Photographers - Techniques?

Hi fellow photographers!
I am new to photography but I do highly enjoy it. I just bought a new Canon PowerShot SX130 IS and I was wondering if you think this camera would take high quality pictures for exceptional photography? I think it is pretty decent..

Also what techniques do you use to capture such an active animal like a horse or dog? Both my animals move to much and with my old camera, it came out very blurry. Any angle techniques?

Some pictures I took with my new camera:

Well... when taking a picture, watch that light comes from good direction. If you crop the animal, try to find some point in which your cropping looks natural, perhaps even artistic.

Practice, practice, practice!! I sometimes go out to take pics and take 1,400, but only 5 or 6 hundred come out okay. You have to be ready to catch things, especially with horses as they move around a lot and are pretty quick.

If I'm photographing horses, I'm always on Sport mode. It catches the action shots, and if I hold my finger down on the shutter it takes a whole sequence, which I love.

I also always leave Auto Focus on because 9 times out of 10 it will adjust when I ask it to and come out clearer than manually adjusting it.

Hope I helped! You'll have a ton of fun with photography, it's great

Do you have a manual mode where you can set all the settings? If so, you want a high shutter speed. To compensate you'll want a low F-stop, and a slightly higher exposure. This will ensure you don't lose any light but you get faster and un-blurry pictures of your animal. Also, though autofocus can be great, the one draw back is that it takes a second or two to calibrate, and you may miss a great shot.

If not...Sport mode all the way!