Tanya Buck was born and raised in Carmel, California, where she grew up on a small ranch. She attended UC Davis, where she was a pre-vet student. She majored in Animal Science, with a concentration in Equine Reproduction, and a minor in English. She is certified through UC Davis as an Equine Breeding Manager, is a certified 4-H judge, and a Reiki Master.  Currently, Tanya and her husband live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with four horses, three dogs, three cats, a parrot and a bunch of fish.

Besides her passion for horses, Tanya is an avid Scuba diver, an active bicyclist, and loves to hike, snowshoe, read and write. Her book, Straight from the Horse's Mouth, Jolly says... will be published late in 2008, and is a creative non-fiction book on training horses written from the horse's point of view. Tanya has been helping to bridge the communication gap between horses and humans for over 30 years.


Tanya says:
"Because the ranch we owned when I was a child catered to anything horse related, we bred, bought, sold, leased, boarded, and showed our animals. We also rented horses to tourists visiting the Monterey Peninsula. And, because we were a small ranch, the rental string got sold off every fall. Then, every spring, we'd buy another 30 or so head.

Each new horse had to be evaluated for suitability for the rental string, then trained to be gentle and calm enough for beginners. Once evaluated, my mom would hand me the reins of a horse, and say, "Tanya, this one rears (bucks, runs through the bit, etc.). Fix it. " With my heart pounding, and my palms sweating, I'd climb aboard. It didn't take long to figure out that understanding Which Fear caused the horse to act out a particular behavior was critical for my being able to help him learn to overcome that fear and teach him to do what I wanted.

Over time, I realized that getting the horse to do what I wanted was only part of the equation.  The communication between us was much more important, and I began my quest for understanding the horse in his entirety, from his physical body to his psyche.  Now, I am learning even more ways to help horses be comfortable--again, from their physical bodies to their emotional psyches. 

I was ten years old when Mom handed me that first horse, and since then, thousands of horses have shown me what they need to feel safe. If I can pass that on to even one person, I'll succeed in paying back the Horse for helping make me a better person."