers are receptacles of horror stories that are told to us everywhere we go as if animal abuse or death is a mysterious, rare event. I had to let go of the pain and helplessness of knowing I couldn’t save them all. I taught myself to trust the Universe, I trust the Stars or the Earth that Thing that holds us in balance.I have to trust that those I can’t help are being known and held just as I am. I release them with a small prayer. –God’s horse.” Anna Blake

Why has Anna dedicated the title of this book to Undomesticated Women? Well, apparently 92% of horses in the USA are owned by women 97% of Anna’s social media followers are women. Few men come to Annas clinics. She decided to focus on the women who were really interested in what she was training.

Anna refers to her training approach as “affirmative training”

“In the old method , trainers taught us when there’s an issue to tough it out and ride through it. It doesn’t work because horses hold the memory of that stress and it damages their confidence .They don’t get through it they get exhausted. It is never ok for the horse to be pushed to their flight response. “

One one occasion Anna exceeds the speed limit, just a fraction and is pulled over by a Policeman .They chat for a few minutes and he does not give Anna at ticket . As she drives away this is what she thinks.

“A wave of relief that it was over but it was more than not getting a ticket .Travelling this way I am profoundly aware of the luck of my birth. Being a white woman of a certain age, I don’t have to panic at a traffic stop when it’s a life threatening event for so many. I say a prayer for those who don’t look like me and died just this way; A traffic stop one moment and the next God’s human roadkill. “

I don’t know about you but that paragraph leapt off the page for me and it spoke volumes about Anna and who she was.

I think that road trips , especially if you are on your own are self revealing. I am certain that Anna Blake learned a lot about who she was on her travels.

I found what Anna told us about her clinics very interesting. I don’t have any experience of working with a horse and Anna’s Affirmative Training but I found how she put it into a historical perspective fascinating

” So, my clients are mostly women and privileged to have horses. Many like me have stopped listening to the false science about herd dynamics and outdated fear based training. We see intimidating horses into submission as a failure. We understand being hurt or frightened never creates trust. Is affirmative training a #me too movement for horses?”  Anna Blake

She mentions that often it seems that the horses in her clinics are listening to her and doing what she asks them to do.

” It’s enough to make me look like some kind of party trick but that’s not it. If we breathe and clear our minds of human agenda and related trash our bodies say everything, just like horses. Horses aren’t psychic And They surely don’t speak English. It’s us. Humans are transparently easy to read and horses are more aware and intelligent than they get credit for .It’s communication as literal as reading these words. It was horses being in on our conversation all the time.”

Anna Blake

I enjoyed this book and felt that by the end I knew Anna Blake much better than I did before I began

It is not Anna just talking about what she teaches in her clinics. This book is about what it means to travel , with your dog , living in a campervan for 14 thousand miles across the vastness of the USA and on the route meeting horse women and their horses and working with them Helping both the horses and the women.