Mutual grooming (allogrooming) is a natural, friendly behavior frequently seen in the herd. The mutual grooming relationship is strongly influenced by seasonal changes as the relative amount of grazing time per day increased. The frequency of mutual grooming is lowest in winter and highest in summer. The mutual grooming relationship is based on the bonds between individual horses and not influenced by social rank. Lower ranking individuals, such as Silver, tend to have a greater variety of grooming partners in summer.

Some horses tend to carry over this behavior while being groomed by their handlers and begin to “groom” their people. Unfortunately, our hide isn’t made for this type of affection. Gently pushing the head away is the best way to save your skin. Watching mutual grooming one of those things that always puts a smile on my face. A sign of friendship and caring. I should be so lucky as to have someone give me a massage like that.

Rescue horse volunteers to do pony rides

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for May 5th) is a day of Mexican heritage and pride that commemorates the Mexican army’s victory at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War in 1862. It’s a day of celebration! This year, Billy, our Palomino at Healing Horses Sanctuary, volunteered to do pony rides for the families celebrating this festive occasion at a block party in Ladner, BC.

Billy came the to the horse sanctuary shortly before her 1st birthday eight years ago. She arrived with her sibling half sister from an Alberta ranch that had experienced a very difficult winter. As often happens with ranch herds, the animals are left to fend for themselves on the ranch lands eating whatever they are able to dig up from under the heavy winter snows. Unfortunately for Billy and her sibling, Winnie, both were malnourished at a very important time in their lives. When they arrived they were dirty, wormy and underweight. We took Billy on at the Sanctuary while Winnie found her way into another girl’s heart.

We did all that we could to return Billy to health as quickly as we could but unfortunately for her, her growth was stunted due to her early malnutrition. Additionally, she had developed hoof problems from a lack of sufficient nutritious feed. She was a registered quarter horse with good bloodlines and should have achieved 15.3 – 16 hands height like her mare but has never exceeded 14 hands.

While her overall health has been excellent since in our care, due to her early malnutrition, her hoof tends to give her problems from time to time and has led to extensive gaps in her training. 1.5 years ago Billy pulled a tendon on her same problem leg and was laid off from all training and riding until this spring. During that time she has not been in a trailer or away from her herd mates so the trip to Ladner was quite a drastic change for her.

Since she is our only pony she was the ideal candidate for the event. She was a dream to saddle up and get into the trailer, just like old times. However, once she realized she was in there alone for the trip she started to fret. The banging on the trailer walls was deafening. I was worried she was going to hurt herself. Once under way though she seemed to settle down and accept the fact that no amount of banging was going to get her back to the field.

Once in Ladner and back in the fresh air she breathed a sigh of relief. However, her relief was short lived when she found herself surrounded by dozens of excited joyful people. More people than she had ever seen in one place at one time.  She wasn’t sure what to do and kept bopping me with head, expecting some kind of explanation from me. I rubbed her and quietly assured her that everything was alright. Soon other hands started to pet her and soon dozens of little hands reached towards her offering her treats of carrots. Bonanza! A carrot fest. Billy couldn’t believe her eyes. So many carrots to chose from. Everywhere she looked. She couldn’t gobble them down fast enough. The delighted glees of children as her soft, warm, fuzzy muzzle touched their fingers while she munched on their sweet orange offerings soon became just background noise as her nervousness dissipated. Before long, she was too full to have even one more bite. She was offered a bucket of water but there was no room left for even one slurp.

One of the adults offered to get on her for the first ride down the block just to get her settled into the unfamiliar weight on her back. By the time we turned our way back up the block Billy was back in her wonderful good form as if she had never not been under saddle. Children of all ages lined up to take their first ever pony ride on Billy. Some were a little hesitant and scared but on, the rocking feeling of the horse’s movements underneath their tiny bottoms far outweighed their unfounded fears and the smiles became wide enough to swallow their little joyful faces.

Marcus, the young boy in the photo, had been asking his parents to go an a pony ride for more than a year. This day his dream came true as did many young children’s. Billy was contented to be of service. I believe she has found her new purpose in life.

Spring blossoms shower the sanctuary horses

It’s a beautiful spring morning here at the horse sanctuary. The horses are lulled into a peaceful slumber under the warm spring sun and fragrant apple blossoms. Perhaps they are dreaming of the bushels of apples that will soon start to appear where the blossoms now glimmer in the sunshine. Thor stands there so majestic looking as though this were his personal kingdom and he, the knight’s horse, waiting to don his armor. His dark bay coat gleams underneath the brilliance of the white blossoms while the birds sing cheerfully among the branches, enjoying an early morning feast. Days like this are so blissful, making the dreary cold wet winter a dread of the recent past months.

When Depp took on the role of Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, he rode a horse who played the character “Gunpowder”.

After production, the one-eyed horse was to be destroyed, until Depp, upon hearing this news, adopted the horse, named Goldeneye, thereby saving him from the glue factory. “He’s the kind of guy that would be really sweet to a girl and bring her flowers,” Traci Lords once remarked, “but still take a pee in the alley.”

Speaking of pee, maybe Depp was just grateful to the horse, as after filming a scene where he’s dragged behind a carriage, Depp was asked what it was like to be dragged through the woods behind a speeding carriage. “I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt, I was just afraid that the horses may relieve themselves on the journey.”

So hey, if you ever do something for the guy, he remembers it.

Further proving his commitment to his loved ones, Depp donated the fee he earned for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus to Heath Ledger’s daughter, after his untimely death. After hearing Depp’s idea, Jude Law and Colin Farrell did the same.

SureToBeUnpopular says:

This is going to be a very unpopular post – there is NOT a home for every horse, and there’s no such thing as a \permanent home\ for any horse. Sooner or later, inside of 25 years (for horses, 35 for ponies) every horse becomes a 1000lb disposal problem. Every single one of them, and every responsible horse owner needs to own up to that fact and take responsibility for it.

Ask yourself – is it really fair to pass on that older horse who’s served you well his entire life, just because you’re afraid to deal with the inevitable? How can you possibly believe that the (maybe) good-hearted adopter will do a better job of kindly and humanely dealing with your old friend, than you could?

I have taken a good bit of grief in my life for humanely putting \beautiful\ horses down, rather than passing them on. It happens that we live near a major equine surgery, and more of my horses have been laid down and worked on by the vets there – and restored to full health – than have been simply laid down (same procedure they’d use on a million-dollar racehorse they expect to wake up) and just not allowed to wake up. There’s absolutely no way you can argue that this is inhumane. It costs me $500 to know that they were handled skillfully and humanely, and not have to deal with the horrific disposal process. As most of them have been in and out of there for exams and shots and sedated procedures before, the stress level is nil. It’s just another trip to the vet, and it’s the kindest and most humane thing I can do for them. And the clinic handles all the disposal, which is the most humane thing I can do for me. That this is even possible, given access to a real horse surgery, seems to be the best-kept secret in the horse world. $500, they take care of everything.

I was down the driveway feeding the rest of the gang.  I looked up and all of a sudden the herd comes running down my way. That little stinker, Jackie, had pulled the chain off of the gate – which I hadn’t fully locked shut – silly me  and let the gang go. How he managed to that with the nose bag still on is beyond me. Anyway, the loose horses headed straight for Silver’s eating area because they have figured out she always has food and grain there and were marauding her food bin. The bunch of them were running up and down the drive way. I had one of the volunteers here, still very inexperienced around horses. I asked Tabitha to stand by the barn gate and open it as I shooed the horses back that way. A couple ran straight in but because the barn is long and narrow, the few bunched up near the front and the others couldn’t get in. So they turned around and headed back to Silver’s digs. Tabitha, being inexperienced, was watching the goings on outside and didn’t notice the horses that had gone in start coming back out again. So I had to start all over again.

This time we locked the barn gate and I had her man the field gate. It was much wider and more could get through. Now that we had fixed it it wouldn’t take much to swing it open and closed again (before fixing it it wouldn’t swing open. You had to lift it open).  It took 2 more attempts before I was able to herd the lot of them back into the field. I waited while they teared around the field several times before settling down. Mostly I was concerned for Silver. This would be very hard on her foot and she would be sore after this.

After everyone finally settled, I went in and brought Silver back out. Not that she wouldn’t be happy to stay with them but the ground is very uneven after the winter and it is too hard on her laminitis. I got her some fresh grain and hay (seeing as how the others had devoured what was there) and left her to her meal while I finished feeding the others.

I was relieved that nothing untoward had happened and I was sure glad that it had happened when I still had the driveway gate closed and blocked with the wheelbarrow otherwise it could have been a disaster.

But what happens when all of these animals are herded together? Think of a bunch of kids in a classroom. It seems that when one child gets a cold or becomes sick, all of his/her classmates follow. So how is it possible that animals in CAFO’s are able to stay disease free? The answer is pharmaceutical drugs…particularly antibiotics. Many animals in CAFO’s are pumped full of antibiotics (not to mention other drugs such as hormones). This allows the animals to grow to their huge sizes with little disease.

So now you have a food environment where the products being sold at grocery stores come from a highly medicated population of animals. Ask yourself a question…What keeps all of these antibiotics (and hormones, etc.) given to the animals from affecting me since I eat them? This question is the reason that the FDA is looking to further regulate antibiotics given to animals.

Scientists say that the use of antibiotics in food production has led to the dramatic increase in dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria. This has become a major problem in the United States healthcare industry the past couple of decades. The reason why changing the antibiotic culture in food production is difficult is that the food industry has so much power and they argue the antibiotics are necessary in the modern production of food.

Taking away antibiotics will certainly raise the cost of some foods. However, there will be drastic healthcare savings later because individuals will not be negatively effected by the current practices of the industry. People need to educate themselves about food production so that they can make proper choices on how to shop for food. Education allows individuals to make choices that will positively impact their health for years to come.

If you would like to read more about the FDA’s approval, you can check out this article from The Associated Press

Courtesy of HealingHands

Last Friday I had noticed Jackie wasn’t being his usual bossy self and was sort of drawing away to the edges of the herd, head hung low. This is always a sure something that something is off. I looked for signs of injury but couldn’t see any cuts or limping. I happened to look under his belly and noticed his genitals seemed very large. I walked over to Rocky to do a comparison check. Definitely something amiss. I then felt around and it was hot, feverish, to the touch. Jackie had developed a genital inflammation, an allergic reaction to something.  We’re not sure exactly what but he had it last spring too. I put him on medication – anthistamines, antibiotics and bute (anti inflammatory) as soon as I discovered it.

I decided I should seperate him out from the other horses for at least a couple of days. I put him in the yard which is fenced and had lots of fresh green grass. He was quite content all day to mow the lawn. Late in the night I was working in the office on some web projects. At midnight I got a call. Marina from next door. She was in bed when she heard what sounded like a horse running up the driveway. I’m thinking what? I knew right away it must have been Jackie, but how? DId he jump the fence or something? The fence around the yard is not very high – only about 4 1/2 feet.  I grabbed my jacket and a halter I had hanging on the fence post and saw the gate was wide open. I should have guessed. The lock artist had managed to pull the pin up and let himself out. I totally wasn’t thinking about that when I put him there.

I ran down the street to the neighbors (we are on acreage so this was a lot more than a 100 ft) . As I got to their driveway, I spotted the evidence – fresh horsey muffins (I am such a good tracker LOL). Marina and Steve were out with their flashlights trying to find him but he was nowhere to be found. Someone else must have also seen Jackie on the road because we noticed a police car cruising by, also checking to make sure the horse wasn’t still out on the road somewhere (seems I am building quite the portfolio for escapee horses). Not finding him in the front section of the acreage we were hoping he hadn’t run into the woods on the back 5 acres. I decided I should go back to my place and check around to see if he might be lurking around in the dark trying to get back in “his” field. After the long trudge back to the property and up the driveway I start calling Jackie but do response. Of course I didn’t have a flashlight with me. I go right up to the gate when lo and behold who do I find standing in the dark shadows under the eave of the garage but the escapee – Jackie. He looks at me as if to say “what took you so long?”.

I phoned Marina that all was well and sorry for the disturbance. Marina hadn’t seemed to put out at all but Steve didn’t seem to happy. This was the second time now in 6 months they have had an unexpected visit from us. Oh well. That’s horses for you. I put Jackie back in the yard and tied the gate this time. I returned to the office to work when I heard hoofs thundering up and down the fence line. Ok. Jackie was now very not happy about being alone, in the dark, in the yard. I knew if I kept him there that night I wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep because I would be worrying about what he would be up to next (this place is old and rickety, posts rotting and doesn’t take much to knock down fencing). I went back out returned Jackie to the field so he could join his buddies. At least this way I would get some sleep. It would just be a little more time consuming to bring him in to give him his meds twice a day. A small price to pay for peace of mind.

Humans and horses became  “powerfully linked” throughout history. The horse played an integral part in the evolution of the arts. For example, the 13th- and 14th-century Mongols, who held their immense empire together with the aid of the horse, also used hair from its tail to create the ancestor of the modern violin bow. During the  Industrial Revolution horse power was ultimately displaced with horsepower, but not before horses had shared the burden with machines such as the horse-drawn, steam-powered fire truck in19th-century Pennsylvania.

It needs to be recognized how crucial a role the horse has played in human history. At one time the relationship could hardly have been ignored. Horses, have cleared forests, plowed land, herded cattle and driven machines. From the moment they were first used to pull chariots into battle (perhaps 1500 B.C.) until their valedictory cavalry campaigns in the Second World War, horses were bound up in human warfare. Similarly with human welfare: in 1900 130,000 horses were working in Manhattan alone and their presence must have been palpable: each horse,  produced up to 45 pounds of manure and 2 gallons of urine every day.

Now we are mainly aware of horses through the remnants of horse-inspired vocabulary, by the persistence of sports like polo, and, as a video shows, from ceremonies from around the world that use the horse to display power and grace. This phenomenon is just a  recent a diminution of importance it is difficult to think of any human activity untouched by the powers of the horse.

But the horse, of course, is equally unthinkable without the human, but humans don’t enter the story for a while. Picture ancient horses of North America, some 50 million years ago: a three-toed Hypohippus feeding on forest shrubs as a large, modern-looking Dinohippus grazes in the grasses. A large number of horse species were “forest browsers” with three toes. But with the changes in climate about 35 million years ago, the predecessor of the modern horse became dominant, his two outer toes yielding to the single hoof, suited to the harder grasslands.

In outlining the evolution of the horse we can also trace the animals’ mass migrations, which are almost the inverse of human pathways. Instead of beginning in Africa and migrating to Europe, Asia and finally to the Americas, like mankind’s ancestors, horses took just the opposite path: the majority of horse species began in the Americas. Some 20 million years ago, three-toed horses crossed into Asia and then into Europe and Africa. About 10,000 years ago, horses became extinct in the Americas — perhaps because of environmental change and overhunting — which is one reason they had such a forceful impact when the Spanish took them back to the Americas, in conquest.

There are extraordinary cave paintings of Southern Europe, which are perhaps 16,000 years old. One, in Lascaux Cave, shows a horse looking exactly like the Przewalski wild horse of Central Asia, with its pale stomach and dark mane. The expansive family tree was pruned over time and not, it seems, by human forces. All contemporary horses — perhaps even the Asiatic wild horse, the Przewalski — are part of a single species, Equus caballus. Even the genus Equus is small, containing only seven living species, including donkeys and zebras.

Recent archaeological research in northern Kazakhstan suggests that the Botai people of Central Asia were among the first to domesticate horses. Digs have yielded evidence of ancient fences, along with soil components suggesting a high concentration of manure. In domestication, horses were remade into human companions and human tools, but physiologically they didn’t change much— something that cannot be said of the boar when it was transformed into a domesticated pig, or the wolf into a domesticated dog. Horses were also “good partners”: herd animals that could also show intense loyalties. They were easily trained and relatively free from the territorial viciousness of related species, like zebras.

Human planning split this single species into numerous branches and over 200 breeds. One ambition was to increase the animal’s size, so it could become a more imposing war-beast, strong enough to bear its own 50 pounds of armor along with the hundreds of pounds of a mounted warrior. So important was the size of warrior horses that in the 16th century, King Henry VIII, coveting the larger animals on the Continent, decreed that all landowners must keep at least two large mares.

Among the gentry of Europe, the domestication of the horse, and the formal display of ownership and mastery, also came to reflect personal cultivation and accomplishment. The French, Spanish and English words for gentleman –chevalier, caballero and cavalier– also mean horseman.

On display at Chicago’s Field Museum is a remarkable life-size sculpture of a horse, “Isbelle,” by Deborah Butterfield. It seems constructed out of scraps of driftwood, but is actually cast bronze, its weathered skeleton looking worn and ancient. It seems old, haphazardly shaped with its random relics and remnants, but the creature is so tautly formed, its skeletal innards seem charged with dynamism and power. It’s not a bad image for this presentation of the horse’s history: it might seem a collection of ancient and random facts, but when brought together as smartly as it is, it almost comes to life, reminding us of the centaurs we all once were.