Edition VIII

Hi

Welcome to this month’s HorseConscious Newsletter.

Well, the big news of the last week and month has been the shocking video of a warm-up at a World Cup dressage qualifier. If you haven’t seen it yet, I invite you to do so over at:
http://www.DressageDisgrace.com

but be warned, it does not make for easy viewing. After you have watched it, I would ask you to sign up for the news updates and tips on how you can help by filling out your name and email address in the box at the top right.

When I first watched the video, I was immediately struck by the obvious and horrible images that take place in the first few minute or so before the rider intervenes. Actually though, what followed was to me even more profoundly shocking because it was so unnatural. It is easy to imagine someone who has never even seen a horse before, watching the video and saying: "Surely that’s not natural, is it?"

It’s amazing what a storm this is creating though. Carolyn Resnick not only sent in a statement but mentioned it on her blog recently, which generated a lot of supportive and useful comments. I have heard too from Lydia Nevzorov, who has submitted statements from both Alexander and herself, and more comments are following all the time.

In fact, I’ve just been exchanging emails with Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling‘s office and he has agreed to do a call with us in mid-November and I’ll be writing to the HorseConscious Members if they are OK to make this call public to help raise awareness of the campaign to ban hyperflexion.

The power of online social media world is immense and with a ‘sleeper’ story such as this one, it relies on the people on the leading edge to spread the message on to their own networks and so it propogates. By reading this, you are on the leading edge and if this moves you at all to act, please use the tools suggested on the HOW TO HELP page or just sign up for the updates and I will drip these to you.

There is now Facebook group on the subject, which has over 2,000 members already and there are 2 different petitions. You can access both of these by going to:
http://www.DressageDisgrace.com

It’s been a busy month in other ways too with the Horse As Teacher Teleseminar Series running on 3 consecutive Wednesday and which finished last week. The series proved enormously popular and we had some fascinating discussions with Stormy May, Anna Twinney and Kathy Pike amongst a galaxy of other equine luminaries. It was great to catch up with these as well as meet a host of new horse teachers in Mary Beth Meyers, Wendy Golding, Melisa Pearce, Karen Head, Lisa Dee, Holli Lyons, Susan Williams and Marilyn Schwader.

If you missed the calls, the downloads for them are still available at http://www.horseconscious.info/hatshop.htm
along with the Horse As Teacher book.

This weekend’s HorseConscious Members call is with Liz Mitten Ryan, who will be talking about her ‘Understanding the Infinite’ workshops which attracted a lot of media interest over the summer. I hear that even on of Oprah‘s leading people attended and that the workshops will be featured on Oprah’s blog in November, which is very exciting! I look forward to talking with Liz and hearing all about it on Sunday.

OK, that wraps it up for this month except to say I hope you enjoy reading this month’s newsletter below!

Till next month if not before.
Best wishes

Mark Mottershead

"Closeness, friendship, affection: keeping your own horse means all these things."Bertrand Leclair

New Wild Horse Plan Reflects Political Reality
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has developed a wild horse plan that makes much more sense and is less costly than one approved by the House in July.

Salazar has proposed creating seven wild horse preserves, including two owned and operated by the Bureau of Land Management. The remaining five preserves, which would be run by nonprofit, private groups, would be located in the Midwest and East.

Interior officials created a stir earlier this year when they warned that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros now under federal control might be necessary to combat the rising costs of maintaining them. The House then passed the Restore Our American Mustangs Act, which would direct the BLM to find an additional 20 million acres of rangeland for the animals.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the House action at up to $500 million. The agency said the cost of enacting all of the programs in the bill would be about $200 million over the next five years, if the Senate goes along with the plan.

Salazar said the two federally owned wild horse preserves, at locations yet to be determined, would cost about $92 million to buy and build. But the cost to taxpayers for care of the horses and burros would be reduced in the long term. The annual operating and maintenance cost of the BLM preserves would be only about $1.7 million.

Some ranchers, American Indian groups and Western lawmakers — including Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. — want to reverse a decades-old ban on selling horses for slaughter. Such killing would be done humanely under federal guidelines, but Salazar — who has heard plenty about wild horses in his few months on the job — said the idea is a "nonstarter."

"The fact is that the American public has shown that it does not want to have slaughtering of these animals," the secretary said.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 was supposed to protect wild horses by properly managing the animals on available public rangeland and allowing people to adopt excess animals that were rounded up by the BLM. But adoption numbers have dwindled dramatically in the past few years, and now there are nearly 37,000 wild horses and burros roaming the West. The BLM estimates the current rangeland can support about only 26,600 of the animals. Another 32,000 are cared for in corrals and pastures in Rock Springs, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

In reality, the 1971 law placed the BLM in a no-win situation: It had to round up animals where they were too plentiful, but it couldn’t humanely kill them when no one wanted to adopt them.

All of the horses and burros living on the preserves would be sterilized or segregated by sex, so that they would not reproduce. The BLM would seek to sterilize or control the reproduction of enough animals on the range so that the birth rate is 3,500 foals a year, about the current annual adoption total, so there would be no net growth of the wild herd.

An added bonus of Interior’s plan is that the preserves would be open to the public, so there would be some tourism benefits that could help offset the overall cost of maintaining the herds.

Given the political realities outlined by Salazar, he’s offered a workable, affordable compromise that will preserve the wild horses while limiting the damage they do to Western rangelands.

thetrib.com, Chad Baldwn

NEW ARTICLES ON HORSECONSCIOUS

Introducing Impressive Harmón, 2009 – Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling

The 11 years old PRE stallion Harmón was participating in the September programme 2009. The owner, who had done her very best to help him and treated him very gently and soft, had not been able to really heal the deep emotional wounds this stallion suffered because of wrong treatment, and she still had many problems with dominance and riding because of the his resistance. Harmón turned out to have major traumas and was extremely depressed, which the course participants could also see in the working sessions they experienced with him and Klaus.

Harmón is a very talented horse with an extraordinarily spiritual character but his spirit was broken, so after the course Klaus kept him at the school farm to give him a thorough therapy and a complete new guidance to support all the qualities he has. After something like 10 sessions where the main issue was to bring the stallion out of his depression and to resolve his resistance towards people, Klaus is in this clip walking with the stallion on the soft hills of the island and we show some impressions from the first session of real encouraging lunging work where the stallion can really present and show himself, and become a totally new understanding of his authentic balance and posture.

To read the compete article and more of Klaus’ articles, visit Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling on HorseConscious

The Horse in My Cathedral – Linda Kohanov

Creating a business based on the innovative and untried concept of authentic interspecies community, during a major worldwide financial crisis no less, was a research project extraordinaire, and I have much to share in this regard that you’ll likely be reading about this time next year when my fourth book is scheduled to be published.

Tentatively titled, The Horse in My Cathedral: Lessons in Visionary Leadership, Non-Predatory Wisdom and Authentic Power, this volume combines “cathedral thinking” (a mindset concerned with long-term, socially-significant ideas) with the wisdom of the horse, an animal that, while powerful, approaches the world from a non-predatory perspective capable of nourishing individual and group needs simultaneously. Not only will this book address how our concept of leadership needs to change in order for the human race to evolve, it will offer solutions taken from Epona’s own highly experiential research into emotional and social intelligence, intuition, assertiveness, nonverbal communication, and authentic community building.

To read the compete article, visit Linda Kohanov on HorseConscious

Cajun’s Recovery – Kathy Pike

Cajun the wildly spotted appaloosa featured in the chapter titled, Come Together, of my most recent book, Hope from the Heart of Horses tore his digital tendon in his rear right leg in July. His owner cared for him after the surgery but unfortunately he injury became infected. He came to my ranch September 4th. We became the “last chance ranch.” If he could not heal here he would be put down.

Reticent to put any weight on his injured leg he stood on three legs. It had been two months of this posture. He was tired, had lost weight, and was showing signs of atrophy in both his leg and his neck. For two months the human conversation around him was filled with thoughts such as: shall we put him down, he is not getting any better, he doesn’t want to live, I don’t know what to do, what will become of him.

To read the compete article, visit Kathy Pike on HorseConscious

Saving Leo: Creating Positive Equine Parnterships, by Julie

Leo is a 4 year old pony who was rescued by UK equine rescue, from a gypsy camp, where he was tethered by chain with no grazing or water, on the 17th May 2009.

He had lived at the gypsy camp for a year and it is believed that he was imported to the UK from Spain. The gypsy described Leo as “You don’t want that one. No one can do anything with him” to Jenna (who ran UK equine rescue) . Luckily for Leo, Jenna bought him anyway in order to save his life.

We, Rachel and I, first heard of Leo 3 weeks after his initial rescue from the camp, when Jenna visited a forum seeking advise on how to handle Leo, as he was very nervous of people, couldn’t be caught and most certainly wouldn’t allow anyone near his feet. Jenna had attempted to "join up" with Leo, to which Leo responded by kicking Jenna with both barrels. I have to say that I wasn’t surprised to hear this as Leo was already frightened of people, so to send him away ’round a pen and keep sending until he complied was never going to be successful. Leo had already been described as a pony no one could do anything with, which usually translates into, this is a pony who will fight for his life and won’t give in easily. There was something about him that made me feel I had to do something to help this pony, and although Jenna’s intentions were good, it was clear that she didn’t understand that to try and dominate Leo was never going to work and that she was going way to quickly with him, attempting to pick up his feet when Leo wasn’t trusting enough to let anyone approach or touch him on his right hand side, let alone surrender his feet for trimming. I gave what little advice I could to Jenna on the forum, but felt quite useless as it is virtually impossible to give advise on training when one doesn’t know the horse, the handler nor the environment in which the horse is living. So with that in mind, I begged Rachel to let us take him on and try to rehabilitate him. It didn’t take much begging to be honest, in fact non at all. More a “can we have him Rach?” “ Yes we can Julie” )

So, on the 14th June, Leo arrived at Quarry Stables, a private yard owned by Rachel and managed by myself. Rach and I are just private owners, not professional trainers, and we train our horses using predominantly positive reinforcement and clicker training where appropriate. My own horse Charlie, who was rescued from the markets nearly 11 years ago, has taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever had from anyone, horse or human, and that is the benefit of allowing a frightened horse be free of physical restraint when they are learning not to be scared of something. This lesson flies in the face of all the NH trainers (not to mention traditional training), who believe that to control the placement of the horses feet is paramount to the horse learning that it need not be frightened and that the handler is of leadership material and in order to do this thin rope and pressure halters are employed to ensure the horse can’t ever move away from the thing it is frightened of. From a scientific view, this way of working is known as flooding (response prevention) and although quite successful with helping humans overcome fears and phobias when relaxation techniques are also taught before exposure to the fearful situation occurs. I believe with horses (who one is unable to explain the process to) this tends to end up just suppressing the fear instead of truly overcoming it. In my opinion, there seems to be a big hole in the theory behind Natural Horsemanship practises, and that is the belief that dominance equals leadership. I don’t believe this to be true and there are many studies of wild and feral horses living in natural environments (not the domestic set ups the majority of us keep our horses in) with natural social groups, that also conclude this to be a false theory.

When Leo arrived on the yard, looking very tiny and thin, the first thing we did was remove the head collar he had worn permanently for heaven knows how long. He would not be asked to wear it again until he was trusting enough to be approached with one in hand and happily allow it to be fitted. Over the next few days we started to introduce Leo to the sound of the clicker and paired that sound with food. Leo was loose on the yard with access to his open stable where there was hay and water freely available to him. If he looked at us, I would click and gently toss a small piece of apple in his direction. It didn’t take Leo very long to associate that the click meant “yes, exactly what you did then” and a food reward would arrive shortly, so work could begin.

Over the next week, we worked slowly on Leo allowing us to touch him all over his body on his left side. Using the clicker and treats to enable the initial contact, and then to reinforce standing still and allowing me to touch him, I was able to give Leo a good scratch on the left side of his neck. Leo very much enjoyed the scratch which was evidenced by his long, wiffley top lip. This was fantastic news as some horses who have learned that human touch is painful can take a while to appreciate this new form of human contact and find it pleasurable and of value to them. So, using the clicker and treats on a variable schedule of reinforcement, I gently stretched Leos comfort zones, and using scratches built up to where Leo was happy to stand and be touched all over the left side of his body, including down his left legs and touch his hooves (not attempting to pick them up at this stage). At ALL times,, Leo was free to walk away back to his hay if he felt he needed to. If he had, it would indicate to me that I was going too fast and pushing his comfort zones too far. If this happens, one just goes back a few steps and starts again. This freedom is very different to the apparent freedom a horse has in a round pen situation. The reality for the horse in a round pen is that it can go either left or right but he can’t choose to go away. If Leo walks away, I do not continue to “send “ him either to the left or the right until he learns NOT to walk away, but do as I said above and look at the steps I must have missed that has stretched his comfort zones too quickly that he can’t cope and feels the need to leave. With the motivation that positive reinforcement inspires, horses will always engage and try VERY hard, so long as we work at the pace that suits the individual horse.

Having got to the stage where Leo was happy to be touched on the left side, it was time to repeat the same work on the right. Leo had very definite issues with people approaching from the right and in the week or so that he had been with us, had always presented his left side to me and never the right. It was a lot harder initially for Leo to “let me in” on the right. At one point, when I was still working at Leos right shoulder, he ducked behind me so that he swapped me from his right side to his left. I didn’t move, I didn’t try to correct him, but just waited. It took about 20 seconds for Leo to choose to come back to the other side of me again and he was handsomely rewarded for this brave choice. From then on, although I worked in small steps, as I had on the left, Leo made impressive progress to where we could now touch him all over his right side too, including his legs and feet.

All of this work had been done on the yard, so we needed to make sure Leo was comfortable being touched in other locations. Just because a behaviour can be performed in one location, doesn’t automatically transfer to new and different ones. Having got Leo to where he would happily follow me around the yard, I opened the gate and he followed me out on to the drive toward the schooling area. I reinforced his following several times with a click and treat and entered the school. I started right at the very beginning again on the left side and worked through all the steps. Leo was relaxed and clearly untroubled by the new location so in no time at all I touched Leo all over on the left and the right and then we went back to the yard and ended the session with a “jackpot” reward in his stable. On a different day, we repeated the whole thing again, but this time in his stable.

It was now time to start working on picking up his feet. ……To find out what happened and to read about the work we have done with Leo in much greater detail, with literally hundreds of photographs to support the text and to follow our continuing journey with this special little pony, please visit Quarry Stables. You will also find the story of George, a pony who has been living at a rescue sanctuary for over a year and was recently labelled too dangerous to live by a Vet and two farriers. Luckily for George, the manager of the sanctuary has not given up on him and sought help for him. George will come to us on the 1st October 2009 and will stay with us for as long as it takes to, hopefully, help George to cope with being handled and having his feet tended to.

The Eco Friendly Farm, part 2

Water Quality
Alayne Blickle, program director for Horses for Clean Water, says reducing nonpoint source pollution should be horse owners’ first goal when they go green. Nonpoint source pollution is caused by runoff during rainfall or snowmelt that picks up and carries away natural (urine and manure, for example) and humanmade (i.e., pesticides) pollutants, depositing them into natural bodies of water and ground water.

"The bottom line is protecting water quality," she says. "Drinking water and surface water really are our number one issue in the world today."

Through Horses for Clean Water, which is based in Maple Valley, Wash., Blickle and her husband have helped hundreds of horse owners move toward more environmentally friendly farm management methods through farm tours, seminars, and e-newsletters.

"For horse owners, protecting the water supply means reducing any runoff that might be from mud and manure, it means keeping rainwater clean, and it means conserving water, particularly for some parts of the country," Blickle says. "Some of the things people can do are creating a sacrifice area or a paddock … this helps keep pastures from becoming overgrazed in the summer and muddy and compacted in the winter. And the reason why having good pasture is important for water quality is the grass holds the soil in place. Soil is very valuable, and if it gets washed off, it can produce a potential surface water issue."

Joyce Harman, DVM, who runs Harmany Equine Clinic in Flint Hill, Va., a holistic practice, went "green" with her stable and clinic many years ago. "You really need to look for a local building contractor, people who build riding arenas, and if they do a good job, they should be very clued in on how to make the land work-where to put ditches, etc.," she says. "Local county extension offices can be a good resource as well, because they’re accustomed to giving advice on farmland to improve it."

Harman says the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP, a USDA-subsidized program that helps people improve the drainage to prevent erosion problems on farms (CREP overview), is also ready to help farm owners figure out where they can fence off consistently wet and flood plain areas. "They pay you for taking some of your land out of production," she explains. "People have creek crossings that are all torn up, and if you fence off the creeks, they will build you a creek crossing. There are quite a few resources out there to try and help people with conserving water quality."

Soil Quality
Soil quality goes hand in hand with water quality, since water moves and is filtered through soil. The cause of a soil pollution problem can be from runoff from neighboring properties, or it could be linked to streams that flow through agricultural-use land before running through your farm. According to Blickle, toxic elements such as arsenic naturally occur in the soil. Contaminated or unhealthy soil can make it difficult to grow nutritive grass, and it can cause health problems in your horses that eat the grass.

Blickle and Harman recommend testing your soil. Once you see what organic matter and good bacteria are in it, you’ll have a better idea of your soil health and what you can do to improve it. Contact your county extension or conservation district offices for soil testing advice, or look to www.acresusa.com for more holistic soil information.

Also, consider what the land was used for prior to your ownership. If it was used to grow apples, oranges, peaches, grapes, or other crops, there could be toxins in the soil. "If your soil has had that sort of thing happen to it in the past, then get some of these holistic soil guys to help," advises Harman. Those businesses devoted to "cleaning up" soil for farm owners, and, according to Harman, their treatments can be quite effective.

She says soil quality has been the source of problems at several farms where horses showed a variety of clinical signs that didn’t improve with treatment. Describing a recent farm she visited, Harman says the horses "were not well" and there was no consistent diagnosis or cause, "We did some hair analysis on the horses, determined what they had picked up from the soil (the land had been treated with sludge fertilizer), then we did the detoxification, and (ultimately) they moved away from the farm," says Harman. "Every one of the horses is fine now."

Erosion, Grass Quality
"When you have horses and you have pastures," Blickle says, "really what you are is a grass farmer, and as a grass farmer, your soil is paramount to the productivity of your place and the success of your operation. We don’t want to see it get washed off the property; it’s very difficult to recreate, and if you don’t have it, you can’t grow grass."

Erosion problems on horse farms are tremendous. We discussed erosion in the May issue of The Horse, but we again underscore the importance of optimizing grass growth to prevent the problem. Besides beingkinder to the environment and making your property more aesthetically pleasing, optimizing your pastures can significantly reduce feed bills and improve the health of your horses, says Harman.

Healthy and healthful grass doesn’t equal a perfectly green, lawnlike pasture that’s fantastically fertilized and free of weeds, says Harman. "Horses by nature eat a variety of plants; they don’t eat just grass. So what we want is to have a field of greens; they can be grasses, some dandelions, and all kinds of little weeds and plants," she says. "The variety of plants keeps the soil together."

Fertilizing/Composting
"Manure management is a huge nonpoint pollution issue, and a pretty easy one to manage," says Blickle. "Because the nutrients and sediments from manure can wash into waterways and leech into ground water, and since many people in rural areas are on wells, it can easily get into the ground water and contaminate drinking water. But you can turn it from a liability to an asset."

The solution is composting. "The former technique (at my farm) was to stockpile it in the back of the pasture," explains Blickle. "But now we compost out by the barn, and spread the finished compost twice a year on the pastures. There’s only enough to do one-third of our pastures at any time–and that’s with from five to eight horses on three to four acres in pasture. With that many horses and those few acres, we still don’t have enough compost.

"The pile reduces in volume about 50% during the composting process, so you end up with only half the problem you started with–a 5-foot-tall pile of manure instead of a 10-foot one–it’s so much more manageable," she continues. "We jealously guard it. Sometimes people ask us for some and, quite frankly, we don’t give it away, we need it. It’s like black gold."

Even though you’re essentially storing excrement, the compost pile need not be offensive. "A healthy manure pile has no odor," Harman says. "It’s very pleasant. Smells kind of like earth." She notes that in some areas of the country, due to low humidity and high temperature, composting isn’t an option. See article #6631 at TheHorse.com for more on composting.

Something that will render your compost worthless as a fertilizer for gardens and can actually harm the environment is feeding your horses hay from fields that have been treated with the herbicide Grazon (containing clopyralid). Manure from horses that have eaten this hay (or grass) still contains the chemical– it will persist in the organic material for five years–and if you compost this manure and put it on an ornamental or vegetable garden, it will kill all broad-leaved plants. If you are unable to find out if your hay sources use Grazon on their pastures, you can try to grow a test plot of vegetables using composted manure from your horses. "Veggies tend to start out fine and grow up to a certain point, then they shrivel up," Harman says.

Take-Home Message

Blickle says her farm now is aesthetically pleasing, and the neighbors like it, too. She says their pastures are more productive. "It’s healthier for the horses–they are getting a high-quality diet, they’re not eating a lot of weeds, and they’re not standing in mud so they’re not getting exposed to the parasites and pathogens and fungal organisms that live and breed in mud," she says. "Our vet bills have even been reduced."

Harman adds, "I think it’s extremely important we be good stewards of the land, and horse farms usually have quite a bit of land associated with them, and that makes it all the more important. Going green contributes to the long-term health of not only the land, but the animals and the people who live on it."

thehorse.com, by: Stephanie L. Church, Copy/Features Editor July 01 2008 Article # 12425

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