Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

For some of you who are reading this, this fact is going to come as a surprise -  whether we are talking about horses or whether we are talking about humans,  just about every illness or condition is either caused by emotions or made worse by emotions – and for our horses that specially includes conditions like chronic founder, insulin resistance and Cushings disease (lots of other conditions too.)

I know that’s a big statement, but I’ve been working at helping people and horses recover by natural means for 14 years now, have supervised and aided in what must be thousands of recoveries by now and have personally seen this to be true.

So how does it happen that emotions can have such a huge physical effect?  I’ll talk about humans first, because once we have related it to ourselves, it will be easier to understand our horse.

Click here for the rest of this article.

I have had two healing sessions lately, where male horses were complaining about castration and asking us to not castrate on auto-pilot, but to think through the whole process.

Well, OK, now I’ve thought about it … and from a practical point of view, I would probably still castrate my young colts and I expect that I would do it before they had a chance to learn what they were missing.

In the past, castrations have typically been done for two reasons – one to stop the colt or stallion from being able to make a mare pregnant and secondly to make them quieter and more amenable to being handled.  Geldings typically have a much more even temperament than stallions and even mares.

However, for those of you thinking about gelding your colt just for behavioural reasons, there is a good reason to think again.

Click here for the rest of this article, including what castration can mean to a gelding.

Well folks, the results are in – the results of the study here in Australia where GPS units were used to track horse movement.  Hampson and his colleagues tracked horse movement in the wild and also domestic horses under all kinds of circumstances, including our famous “paddock paradise” and all the other creative ways that we have come up with of fostering horse movement for horse health. 

And I am afraid that, after all that work (darn it!), the most movement travelled by domestic horses was done  in a basic big paddock of four fenced-off sides.

I guess there is no substitute for playful companions that promote a good gallop around, enough room to do that romping in and plenty of happy work and play with their humans to get miles under their feet.

Here’s a photo of me getting creative about getting some miles under the feet of my miniatures - keeping them healthy during the spring growth.  Please note, this is only possible because the ponies are completely unafraid and very co-operative!

The researchers of the horse movement study, Hampson and his colleagues,  ”tested five pasture structures to see if they tended to encourage more movement in horses – a thought that has been gaining popularity among some horse owners.  The “racetrack” style fencing system, which blocks off the center area of the pasture, made no major difference in movement and actually seemed to make the horses move less, Hampson said.  A maze pattern also slightly reduced average movement, and a spiral fence pattern lowered the average even more.  Fencing off a tree to keep horses from stagnating in the shade seemed to cause little changes in their movement habits.

In fact, the pasture structure which yielded the greatest daily travel distance was the basic open pasture system of four fenced-off sides, he said.”

This quote was from the Horseconscious newsletter, click here and scroll down about a third of the page to get the rest of their article for the horse movement study.   Their article was in turn taken from  thehorse.com, Christa Leste-Lasserre June 15 2010, Article 16515.

As I said “darn!  All that work!”

We were very sad to lose our barefoot trimmer Cat Wyley to America for study (although thrilled for her) and are very happy that Gene Hutcheon re-located here from Tasmania at exactly the right time.

To us, a good barefoot trimmer is more than just a person who trims our horses’ feet.  He is the person who works with our horse when they are just about at their most vulnerable – with their leg in the air and unable to run away easily.

We are so lucky that not only are Gene’s trimming skills excellent, he is brilliant with the horses – gentle, sensitive and responsive to their emotional as well as their physical needs. 

I laughed when I read what I wrote.  It sounds like a great recommendation for a man, let alone a feet trimmer.  But unfortunately for you single ladies, this one’s married to the beautiful Kylie!

It is not going to be too long before a guy with this sort of horse talent has a full book, so if you are looking for someone who really knows his stuff about barefoot trimming, transitioning from shoes to barefoot, fitting easy boots for endurance and other performance horses, foundered horses and other specialist horse podiatry – then I suggest that you get on to him.

Gene is living just outside of Gormondale, near Traralgon and is working through South Gippsland, areas of the Mornington Peninsula, down the Princes Highway, past us at Moe to Pakenham and Cranbourne, Beaconsfield and across into the Dandenongs to Monbulk and Cockatoo.  Obviously East Gippsland is also on his doorstep.

Click here for the link to Gene’s website.  His phone number is 03 5194 2286 and his Mobile is 0488 421 189   

I read a news article this morning that there is a shortage of snake bite anti-venine’s around the world.  And to pay for giving a horse anti-venine you would nearly have to take a new mortgage out to pay for it (and yes I am exaggerating, but it IS expensive. Someone I know recently paid over $1000 for anti-venine for a dog, so I shudder to think about the cost for something the size of a horse!)

These techniques work for people as well as for horses and other animals, so I thought that I would share with you some techniques that I have learned over my many years of training, that can beat poisonous snakebite.  Maybe knowing these techniques might help you save a loved one’s life one day.

Click here for the rest of this article

A student’s horses were recently treated by a vet for pinworm infestation by treating them for 5 days in a row of an Ivermectin based chemical wormer. 

I’m anti toxic chemicals, but even so, I was shocked at that kind of toxic overload for worms that are not harmful to the horse’s health (they don’t migrate through organs or body tissue for their life cycle).  They are unpleasant little critturs though, who can cause the horse to itch like crazy, so I decided to post this simple remedy for pin worms.

Click here for the rest of this article.

I enjoyed reading Linda Parelli’s article on Hill Therapy that is in the Fluidity program.  Since that is a particularly strong area of expertise for me, I much enjoyed seeing a focus on restoring horses to good muscular and skeletal health.  

You can add a powerful improvement for your horse to that Hill Therapy Program – by adding an emotional aspect to the work.  

“What?” you’re probably thinking…

What have emotions got to do with bad posture, poor musculature, short, choppy, uneven strides and even skeletal damage? 

Well, emotions have a HUGE effect on our horse’s  physical body.  Click here for the rest of this article.

Hi Jenny ~ I have a yearling Pre.Andalusian that has just come down with a condition that looks very much like Stringhalt the vet is saying that it’s an intoxication i.e. poisoning which I’m assuming is from the plant Catsear!  This
year we have had an extremely hot summer and although I’ve been feeding myhorses my youngster seems to have gone down with this condition and as you can imagine I’m extremely upset for him as he’s such a beautiful young horse please can you give me any help regarding this condition and is it curable ? Yours  Karen

Stringhalt is absolutely curable, so do not worry except for using that worry to change what needs to be changed! Click here to read the rest of this article

Here’s a great reason for keeping two or more horses together, that you might not have come accross. 

There is a powerful acupuncture point in the horse’s mouth that releases endorphins (the feel good, pain relieving hormone).  That point is located where the gum joins the upper lip in the centre of the horses mouth.

Yesterday, I noticed that when they rub another horse with the pad of the their nose, they activate that acupuncture point and release the feel good endorphins. So, rubbing another horse is a seriously pleasurable event.

I have also noticed that as they rub another horse, they are often working on that horse’s known pressure and acupuncture points. (Gee whiz, what a surprise that they know what they are doing! Yes, a little Aussie sarcasm there…) 

I see it in clinics a lot, how being rubbed by another horse actively improves visible muscular problems. (I tend to notice these things because of my extensive experience in fixing muscular-skeletal problems in horses.)

These two insights taken together, mean that depriving a horse of a companion to rub and be rubbed by, seriously compromises our horse’s ability to self heal.

Click here for how this relates to windsucking

When your horse wants to be with you and wants to do what you want to do, you can achieve so much more with your horse.

Last week I worked on a wonderful 20 year old Arabian mare, Bremervale Promise, in the vet check and rest intervals of a 160 kilometre ride, that she completed in around 18 hours.  No big deal, she would have made it fine without me – maybe the reiki healing that I gave her made it a bit more comfortable, that’s all. 

This was Promise and young Sarah McLaughlin’s 4^th Quilty buckle, a silver belt buckle that is a symbol of the completion of that ride.  So this was the fourth time Promise had gone out and carried Sarah for 160 kilometres in less than 24 hours.  Congratulations on a brilliant effort to Sarah and Promise and all the other partnerships that completed the event with their horses in good enough condition to go out again.

Then there was the star of the show as far as I am concerned, a partnership between a lady and a white haired elderly gentleman named Sarisha, a 23 year old Arabian gelding who achieved their 11th Quilty buckle.  This was the eleventh time that Sarisha  had carried his owner Keryn Mahoney for 160 kilometres in much, much less than 24 hours.  This is an extraordinary new record and deserved of huge congratulations. 

So what makes it possible for one horse to do the most extraordinary feat of endurance with their rider, year after year after year?  And others cannot?

Click here for the rest of this story.