The opinions and views of this blog is for information and entertainment only and should not be used as a substitute for seeking advice from your veterinarian about your horse and your situation. Specific advice may only be given after a valid veterinary - client - patient relationship is made.
Are horses today natural and normal and are they better off?
What is natural? The dictionary definition states that something is natural if it is not made or caused by humankind. We have bred them for speed, beauty, agility, and strength. We have not bred for structural soundness (hooves, joints, or teeth). We place them in stalls or small paddocks, feed them man made grains, ship them all over the world, and compete them in ways that maybe they were not designed to do. Therefore, by definition, there are no natural horses today because either through breeding or captivity, they have all been affected by humans. Applying a bare hoof trim may or may not benefit the horse that by definition is unnatural in an unnatural environment (stabling, competition). Over drugging and hanging a horse's head from the ceiling may work for most horses, but by design it is unnatural and will hurt many others.
What is normal? It truly is what ever you believe. If you have a belief about what training, shoeing, or floating method is normal, you will do that method for as long as it works. You will change your belief of what is normal when you either discover something that works better or you determine that what you are doing is harmful to your horse. Unfortunately, irreparable damage may occur before your discovery.
What is better? First, ask the horse. He will tell you if barefoot or shod, bit or bit-less, drugged and head hanging or not drugged dentistry is right for him. Second, become educated and aware. You are truly your horse's only advocate.
The following story describes the conflict that can occur between your advocacy of the horse and the respect for the professional.
About 15 years ago a horse owner called her vet to have her horse's teeth floated. It was maintenance and there were no complaints from the horse. The vet arrived with a non-veterinary dentist and proceeded to extract several teeth. He cited a study from the 1860's that said horses did not need certain teeth and that their removal would benefit the horse and lengthen his life. The owner had doubt and she was in conflict because she had respect and faith in this vet and the profession in general. But the vet was agreeing with the dentist and so, against her inside voice, she allowed the extractions to occur. A short time later the horse died from an inability to chew. The owner, still angry today, believes that if she had followed her gut feeling and said no, her horse would have lived his full life.
Believe it or not, this story gets worse. Yes this dentist was ordered by the court never come to their state again to work. But six years later, as a ranking member of an equine dental organization promoting the new style of dentistry, he was invited to a meeting of equine veterinarians to teach how to fill cavities in a horse. He stated that the horse would live 5 years longer if we started to do this. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a game played against human emotion and has no scientific truth to it at all.
Horsemanship is an art form that was practiced daily when the horse was an integral part of human life. Now that horses are living recreational vehicles for most of us in the US, horsemanship has been replaced with horse owners susceptible to charlatans. Some of these people think they are doing good and some even have college degrees. To confuse things, some have letters after their names associating themselves with non-accredited and unregulated organizations.
As your horse's advocate, what can you do?
- Think and ask questions. Dig deep to find integrity in your professional. Confidence, but willing to say "I don't know but I'll ask someone who does" is a good sign. Arrogance and a condescending way is not good.
- Develop your internal truth detector and don't restrict it with a false sense of respect because the professional is smarter than you. Remember, no one knows your horse better than you. And your horse counts on you to stick up for him.
- Check out my Equine Practice blog. Over the next year I will release videos explaining basic concepts in horse health. My goal is to make the hard easy to understand and the complex simple.
.