Teff

Flares in her hoof walls indicate laminar stretching and separation.  OUCH! The separation is also evident in the stretched water lines.  Subtle red marks indicate angry bruising. Overgrown walls and bars concentrate concussive and shearing forces with each step.  There is a Youtube video that illustrates this with revolting clarity–I’ll dig it up.

I just trimmed her front hooves.  The hinds can wait ’til tomorrow.  Healing is a process.

I asked Mark to walk her out to check the results in motion.  Tentative at first, Luna gained confidence in her newly found comfort as she walked.   Rebalancing the hooves caused a heel-first landing.  Her stride–and her topline–lengthened.  You could see the relief on her face!

Rolling the toe takes the pressure off the lamellar attachments, allowing them to heal.  Over time we’ll see the tubules begin to grow straight down.  The flares and resulting bruising will disappear.  The water line will shrink. The whole hoof capsule will tighten up, supporting the internal structures–and the whole horse–with the integrity for which it was designed.

The lighter coloration of the freshly rasped hoof is decieving.  To me it looks like there is a much greater difference between the heights of the structures.  In reality, the weight bearing surface is pretty smooth.  The bars and bottom of the wall are trimmed way down to help distribute the weight bearing load.

Note the extra toe length as seen in the left front-before shot cracked and broke off a few days before.

 I’m excited!  I think Luna has some darn good feet hiding behind the signs of neglect!

As I wait for the wash bucket to fill to sponge off a very sweaty Bogey, I think about the challenges Indian summer presents to horses, and the ways a natural horseman can meet those needs.

Provide plenty of clean water. Even if he doesn’t appear sweaty, your horse is struggling to keep his temperature down under all that winter wool.

Make sure your horse has access to the electrolytes and minerals that he needs. Whether you use a traditional salt block or, as we prefer at Natural Horse Training Methods, free choice loose minerals, be sure your horse is provided for. If your horse is in heavy training, this may be a good time to supplement with additional electrolytes.  Beware of formulas with lots of sugar and artificial flavors and colors.

Be aware of your horse’s exertion level during work. A natural horsemanship exercise which may be easy under normal circumstances may cause more stress on a warm day to a horse with a thick winter coat. Adjust rest periods accordingly.

Rethink your routine. If heat is going to stress your horse unduly, plan on a slower workout. Practice perfecting tough exercises at walk. The precision you gain will enhance those same movements at faster gaits when the heat wave breaks.

Sponge your horse off well after a training session. Slosh him with cool water then immediately scrape him, several times over. Body heat transferred to the water will be removed when you use your sweat scraper. If you do not sweat scrape, the layer of water on the horse will have the same effect as a thermal blanket!  Sloshing and scraping over and over will help pull heat out quickly.

For a more comprehensive list of suggestions, check out our free article, Natural Horse Care in the Heat. Do you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share with our community? Sound off in the ‘Comments’ section of this blog post.

Natural horse trainers–these suggestions also apply to you! Often we get so caught up in caring for our horses that we forget our bodies need the same care and nutrition we give our horses. Drink more water than you think you need, sample some new flavors of Gatorade, and remember your sunscreen!

Great selection of natural horsemanship videos, too. You name the clinician, they got ‘em: Clinton Anderson, Buck Brannaman, Craig Cameron, Chris Cox, Ed Dabney, Andrea Fappani, Tommy Garland, Gawani Pony Boy, Julie Goodnight, Cherry Hill, Ray Hunt, Linda Tellington Jones, John Lyons/Josh Lyons, Dr Robert Miller, Lynn Palm, Pat and Linda Parelli, Curt Pate, Mark Rashid, Kerry Ridgway, Karen Scholl, Sally Swift, Anna Twinney, Stacy Westfall and Charles Wilhelm.

Check it out! Your Horse Matters

Several of our boarders have new horses, and some of the horses have new riders. Saddle selection and fit is a hot topic of conversation. Natural horse trainers know that comfort and safety supersize performance. A saddle doesn’t need to be expensive, but a saddle that fits both horse and rider AND is built and balanced for the job or sport intended is key to success.

One boarder is looking at Big Horn synthetic saddles. She likes the light weight and the additional suede coverage on the seat and jockeys. The balanced design and extra “stick-um” are perfect for her kids that are new to horsemanship. The affordable price tag is also attractive, especially since The Horse Saddle Shop offers free shipping on top of their low prices and amazing customer service!

Another plus: their downloadable templates and library of free saddle wisdom help you find the perfect fit for you and your horse.

Mark will be looking for a new saddle soon as well. I think we’ve found our winner!

We all give our horses free access to clean water. We all trust that what pours out of the tap is pure.

The Justus’ of Pagosa Springs, CO trusted their county health officials when a water fluoridation plan went into effect. After a heartbreaking battle to save mysteriously ill and dying dogs and horses, the Justus’ learned the source of their animal’ sickness. Lennart Krook,a research doctor at Cornell University, confirmed chronic fluoride poisoning as the culprit behind the seemingly divergent symptoms.
Outraged citizens forced fluoridation to a halt and prevented more disease and death. Who knows the number of unrecognized victims in Pagosa Springs alone?

This video is vital viewing to natural horsemen and horse women with municipal water sources.

Maggie the rescue filly got her first worming today. It was amazing to remember when she first came about a month ago, you couldn’t even get close to her. What a transformation! Today she stood quietly for her Panacur, like an old pro. Come to think of it, I’ve seen “old pro’s” who could learn a lesson in deworming etiquette from her.

The few minutes spent setting Maggie up for success were minutes well invested. I made sure she was consistently dropping her poll on request, using a clicker training bridge signal to reinforce the “yes!” I used advance and retreat to build her confidence and interest in the wormer tube. By the time I squirted the Panacur into her mouth she wanted to be wormed as much as I wanted to worm her.

Way to go, Maggie!

We also shot footage of the session, so horse owners can use the same process to help their own horses accept worming. We’ll post it here. Check back often!

A bridge signal is the foundation of clicker training. In a nutshell, the horse learns to associate an external cue, in this case a “cluck” with my tongue, with getting a treat. Most horses, of course, figure out what we want when they hear “good boy!” or get a rub. Adding a treat is not a bribe, it is essentially an increase in salary–who would not perform better for a bigger paycheck?

The bridge signal allows time to lapse between the desired behavior and the reward. Any good horse trainer knows horses have a very short window of time in which they associate a reaction to their behavior. That is why any reward or correction must be immediate, or else the meaning is lost. The horse’s behavior is marked as a “yes” without the need for instant affirmation. This is just a quickie explanation. For a more detailed explanation, including ways to feed treats safely, please puruse our clicker training articles.

Facing twice-daily epsom salt soaks, I was grateful for the time I had invested teaching Gideon the clicker training bridge signal. The pony was still nervous about having his hooves handled. Clicker training was going to my secret weapon to hasten his healing. As an added benefit, Gideon would learn to love having his hooves handled. His newfound confidence would spill over into other areas of our human-horse relationship and his ongoing natural training.

Thank God it was just an abcess– it’s always disconcerting to see a pony in such pain! (Click here for a free article on equine abcess).

An abcess always means epsom salt soaks, and I knew I was in for a challenge. When Gideon first arrived on the farm he was pretty well behaved…except for his feet. He was petrified of “giving up” his hooves, particularly on his right side. This normally quiet pony would fight like a tiger when you tried to handle his hooves.

Naturally, he had improved immensely with consistent training on the issue. I still did not relish asking him to stand still with his foot in a rubber tub for 20 minutes on end!

I had a choice. I could view the soaking the abcess as drudergy, or I could frame it as a valuable, “real-life” training experience.

This picture of cuteness and innocence had ominous overtones. Breakouts of dangerous communicable equine diseases seem to occur with greater frequency each year. My mind goes back to this past winter when the Florida show circuit ground to a halt due to the outbreak of neurological Equine herpesvirus.

Every year horse owners, riders and trainers have more opportunities to show off their horses. Horse lovers have more opportunities to be educated and entertained among large groups of horses from widespread geographical areas. This added travel and distance may bring added risk.

There is no need to go overboard with fear. However, I think erring on the side of caution is always wise when your–or anyone else’s– horse’s health is in question.

The colt at the horse expo probably just sneezed from dusty shavings. Still, when Mark and I got home we did not go hug our own horses goodnight. Be sure all the clothes we wore to the Horse Expo will get a good wash before they go out on the farm again.