Bonnie Kiefer
bonnievkiefer@gmail.com call/text: (561) 938-4685
about bonnie
Bonnie with Guardian . . .​
The horse that led Bonnie on her journey to discover the healing power of Equine Massage and its incredible benefits to horses
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LEARNing >> IMPROVing >> REPEATing!
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Bonnie has come a very long way with massage therapy since she began her journey with it back in 2014 (more about that below). With every passing years she evolves and continues to share her own method of helping horses she developed over time.
She currently travels the state of Florida most often around the Palm Beach Florida and surrounding areas, predominantly working with serious cases of mysterious lameness, poor performance and undesirable behaviors in horses in which she helps to pinpoint and resolve. She also provides maintenance for her long-term clients' horses.
Bonnie is an equine advocate and enjoys helping horses in any way that she can. She helps brings awareness to horse owners and equine professionals so that they can enhance the health and well- being of their horses.
Helping Horses . . . one at a time.​
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Bonnie gets called upon for her expertise to help horses that are very dangerous, are biting or harming people and/or themselves or other horses, throwing or hurting riders, bucking, rearing over backwards, have mysterious or serious lameness or performance issues, many times which she is called upon when other equine professionals have been unable to figure out the source(s) of such issues or have given up. She provides immediate relief to the horse and then shares with each client her observations, solutions and recommendations to help each horse improve. She is very personable and offers individualized attention to each client and their horse. She works directly with horse trainers, chiropractors, veterinarians and other equine service providers to ensure the best outcome for each horse's continued health and well-being. When Bonnie is not riding or out in the field helping horses, she is studying the most current information regarding massage therapy, equine biomechanics, saddle fitting, saddle making, various types of therapies and a range of horse topics from A-Z. This is because she knows there are questions to be asked, scientific research to be looked into, controversies to be discussed and worked through, new technologies and techniques to be learned and so much more. She never seems to get enough of horses! She remains open minded herself, just as she asks her clients to be, and in exchange, she learns so much from her clients as well. She stays updated with educational events in person as well as online webinars and various equine studies. Every case that Bonnie works on offers her yet another learning experience to apply to future cases for tracking purposes. Bonnie firmly believes that Equine Massage should be an essential part of every horses' health care ritual, not just a luxury service. Working on horses over the years and tracking the applied knowledge and methods helps to solidify the recommendations and guidance that she includes in her reports. Tracking what has been helping horses before and after her sessions over time has been especially important when helping to explain or debunk certain misconceptions about horses, or in rare cases when there are in-depth discussions that are not so comfortable to have.
Requests, Purpose and Education . . .​​
Evolution . . .​
​How and why she became an Equine Massage Therapist . . . Bonnie became a Certified Equine Massage Therapist in 2015 after she purchased a show jumper in 2014 who was in desperate need of rehabilitation after a hoof injury had left him classified as "an un-ridable horse".  After working with several therapists to try and help her own horse, it dawned on Bonnie that her life-long experience with horses provided a huge foundation of which she not only could help her own horse but other horses as well through the miracle of massage therapy.  (Update - Bonnie successfully rehabbed the horse and sold him to a wonderful home, he is now an Eventing horse on the west coast with his new owner). Diving right into it, Bonnie studied Equinology and the methods of some of the most renowned and respected professionals in the industry regarding Equine Massage such as April Battles, Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt, Jim Masterson and many others.  She watched countless videos, analyzed dozens of case studies, studied blogs and books about massage therapy and became completely immersed in the learning process. She then took a certification course with Susan Smith-Massie and continued researching massage techniques while practicing on her own horse, her friend's horses and dozens of other horses in order to gain first-hand experience out in the field. Bonnie is a firm believer in how critical massage therapy is to the performance and well-being of each and every horse. She currently follows and studies renowned lameness expert Dr. Sue Dyson for her excellence in recognizing and sharing the subtle behaviors in lame horses in order to help them. Over the years, Bonnie honed-in on her own method of reforming horses with behavioral issues and practices methods closest to her favorite horsemanship trainers Julie Goodnight Ryan Rose, Carson James, Tristan Tucker and Monty Roberts among many others.
Although Bonnie then started incorporating massage therapy in 2015 to her list of equine services, she had spent her whole life studying horse behaviors and developed a reputation early in her career for being able to help resolve undesirable behaviors in horses, especially those with the most extreme behaviors which has really paid off over time. Next to riding and showing horses, behavioral therapy is her next most passionate part of working with horses.
As part of her behavioral therapy for the horse, Bonnie works with horse owners and handlers as well to help share her observations for why these behaviors develop in the first place and what the horse is communicating to us through its own kind of language. Bonnie finds the greatest level of success when she incorporates an essential tack assessment along with general calming techniques and finishes with a thorough, full body hands-on massage session.
Bonnie also offers other services upon request, such as rehabilitation guidance, handling & ground work, desensitizing, exercising & conditioning, grooming, bathing, assistance at horse shows and much more. She also helps riders with their horsemanship through lessons and coaching at horse shows and trains horses by private request.​
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​Range of Services . . .​
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​Growing up with horses . . .​
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Bonnie caught the bug for horses and developed a life-long passion for horses when she was put on a pony at a carnival ride in Michigan at 6 years old. She started riding lessons and attended horse camps with her first horse show at 8 years old. When her family moved to southeast Florida, she went on to ride horses of many various breeds, sizes, personalities, disciplines and levels of training. She started with a solid foundation with Hunter/Jumpers. Then, as a teen, she worked as a groom and exercise rider at a Thoroughbred racetrack in Palm Beach, Florida and also worked for successful horse trainers in Broward and Palm Beach counties. She had several years of sole Dressage training in the early 90's and then rode cutting and reining horses in Florida and Georgia. She developed cross training techniques along the way between English, Western and Dressage disciplines.  She continued working with high performance horses at Hunter/Jumper barns and Quarter Horse barns, working her way up to training positions in the area while also schooling and showing horses independently for her own clients. She enjoyed showing her own horses and client's horses. She has experience as a Riding Instructor, Assistant Trainer, Head Trainer and Barn Manager in the southeast Florida areas such as Davie, Ft. Lauderdale, Coconut Creek, Parkland, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Loxahatchee, Sarasota, Ocala, Orlando, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Winter Garden, Clermont as well in Forsyth, Georgia.