Help your Horse Cure Himself

More and more and more I read, see, hear of and experience the event of prematurely aged animals, sick animals, animals that are getting the “best” that the food and drug industry has to give but yet the animals are still suffering and dying at young ages. Cancer, Diabetes, Cushings, Founder, Arthritis, Navicular — horses as young as 5 years old being pronounced ‘incureably unsound’, for retirement only, for companion only … Horses as young as 3 years old with osteoarthritis, 4 year olds with full blown Insulin Resistance or Cushings. 12 year olds being humanely euthanized as “there’s nothing more that can be done”.

WHAT IS GOING ON !?!?!

The more I research, the more I find articles, books, journals about “Natural Medicines” and how such therapies are part of the CURE for these animals – in the face of focused, intense yet failing allopathic treatments with antibiotics, steroids, hormonal treatments and more. Study after scientific study is proving that natural substances, many times, produce a better responses in healing than allopathic drug prescriptions. Simple things like food, herbs and minerals. Those are the treatments that are proving to cure where conventional medicine is failing.

The base for these successful treatments is realizing that the equine body, even our own bodies, have requirements for health and well-being. Natural Medicines like Homeopathy, Herbs, Aromatherapies help the body get into a state of homeostasis (balance) and while they do that it must, MUST be considered that all the other aspects of the animal have to be taken into consideration as well.

Diet, Husbandry, Work, Discipline, Social and Emotional statuses — without taking these into account and treating THOSE baselines then the “Natural Medicines” can only work so much.

Diet is a major factor – it only stands to reason as the diet is where we all obtain our nutrients and minerals. It is the root to keeping the immune system healthy and strong. The immune system is a marvel in design – and helps an even more amazing body design to restore health and retain full health. In Homeopathy the definition for ‘health’ is — free of disease in body, mind and spirit.

It is my belief that even though we spend billions of dollars on carefully designed processed ‘food’ and ‘drugs’ for our horses that those even getting the ‘best’ of the best are, literally, starving and chemicalized to death. A slow death.

Dr. Martin Goldstein, DVM, in “The Nature of Animals Healing” says,

“… Of the pets we do save, most have been deemed hopeless by veterinarians using conventional medicine.”

Dr. Michael Dym, DVM states,

“Over the past 40 years and 17 generations of dogs and, cats we are seeing tremendous increases in chronic ill health in our pets that was rare back in the early 1960’s. Most of these illnesses revolve around breakdown in our pets’ immune systems, and include chronic skin/ear allergies, digestive upset, thyroid/adrenal/pancreatic disorders, seizures, gum/ teeth problems, degenerative arthritis, kidney/liver failure, and cancer across all ages and breeds. We are also seeing a record number of behavioral and emotional disorders including alarming and unexplained fears/aggression., as well as difficulty focusing/training and paying attention. The analogy of these compared with escalating immune/behavioral diseases in children is quite disturbing. The two biggest factors in our pets’ population health decline over these generations has been the severe overuse of multiple vaccines and nutrient poor and toxin filled commercial pet foods. We have also failed to address the underlying cause of disease by only suppressing symptoms with antibiotics, cortisone and related drugs, so the disease progresses and goes deeper. Homeopathy offers a viable alternative in truly curing pets and making their bodies healthier.” and Dr. Dee Blanco, DVM says, “It is through understanding the fundamentals of how to truly prevent illness we achieve the most resiliant and resistant body. It is also through these concepts as to how the the body maintains and sustains health, we can raise our expectations of wellness and vitality in our animals and ourselves.”

Dr. Jeffrey Levy, DVM of Massachusetts writes,

“Treatment with allopathic drugs (antibiotics, steroids, hormones, etc.) should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Corticosteroids (cortisone-type anti-inflammatory drugs) are the most abused and dangerous class of drugs. Not only do they not cure the underlying cause of the problem, they usually make the underlying problem, that is, the real problem, worse.” and goes on further to say,”The greatest harm of drug treatment is usually not so much the toxicity or side effects as it is the effects of suppression. Allopathic (conventional Western) medical thinking generally seeks immediate gratification: just make the symptom go away. So the patient may be better in the short term, but is usually worse in the longer term.”

Those are some pretty heavy words spoken and written.

I am not a veterinarian or nutritionist. I am an animal lover. I am the guardian of horses, dogs, cats, goats, chickens, birds and other farm and pet critters. I, like you, want only the best health care that I can give to my “furred and feathered” friends. Over 50 years of watching my friends struggle with various health situations and then succumbing in spite of the best medical care and drugs led me to seek an ‘alternative’ path. Since I have witnessed what some call miraculous healings in the years since. One thing I noticed that stands out above all else is that unless the WHOLE animal is taken into account with the base focus on DIET then all the rest is less than fully effective. And overseeing the diet of our horses and other friends this is something we ALL can do no matter who we are or where we live.

I’ll repeat what I said above. I believe that our animals are truly starving to death even in the face of ‘the best’. We feed supplements for hooves, manes, tails, digestion, vitamin & mineral additions, anti-inflammatories, anti-histamines and more. We feed enhanced bagged foods and ‘enhanced’ fertilized, pesticided, herbicided hays – and usually just one type of hay forage. And then, when they succumb to some illness such as colic or laminitis or arthritis we start pumping them full of drugs and chemicals. All for exhorbitant amounts of money. And sadly- exhorbitant loss of health for our horses. We’re told to take our horses OFF the grasses and natural forages upon which the horse has lived and thrived since the beginning of time. We’re told there’s too much ‘sugar’ in the forages, in the hay, in natural foods. No apples or carrots or other fruit or vegetable – strict diets of impalatable, dry, processed bits of compressed fillers, by-products and chemically smothered nuggets of dried oils and unknown ‘proteins’, fats and fibers. And the horses still fail. At best we ‘maintain’ a certain level of ‘health’ which is really maintaining a (minimal at best) level of comfort within the health insult.

Let’s focus on the DIET which is something, as I said, we can ALL ‘take control of’ for our horses.

The processing of foods destroys the living enzymes and nutrients of the original food that are meant to FEED and nourish and support health. Each vegetable, each fruit, each herb, weed, nut and seed has its own properties that feed and heal living bodies. Enzymes, vitamins, minerals, salts and water – all unique in each forage. Heat destroys enzymes and nutrients. Steamed, heated, extracted, extruded — processing nice little nuggets or pellets of artificially enhanced empty foods. Some manufacturers show such pretty pictures of whole grains, fresh green hays, herbs and additives in their advertising materials depicting the “ingredients” in the processed nuggets. But they don’t go on to explain how the processing simply destroys all the benefits of those whole grains and live herbs or grasses.

Nancy Loving, DVM writes in an article,

“The tag on every animal feed product is labeled with information required by the FDA, with ingredients listed in descending order of predominance–from most to least inclusion.

“However, this is not always enforced and there is no guarantee that listing of ingredients reflects the inclusion rate of the finished product,” said Randel Raub, PhD, director of Equine Business Development and Technical Services for Purina Mills, during his Purina Equine Veterinary Conference presentation on “Beyond the Feed Tag: Horse Feed Ingredients, Quality and Safety Issues.”

If this is truly the case, (which I strongly suspect it is), then how are we to really KNOW what is in the feedbag?

Dr. Loving goes on to say,

“Only ingredients approved by FDA and American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) can be used in horse feed. Any drug included in feed also must meet strict FDA-regulations, yet nutraceuticals are not currently regulated. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are examples of substances not approved for use in horse feed; if feed contains these, a manufacturer is not in regulatory compliance.”

How many feeds, right now, can you think of for senior horses that contain the above mentioned nutraceuticals as well as others?

Do we REALLY KNOW what we’re feeding out of a bag to our horses and other pets?

But think on this … We KNOW what we’re feeding when we cut up apples, oranges, bananas, pears, spinach, kale, lettuces, radishes, beans, peas, squashes, melons, and more. We KNOW the added pecans or walnuts or Flax Seed or Kelp herb or Black Oil Sunflower seeds … We KNOW dried coconut, Olive Oil, garlic, dandelion, rosemary and other herbs. When we make a salad for our horses we know EXACTLY what they are getting.

They’re getting LIVE, NUTRIENT & VITAMIN RICH foods that sustain health and cure diseases as nature designed. They are eating the varied vitamins, minerals and salts that are body-required for total health restoration and maintenance. They are utilizing over 80% of the total digestible nutrients from each vegetable, fruit, seed, nut or herb instead of a mere 40% they can extract from processed foods. They are getting a base of disease fighting foods that aid in digestion, balancing and strengthening the immune system, cleaning the various organs to keep them in top-notch functioning. They are getting what nature intended. They are feeding all their systems.

Combine a once a day salad with free grazing on natural grasses and forages, free choice natural good quality hay, turnout 24/7 for free movement to keep the gut moving and utilizing the foods being eaten, a stimulating herd lifestyle to be with other horses for play and mental stimulation as well as friendship and you’ve got the ‘recipe’ for a solid base of total health for your horse. Combine those with exercise in a work discipline that suits the individual horse and your horse’s performance, and your own, will shine.

They are eating health. They will exude health. Bright eyes, shining soft coats, resilient, tough, SOUND hooves – they will be eating as closely to the natural design as a domestic horse can – and doing so in strength, vitality, and vigor.

Combine this base diet with ‘natural’ therapies and treatments as needed to round out the healthcare of your horse and you’ll save not only thousands of dollars in veterinary care but may also just save your horse’s life.

Remember — we are what we eat. So it is with our horses.