The webinar I did this week, Natural Healing Secrets for Rescued and Adopted Animals, is now available as a recording. To receive the link, along with some more free stuff, go to www.RescueHorseMassage.com! (Once there, look at the right side margin and you’ll see a blue box with a link to “Get them all here.”)
Archive for the ‘Related Holistic Care’ Category
Free Webinar: Natural Healing Secrets for Rescued and Adopted Animals
Posted in Miscellaneous, News, Related Holistic Care, Webinars, tagged adopt, healing, natural, rescue, webinar on July 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Registration is now available for my first webinar! The first topic is massage tips especially suited for rescued and adopted animals, as you can see in the title above.
Go to www.RescueHorseMassage.com to register for the event.
It’s a 1 hr free webinar. Just click on the link and it will take you step-by-step through the process of registering and attending. You can attend live, or listen to a recording later anytime. You’ll automatically be e-mailed a link to the recording later if you register.
But before you can register, you’ll have to confirm your request for the subscription, so be sure to watch your e-mails!
The information in the webinar will apply extremely well to horses, as well as to dogs and cats and many other species. Very soon I’ll have a more in-depth, on-line class dedicated especially to rescue horses (and different classes for dogs and cats).
I look forward to sharing lots of information with you in the webinar!
Prince’s saddle-fitting appointment
Posted in Related Holistic Care, Video, Websites and Blogs, tagged back health, Port Lewis Impression Pad, ReactorPanel Saddle, saddle fitting on June 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Prince-a-roo is our family’s ever-young gelding, 1/2 Morgan and 1/2 Connemara, now 8 years old. He recently 
had an appointment to recheck the fit of his ReactorPanel Saddle. Saddle fit is a critical topic for all riders to understand something about, and very importantly, to have some awareness of what you don’t know along with that which you do learn along the way. In other words, I hope you realize that just because you don’t know that your horse’s saddle doesn’t fit, please don’t assume that it does fit. Make sense? Maybe it does, or maybe it doesn’t and it’s just not that obvious.
I had ridden Prince sporadically over the last couple of years since his saddle was fit for him. (It’s an adjustable saddle, custom-fit but not custom-made.) He had changed, and I had made some adjustments myself to the saddle, so I was thrilled to get a chance to have the owner of the RP saddle company check it out in person when she was in town recently. I knew I also wanted to have a test ride with a Port Lewis Impression Pad (see next paragraph) at the same appointment. I’m happy to report that the fit looked good, so we went right to testing it with the impression pad, and the results were essentially perfect, zero see-through spots and only one small area of slightly thinner orange-red goo. Yay!
I did not take my camera with me to photograph Prince’s results, but you can go to this site to see a photo (scroll down for it) of an impression pad result from a random test with another horse/saddle. It shows you how the red goo inside the pad squishes away from the areas of higher pressure, leaving some clear areas. With less serious pressure points, you see areas where more light shines through thinner goo when held up to the light. This is a wonderful tool to use to really know what your horse’s back is experiencing when you ride. Because you do test it with a ride, not just standing in the aisle way as saddle fit is so often checked. (And my suggestion is that if you’re part of a group such as a club or a boarding facility, you look into having everyone pitch in a few bucks and buy one to share!)
Since a well-fitting saddle is so critical to the health of any riding horse’s back (no matter how often they get massaged), I will do the next couple posts on the same topic, so stay tuned….
Listen to Dr. Kari DeLeeuw on prevention
Posted in Horse Tip Daily Podcasts, Related Holistic Care, tagged DeLeeuw, Horse Tip Daily Podcasts, prevention on April 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Equine veterinarian, chiropractor, and acupuncturist Dr. Kari DeLeeuw offers another tip on Horse Tip Daily.
Horse Tip Daily #176
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Has your horse been to the dentist lately?
Posted in Anatomy, Related Holistic Care, Websites and Blogs, tagged dentist, veterinarian, Vetter on April 7, 2010| 2 Comments »
My three horses, Kiona, Rainbow and Prince, just had their spring appointment with Veterinary Equine Dentist Dr. Richard Vetter, DVM. (His website is very informative, check it out!) About 10 years ago I learned something about the difference between a dental specialist versus a general practitioner vet doing dentistry (floating teeth). Ever since having my eyes opened to this contrast, I make it a point to have my horses see a dental specialist at least every two years, and generally every year (or more often if necessary). (In fact, before this week’s appointment it had been two years, and now I regret waiting that long. That is, they’ve been checked by other vets every six months, and even floated some, yet were still overdue for the level of care that a specialist can provide. I know this not only because of what Dr. Vetter could show me in their mouths, but also by Rainbow’s difficulty chewing recently, Kiona’s sores inside her cheeks, and the limited side-to-side range for chewing/grinding for all three horses).
For the “inbetween” appointments, in my case usually for the fall shots for example, or perhaps at a chiropractic appointment, I certainly appreciate any vet taking a look in their mouth to check on them. General practitioners are very capable of basic care, of course, but how can they be expected to do any more than this minimum without the time and training devoted to teeth as a specialty? Would you rely on your doctor to take care of your own teeth? Waiting for sharp points and sores on the inside of the cheeks to do some floating is like waiting for your horse to go lame before doing preventative care for their muscles and joints, like massage or chiropractic care.
Using massage as an analogy here is especially appropriate because of the close connection between a horse’s teeth and their musculoskeletal system. Problems with the teeth, whether pain issues or problems with the symmetry and range of motion for how the top and bottom teeth meet and move, can have very direct consequences for your horse’s ability to move correctly, athletically, and comfortably. Again, I invite you to check out Dr. Vetter’s website, because you’ll find lots of information there about these topics!
All About Equine Massage 