Lisa Marks-Human & Horse Holistic Services

07/07/2024

I will be doing this myself

SITTING TROT (Quick tip)
To practice your sitting trot: STAND UP!

Yes, that’s right!

Standing up in the stirrups while trotting is one of the first steps to real balance.

Not jumping position leaning over, but STRAIGHT UP.

Are you wobbling around up there?
When you learn to absorb through your joints - hip, knee and ankle joints, up there standing in trot, then your sitting trot stands a chance of being good too.

If you can’t stand with a tiny gap between your p***c bone and the saddle standing fully, your stirrups are too long to help your balance and your heels will be up.
If the gap is Huge when you stand, your stirrups are too short.

Good luck with this exercise!

03/07/2024

📖 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝘼𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙎𝙖𝙡𝙩

🐴 I love reading about misconceptions when it comes to feeding horses, but today I’d like to debunk some common myths about good old sodium chloride.

🧂 Myth #1: Salt only needs to be fed when the weather is hot.

🐴 Truth #1: Salt needs to be fed 365 days a year because it is vital for many bodily processes and is excreted in sweat, saliva, mucous and urine. Even in the midst of winter, horses need salt.

🧂 Myth #2: Horses instinctively know to drink water regularly, especially when they are hot and sweaty.

🐴 Truth #2: A horse’s thirst reflex is triggered by sodium, which is a component of salt. Horses’ sodium requirements need to be met in order for them to seek water.

🧂 Myth #3: A horse can meet their sodium and chloride requirements with a salt block alone.

🐴 Truth #3: Unlike cattle, horses do not have an abrasive tongue and are not designed to lick harsh surfaces to extract nutrients. While it is technically possible for a horse to consume their daily salt requirement from a salt block, it is much less work and more physiologically-appropriate for them to consume loose salt that is either provided in a meal or left out free-choice.

🧂 Myth #4: Horses know what nutrients they need and can self-medicate with supplements such as vitamins and minerals.

🐴 Truth #4: Salt is the only nutrient horses have been studied and proven to actively seek out when it is required. They will not seek out other nutrients “because they know they need it.” Look at how much salt and molasses (palatable additives) are added to free-choice supplements.

🧂 Myth #5: Himalayan rock salt is better for horses than plain salt.

🐴 Truth #5: Himalayan rock salt contains naturally occurring components other than sodium and chloride. Some may view this as a positive; however, it is usually a more expensive means of supplementing salt, and often contains traces of iron which almost never needs to be supplemented given horses are generally oversupplied iron by their forage intake alone.

🐎 Your horse’s diet should be providing a minimum of 10g of salt per 100kg of body weight each day; typically more after exercise, intense weather, or illness. Ensuring your horse always has access to clean, cool, and fresh drinking water will ensure they remain well-hydrated and if by chance they intake more salt than necessary, the water they drink allows them to excrete excess very effectively. The best kind of salt to feed is plain sodium chloride such as table salt, unless the diet is deficient in iodine which makes iodised salt more appropriate.

28/04/2024

21/04/2024

29/02/2024

I didn't buy any hay this year and I can't say the ponies missed it but I have noticed there's been a lot more foraging in the undergrowth and along the stone walls. The gorse patches we cut down last year were also a favourite place to be, historically gorse was used as a food source and for bedding.
Fodder such as gorse and holly were given to the animals in times gone by, even to dairy cattle when the addition of young holly tips to the diet was said to significantly improve the creaminess of the milk. An acre of gorse or furze was able to provide sufficient fodder for six horses with half the protein content of oats. It was usual practice to run the branches through stone mills or hit them with wooden mallets in Gorse factories. The bushes were often deliberately burnt down to encourage new growth, the fresh sprouts of furze and grass providing easily accessible food for stock. Our own investigations and analysis of gorse showed that it contains very high levels of saponins and phenolics with anti-arthritic, anti-viral, and analgesic properties.
What food do we give to our horses now that would provide the equivalent in anti-oxidants? Our research over the last 10 years or so has indicated it is the woody shrubs, berries, and twigs that provide a wide range of vital compounds with medicinal properties, even more so than the usual and traditional herbs.

17/02/2024

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you need permission, you have mine.
Put them down.

That old horse that can’t always get up on their own, or keep weight on despite your best effort, you may put them down.

The horse that was diagnosed with all the aweful acronyms, and will never be comfortable- it’s okay to put them down.

You’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to get that horse sound. It’s young, “well bred”, and you thought you would be working on straightness in the flying changes by now, not yet more imaging. You can’t afford another horse, and you can’t sell a lame one. You can maybe sorta keep them pasture sound and comfortable with $300 shoes and another $300/month in supplements and add complimentary therapies on top…. It’s financially destroying you. Just stop.

If anyone disagrees with me, or you can put a post on their own darn page, and stay out of my comment section, but I do not believe it is some moral obligation to absolutely destroy yourself, financially and emotionally, too keep a broken horse alive and comfortable.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of aging horses on my farm and they are all healthy and happy and my plans are for them to be here until the end. But horses don’t just die peacefully in their sleep one night. Not usually. All too often their deaths are traumatic and awful.  Sure I would love if my old heart horse out there beat the odds and is one of the few horses to just lay down and peacefully cross over, but I am absolutely not counting on that… so he has  it to count on me to not wait too long.
For those of you who can’t bring yourself to make that decision without some kind of permission, I grant you mine. If you love that horse, but think it might be the end, I trust that you did not come to that decision lightly. If in your heart, you know, it’s time, please let them go.

11/02/2024

𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗟𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀

𝘉𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘩, 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 - first published 2014

As imaging technology improves we are able to detect problems that where simply not identifiable in the past with what tools existed. Unless a horse was autopsied and dissected some of these pathologies remained unknown and behavior and performance deficits remained attributed to the horse's character rather then his anatomy or fell into the mystery lameness category.

Cat Walker's Master in Equine Science degree's thesis (Foundations of Soundness with Cat Walker) and the work of other Equine Scientists like her is important because it sheds light on what some of these mysteries really are about.

Instead of some "missing piece" or mystical trauma, there are bones and vertebras that are deformed, squashed, fused, abnormally shaped through genetics or acute injury, there are jaws with teeth that should not be, and joints that have fused, pelvis and sacrum locked in a bone brace, scars that reach deep into the body..in a word, the internal picture does not match the external one.

This horse which cannot flex even though his neck looks like a swan, this horse who cannot collect even though he cost six figures and is bred like a Collection God...This horse who has a hard mouth which no bit, dentist or change of training method can help...

Sometimes, sumptuous coats and muscles are draped over skeletons that have gone terribly wrong. While muscles dictate to bones and joints what they can do, muscles cannot action bones that are frozen and stuck. Nerves that have been impinged cannot convey messages properly or at all from brain to body and back.

Spine with extra vertebral processes, missing ones, broken ones, the list goes on and on.

Traumatized bone, soft tissues and fascia reacts, shrink wrapping blood vessels and nerves, creating protective shells by overlaying bone, scaring, adhering and altogether impairing the whole horse in an effort to protect individual trauma sites.

There is a whole cascade of biological sequences happening constantly which we are mostly blissfully ignorant of.

We think more outside rein will fix this, or more inside leg a change of saddle, bit, trainer, vet, shoes, supplements, footing, barn will fix this. We learn that none of it does. As long as we only consider the outside of the horse, we can only fumble around.

Unfortunately for the horse and for us.

In some cases, riding this disastrous cascade of events can lead to permanent crippling of your horse, it can cause permanent and painful damage. It may also kill or injure you, the rider when the instability becomes a break and your horse falls into a heap in the middle of a canter or over a jump. When he is ravaged by a neurological storm and he can no longer control his limbs while you are riding or by his side and he falls. When he is in such pain, he bucks, rears, and bolts to escape it and takes you with him until he unseats you.

Those who have experienced it will tell you their terror and then their guilt over not knowing sooner, not figuring it out, missing clues and punishing a horse whose body was betraying him. And his rider too.

There is another way to become aware of these issues besides advanced imaging. And that is PALPATION and OBSERVATION. Two skills that are rapidly being challenged in a losing battle by advancing technology which can look into the body and even analyze gaits to find lameness but cannot know the horse as a sentient being can. Technology which does work that veterinarians a few decades ago, a century and more ago, would do in great part by ear, sight, touch.

I think new technologies are a blessing upon horses because they can take up where our abilities to feel and see come short and allow us to test our hypothesis and form new ones.

I think they are a curse, if it means that the old ways of assessing, measuring and identifying issues using our hands, eyes, ears and brain first are dismissed in favor of software, scanners and micro cameras as a substitute for feel. This happens when humans function under the illusion that modern technology can connect the same dots, have the same spark of insights, that a person has.

It reminds me of young people who can no longer write in cursive because they use texting and computers only. Research shows that in forming letters, our brain also learns to form thoughts in ways appliances do not encourage. This impacts our critical thinking abilities and it changes how we learn, question, and create -- and not for the better. See Neil Postman's work on this subject, it is illuminating.

Thus to be of service to horses and their owners, equine health professionals must nurture their ability to feel, observe and think. They must study and educate themselves. They must look for patterns from horse to horse, compare notes and grow their inner data base. It sounds simple enough. It is not.

In teaching his acupuncture course, the late Dr. Ridgway could point to the whisper of an indentation on a horse's skin that signal the pool of energy where points reside but he could not make someone feel it. Feel is not petting, rubbing, poking mechanically.

Feel is the ability to read a horse's anatomy like braille.

Add knowledge and an equine health pro can help point the way to what is wrong, which technology can investigate and confirm. Feel + Knowledge + Technology can save your horse and you time and suffering --and costly bills.

So, when you have selected a qualified equine health pro to help with your horse's issue and these trained hands, eyes, ears and brain detect a problem through feel and experience. When they recommend exams, do not dismiss them lightly or let anyone on your horse's health team wave suggestions away because of territoriality.

Find out why your horse cannot work, look beneath the skin, be aware of all the myriads of issues that can live there without any external clues and are too often interpreted as behavioral and training issues by trainers and health pros that instead of admitting their lack of knowledge prefer to blame the horse.

To avoid this requires working with properly trained professionals.

First, picking trainers, hoof pros, massage therapists and body workers who are qualified for the work they do. Audit, audit, audit. Ask for references. Trust your eyes rather then your ears. Then pick a veterinarian that does not just have a lot of expensive equipment, though we do want the best equipment, but one that has the ability to also see your horse without it and enough experience to connect the dots, ask questions, and create a map that will lead to some answers, maybe THE answer.

Your horse is a stradivarius. He is a complex, delicate collection of systems, as you are. Do not over simplify. Do not look away because you are overwhelmed and feel inadequate when faced with bones, sinew, fascia, ligaments, nerves and pain. Learn, educate yourself, take a course, read. Ask Questions.

In a word, think of and see your horse inside, out.

𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸, 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲? 𝘉𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳

Cat Walker's post that inspired this post in 2014. I recommend visiting her page for excellent information:

https://www.facebook.com/FoundationsOfSoundness?mibextid=2JQ9oc

"What is it that we are really seeing and feeling in our horse's bodies? Is a bulge in the neck really just "out" or temporarily misaligned? Is it a muscle that is overdeveloped, or stuck in contraction? Or, are the bones actually in bigger trouble than we might think?

In becoming aware of what we are really feeling underneath the skin, we can make informed decisions about how to manage the problem.

Sometimes, that means seeking the help of an experienced veterinary chiropractor to help restore normal range of motion.

Sometimes, that means having radiographs taken to determine whether there is a fracture, or significant bony changes occurring, and implementing appropriate veterinary treatment strategies.

Sometimes, it IS just a temporary kink in the neck caused by muscle spasm, and we need to address the training problem or body imbalance that might be causing it, while releasing the affected area with appropriate soft tissue therapy modalities.

Sometimes, it is a combination of these.

And sometimes, it is the result of a problem out of our control, that we can try to support palliatively with dietary supplementation, medication, and/or maintenance massage to keep the horse as comfortable as possible while trying to slow down degenerative changes.

But if you jump to conclusions without considering all these possibilities, you'll never know.

What really lies beneath?

The only ones who can answer that question properly are the horses who end up on the dissection table."

𝗔𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀:

Another excellent post from Cat with the text that accompanied the image below.

https://www.facebook.com/FoundationsOfSoundness/photos/a.332736363522628/442842375845359/?type=3&mibextid=I6gGtw

Be sure to read her post.

To develop your knowledge check :

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/improvedhorseperformance

and:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/equinewellnesscourse2013

𝗙𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗔𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗺

➡️ Joint Health: The health of joints is crucial for movement. Cartilage degradation, such as in osteoarthritis, can limit movement and cause pain, affecting how muscles move bones.

➡️ Fascia: This is a band or sheet of connective tissue, primarily collagen, beneath the skin that attaches, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs. Fascia can influence muscle movement and flexibility.

➡️ Blood Supply: Adequate blood flow is vital for muscle function. It provides oxygen and nutrients to muscles and removes waste products. Poor circulation can affect muscle performance and healing.

➡️ Endocrine System: Hormones can influence muscle function. For example, cortisol (a stress hormone) can affect muscle tissue, and growth hormone plays a role in muscle growth and repair.

➡️ Nutrition and Hydration: Adequate nutrition and hydration are crucial for optimal muscle function and bone health.

➡️ Exercise and Use: Regular use and exercise of muscles and joints play a significant role in maintaining their health and function. Lack of use can lead to atrophy and stiffness.

➡️ Aging and Disease Impact: Aging and certain diseases can affect muscles, bones, and nerves, altering their function and coordination.

Awareness of these additional factors helps provide a more holistic view of what affects bone and muscle movement and overall musculoskeletal health.

First published 2014.


Image from ©️Cat Walker, Foundations of Soundness

05/02/2024

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should...

Going back almost 15 years and as far as I’m aware, I didn’t have a bad reputation in the horse industry. I backed horses calmly and quietly. I would ‘bit’ them, put tack on, lunge them, long rein and lay over them, all before quietly getting onboard.

When schooling, I could get a horse in a frame and hold it together with relative ease and I could sit a bronc or a rear if needed. I was pretty fearless. I rode some horses in draw reins if they didn’t soften to my hand or were inconsistent in the mouth. My whip was for correcting behaviour and I certainly wasn’t afraid to use it if I thought it was necessary (or if I ran out of ideas or patience).

I took on problem horses and had a really good success rate at dealing with those problems.

Only I didn’t.

Looking back, I think it’s likely that I only dealt with the symptoms of the problems. For example, the horse that didn’t want to stand at the mounting block; I trained him easily by using ‘pressure and release’ with a well timed reward and he soon learned to go to the mounting block. What I probably didn’t see were the tight, sore, angry muscles. The stiff back, the poor posture. The atrophy under the saddle. The compromised gait. All of which contributed to his lack of willingness to be mounted.

The horses with poor mouths that I lunged in training aids, side reins, rode in draw reins, all learned that they couldn’t escape the persistence of my rein and began to comply. Eventually they learned to compensate elsewhere in their bodies, likely becoming shut down in the process.

Over the last 15 years, I have watched countless hours of horses moving. I have studied their gaits, I have felt their musculature. I have picked up hundreds of limbs, palpated countless tendons, lesions and effusions, and I have witnessed the damage caused by doing things the way that I amongst others used to do them. I can say with a degree of certainty that if you are having a problem with your horse - no matter what the symptoms are - your problem lies with a lack of one or more of the following:

(Ambi)dexterity/straightness
Strength/fitness
Balance
Coordination
Comfort
Confidence/trust
Communication
Resilience

Treating the symptoms without addressing the cause will usually mean that the human’s needs are met and the horse’s needs aren’t.

Like many trainers, I am aware of the signals a horse gives to express how it feels: whether it is threatened or whether it feels safe. I am able to quit right before I pass a threshold. I instinctively use approach and retreat techniques to foster anything from confidence through to suppleness. All of this gives me an ability to help a horse to overcome a problem very quickly, but it also gives me the ability to bend the horse to my will - a fact we must treat with great care and respect.

I could probably load a ‘problem loader’ in half the time I take, if I only used ‘pressure and release’. If only I wasn’t so aware of the delicate structures around the horse’s head and face and the potential psychological issues I could cause by forcing the horse to load without understanding it’s side of the story.

Nowadays I do things very differently. I can hear what the horse is saying through his actions. I can feel what his body tells me when I ride him, through my seat and down the rein. Which parts move well and which parts don’t. I constantly observe the entire picture. His breathing, gait, demeanour, muscle tone and posture. I read his actions and I learn from his reactions. I take everything on board and work in the most physically and mentally appropriate way for that moment. I condition his body whilst gently conditioning his mind. As a result I can desensitise a sensitive horse without waving objects like flags and tarpaulins around and I can prepare a horse for saddling without the need to send it broncing around an arena aimlessly.

Nowadays, despite having the ability to back your horse in days, I won’t. Because I know that in the long run I would’ve done your horse a disservice and any trust he placed in humans would likely start to falter when his body started to ache and his brain started to fry through being ill prepared.

I could train your horse to approach the mounting block, but only once I’m confident that his reasons for resisting mounting have been heard and his needs have been met.

Horses are the most fantastic animals. Sure, they do stupid stuff sometimes and they aren’t always the most logical(!). But they are unbelievably generous and forgiving. They are adaptable, malleable and trainable. Therefore, we owe it to them to make sure that their needs are met when we are ‘problem solving’.

They will give and give, which puts us in a position to take and take.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

05/02/2024

“I don’t want much, I just want to groom once in a while and go for an easy trail ride here and there”-

This is a statement folks often make, which makes perfect sense from a human point of view. It doesn’t require much time, effort or skill gaining, and the expectation appears low- for the horse to just stand quietly, or happily trod along down the trail.

From a riders perspective, grooming requires relaxing and enjoying brushing their horse. Trail riding usually involves relaxing and leaving the horse mostly alone to enjoy the outdoors and company.

From a horses point of view, however, this is not so easy a task. To ”just be brushed,” the horse has to have enough confidence to leave the herd, the skills to lead well to the barn, the ability to stand tied quietly for a length of time in isolation away from friends, to stay focused enough to stand despite the distractions and movement around them in the barn.
That’s a lot!

To “just trail ride,” the horse has to have the afore mentioned skills, plus load in a trailer, ride in the trailer and unload (those are all separate skills), leave friends quietly and ride calmly past all kinds of input and stimulus- they have to know what rider input to tune into (legs and reins), and which to shut out (rustling around to get a granola bar out of saddle bags, yammering to friends). They have to manage terrain with balance, leave or join other horses, or ride past other people, dogs, bikes, etc. They often have little guidance from a rider who’s expectations and attention to the horse is low (who is relaxing and enjoying company or scenery, not giving attentive communications to the horse).

That’s a TALL order for a horse, and quite a drastic difference in expectation between horse and rider in terms of education, attention and workload.

Think from the horses point of view. Don’t skimp on the education, the awareness, and don’t leave your horse to their own devices for “simple tasks.” A horse is a horse, and not a human- and they see our world very differently. It’s on us to prepare and guide them.

02/02/2024

Recently, there have been images and videos doing the rounds on social media of a well known clinician working a horse in the round pen to the point where the horse is so overwhelmed and exhausted, they lay down.

Alexa Linton made a wonderfully written post about this; describing the behavior as an example of the collapse response in horses. Certainly not something anyone would want to ever aim for in their training.

For the past 30 years we have described this coping mechanism, part of our 5 F's, as "Faint".

"Faint" is typically the least common coping mechanism seen in domesticated animals, thankfully. Faint can sometimes be seen at the track when horses are saddled quickly and tightly while under a great amount of stress and the horse simply lies down. The animal’s nervous system is so overwhelmed that they go in to a “catatonic” state.

A horse who is under extreme pressure to trailer load or go through an obstacle may simply lie down and “say uncle”. Essentially their nervous system “shuts down” in an attempt to halt further escalation.

Learning to observe and respond to an animal's whispers, so you can avoid triggering these 5 F's, will help any guardian (whatever the species) become more empathetic and effective while building trust and communication.

Want to read more about the 5 F's? Check out this blog post: https://www.ttouch.ca/2021/07/14/the-5-fs-of-behaviour-beyond-fight-flight/

01/12/2023

- Melwood Equestrian in conjunction with BetaVet would love to give our followers the opportunity to be involved in a 3 day Virtual BetaVet Bash via a private facebook group.
In the Bash we will be showing you the fabulous BetaVet product range, sharing tips and advantages of using BetaVet, running a competition to win some of your fave BV products & also offering an instore discount at the end of our “Bash”! For those wanting to join the group, flick through a PM and we will send you an invite! Exciting stuff!

01/12/2023