The Equus Experience at Dry Creek Ranch & Sanctuary

Depth coaching is all about the psyche. Equus coaching is all about the body. And for those of us in midlife who’ve spent decades ignoring that body and walking around as brains on stilts, (raises hand), it’s time to remember our wild selves. That wild self is the one who’s been missing. Who has all the courage and the “I don’t give a F**k” to get us to the life that’s been calling. Or shouting. Or causing mayhem.

It makes sense that we ignored our bodies. They can be painful, irritable, inflamed, bleeding piles of exhaustion. And we had work to do, snotty noses to wipe, and people to lift up on their way to success.

Hell, in the eighties, we didn’t even know what to wear when we were climbing the corporate ladder. Well, maybe you did, but I tried to look like the rest of upper management as a 110lb woman wearing khakis, a blazer with shoulder pads, and loafers. I looked like a sad linebacker, slapping on the Clinique cosmetics and putting bandaids over my tattoo so I wouldn’t offend anyone.

And somewhere along the way our primal sensing nature—the part of us that actually knows things—got buried somewhere under the to-do list and the Snackables.

The horse knows right where she’s buried and doesn’t give one flying fig about our credentials, or our shoulder pads, or how we’ve white-knuckled through to get where we are. They meet our body, our heart, and our energy and if those things aren’t telling the same story our words are, the horse will let us know.

And we’ll stand in that round pen shocked over the lies we’ve been telling ourselves and how cut off we are from that living, breathing being who’s gotten us where we are today.

The Work Itself

A three-hour session at Dry Creek Ranch & Sanctuary begins with intention. You bring whatever you’re carrying: be it a relationship issue, a creative block, a boundary you can’t seem to hold, a life that’s asking something of you that you haven’t been able to answer yet. Nothing is too small. Nothing is too large.

We work with one of the horses in the round pen, then move to the arena where you’ll navigate obstacles together. This is where things get interesting. The stories that arise when a 1,200 pound animal is or isn’t doing what you want them to do will tell you everything you need to know about how you’re moving through your life.

You’ll journal. We’ll go deeper. And the session ends with a writing exercise that has stopped more than one woman in the dirt.

Book an Equus Coaching Consult

Meeting Your Wild Woman: A Threshold Ranch Retreat — Spring 2027

Interested in a weekend of community, connection, and depth with like-minded women surrounded by nature and critters?

More Details coming soon, but join the waitlist by emailing me @ [email protected]

Meet the Boys…

Rio

I’m Rio and I’d much rather be eating my alfalfa than introducing myself. I’m pretty shy and I don’t trust too many people. I’m happy to be here in this barn though. It’s much better than my old place where they went by the old-timer “get a 2×4” mentality. What they didn’t know when they were hurting me was that I wasn’t misbehaving, I just can’t see anything behind either shoulder. Imagine not being able to see anything behind you, every noise is a dragon, or at least that’s how it feels. I’m a lot better than I used to be and I’ll even let Melanie feed me out of the bucket while she’s standing there, and I let her give me butt scritches now, too. Melanie says I’m sensitive and that I read her mind. She’s not wrong. My favorite parts of the day involve grain, cookies, and putting on my blanket when it’s really cold out. I love my friend Julio, too. We’re great pals and I’m happy to have him next to me. Leroy A Stink was okay when he wasn’t chasing me around trying to herd me like a cow. And I’m the one with eyesight problems?

Julio ~ Hollywood B Rawhide

I’ve heard it told that I’m beautiful like Julio Iglesias and that’s how I got my name. Melanie calls me her “Man in Black”, and that’s just who I am—her main man—because when I was on the verge of being put down due to a severe case of laminitis, Melanie took me in anyway. The vet gave me less than a 50% chance of getting better, but he doesn’t know me, or Melanie. With the right food, supplements, corrective shoes, and hand-walking (starting with just two minutes a day), I’m all but as good as new. One of my favorite things to do is to just chill. If you walk into my stall, I’ll nuzzle right into your belly and you’ll feel nothing but peace. I don’t get worked up about much, but I do like to move when I’m out on a ride. The rest of the time, I’m pretty laid back, except when Rio’s gone. I really like my stall brother. Some call my reaction to Rio being gone “buddy sour”, but I call it “buddy love”. Rio and I could spend hours grooming each other. I think I help to calm him down, that’s my gift to everyone, really.

“In their eyes we are more than physical form. We are intention, emotion, energy, and spirit. They see who we are. They gaze into our very soul.” ~ Unknown

Meet the Rest of the Menagerie…

When I built my sanctuary in 2019, I knew I would provide sanctuary for horses, and I had my dogs, but I thought it would be nice to maybe have a barn cat, as well. Little did I know that every cat within a 10 mile radius would end up calling my barn “home”. I’ve since learned that I actually have a cat colony. Two, in fact. I hadn’t imagined, at all, that I would also rescue chickens. Nelle was my first. A leghorn who had been attacked by a dog and wasn’t predicted to live. But she survived, and I set her up in Cluckingham Palace, and got her a few friends May Belle and June Bug. Eventually, Nelle crowed his pronouns “He/Him” and now he is known as Niles Cogburn Crane.

In Memoriam

Leroy ~ Techolena

I was never really sure what my name was. Some called me “Leroy”, others called me “Big Dinner”, and still others called me “A Stink.” I even heard “Chest NUT” and Leroy PeeRoy, too. It was all very confusing. My favorite thing to do was eat. My herd mates seemed pretty calm about it and munched all day, but not me. I ate every stem of my hay, every pellet of my grain, and every ounce of my cubes right away. I mean, what were they saving it for? When I was young, I was what they call a “cow horse” but at Dry Creek when I would see cows or sheep, I’d dig a trench a foot deep in my turnout. Melanie thought maybe I was one of those “cow horses” that drove the cows up the mountain once in the spring and brought them down once in the fall. I loved to run around in the arena, raring, and kicking out, but when she rode me, I wasn’t so interested and I’d just go at a pace that would make a snail fall asleep. I mean, sure, I was good. I never rared with her, or bucked, or any of that nonsense, but what she never understood is that I was conserving my energy. For eating dinner.

I moved on to greener fields in March 2026 after a long battle with Cushings and laminitis. The hay isn’t measured here and I don’t have to watch my sugar intake, and there’s enough energy to spare for raring at the abundance of cows and sheep and sand cranes. I sometimes visit Melanie and the ranch, flitting around as a black butterfly.