What is healing?

I have been working as a horse healer for around ten years. During that time I have experienced many changes both in my life and in my personal/psychic development. It is fair to say that my horses, and the horses I have visited, have taught me most of the things I know and live today. A couple of years ago Merlin taught me that I don't have to touch a horse to give it healing. Recently a few more horses have taught me that quite often 'healing' bears no resemblance to what we believe 'healing' is, and I have at last accepted that.

I can now report with confidence, based on experience and results, that we can heal our horses with our thoughts, by just being with them, brushing them, understanding them, being fair, letting them have the benefit of the doubt, letting them 'get away with' one or two things and most of all by letting them be who they are. I don't give traditional healing to my horses any longer. The whole process has become seamless, and it's wonderful. They and I know it is taking place but we don't make a big deal of it.

This is good news for Jack. He is 26 now and still sprightly and fit. Some years ago he stopped letting me touch him for healing, but simple stands next to me, looks at me, takes a big sigh and we both stand side by side looking out at the glorious view from their field. It is a quiet companiable exchange of energy, and within 10 - 20 minutes he yawns, sighs and walks off. He makes a lot of his own choices these days and that in and of itself is a great healing process for a horse.

Everyone makes a big deal of the healing process by the laying on of hands on horses, but it isn't the only way. Simply by thinking good or loving thoughts towards your horse is enough to make a difference. Energy has a way of transferring with an intelligence of its own that needs little guidance. Take that thought away with you today and you can significantly impact your relationship with your own horse.

Loss of an animal

I have lost two animals in the last six months. My 11 year old whippet suddenly started having seizures and it turned out her liver was packing up, and my gorgeous little ferret, Squidgy, went in to the vets to have a bad tooth removed and collapsed and died whilst waiting in the vets holding pens. Tragic yes indeed, but that's life and we cannot do anything to stop these sorts of things happening.

I remember when I was about seventeen a situation where a woman had an elderly German shepherd that had completely gone off it's back legs. It dragged itself about and had to be lifted up with a towel for it to go to the toilet. At seventeen I thought it was wrong, and now all these years later I know that animals don't want to live like this.

When I had a breakdown in 1995 it was the end of an era, and it wasn't all about losing my dog. But I admit that I was hysterical with grief, and I know that for some people this is a normal way of being when they lose an animal. But we have to learn from death, and the most important thing to learn is when to let go with dignity for all parties. Death is part of life and all we can do is to make sure we give our animals the best life possible when they are with us.

I had the chance to spend a whole day with Minnie - my whippet - before the vet came to my home to put her to sleep. All day she kept asking me if it was time. She hadn't been upstairs for a while, and her habit was always to push back the covers and curl up into my tummy. That morning she scrambled up the stairs and got into bed with me. Never had I seen an animal that totally showed me that she knew and she was ready. Her death was quiet and dignified and although I grieved, I knew that I had done the right thing for her.

When we grieve, we grieve for our loss. The animal's soul has already moved on and is 'living' in some other dimension, active and young and happy again. I am convinced of this by several experiences I have had.

The way to help our grief is to do right by our animals. Spend quality time with them. I walk my dogs 15 - 25 miles a week, despite my hectic schedule. I do this because they love it, it helps us bond and it is natural stress burner for dogs - and for me. I am amazed how many people think that because they have a big garden the dog will be happy with that as its exercise. That simply isn't so.

All dogs love the excitement of going somewhere different and just running about chasing a ball, with tongues hanging out and rolling in disgusting smelly animal dung when they can. When Minnie died I knew that I had given her as much as I could. So my grief has been healthy and normal. A few weeks before she became ill, a new dog crept into our lives and helped to bridge the gap for my other old dog, Cassie, who had been together for nine years.

When you lose an animal find someone that is empathic and talk it through, but the best thing that you can do is to give your animals the best life possible whilst they are with you.

Emotional Intelligence

Do any of you watch the soaps? Eastenders, Coronation Street or Emmerdale? The underlying similarities with all of these soaps is the drama. Characters overeact emotionally, shouting at each other, refusing to hear the other persons point of view, failing to consider consequences and often completely misconstruing communication.

What has this got to do with horses?
Well, in my experience, it goes a long way to understanding why people struggle to build a mutually respectful relationship with their horse. Being emotionally intelligent basically means that you have full awareness of your emotions, and therefore can make a rational choice as to how you react at any given time.

I compare our relationship with a horse to a child/adult interaction. The horse is what he is, with his inherant behaviours and those behaviours introduced to him by humans. He cannot suddenly decide that he will stop 'winding you up'. The horse is not self actualizing. Any changes that happen to him will be created by external stimuli - you and your behaviour, and/or the people that handle/ride him.

Example
My friend was telling me a story of a hormonal lead mare at her yard. Apparently when the mare comes into season she winds the whole herd up, charging round the field, bucking kicking and generally making a hooly. Other people were getting upset by this. They couldn't catch their horses or they would be to wound up to ride. But my 'emotionally intelligent' friend decided that she would not buy into the behaviour of the herd. She walks into the field, calmly and totally without reaction to whatever happens. She waits for the right moment, and then calmly catches her horse. As she leads him down the field she remains calm as he bounces and huffs beside her. 'I am not buying into your emotion mate', she tells him. And, within a short space of time, he recognises her leadership and focuses on her.

This is exactly what I am talking about. Remaining unaffected by whatever happens is the secret to success with horses. They respond to this natural leadership - not always immediately, but if you stick with it you will see results.

Screaming, shouting, crying, becoming frustrated or angry has no place in our relationship with our horses. I have seen for myself - time after time - that when an owner starts to change the horse follows. The extra benefits of learning to be this way is that it quickly overlaps into your personal life and you will find that your human relationships will naturally improve.

Intuition

In December 2007, I posted a message regarding the fact that my pony Danny was diagnosed with laminitis. In the first few days I was gutted, and feeling bad that I had somehow allowed this to happen.

After a week, my intuition started to send me messages. It said, 'this isn't laminitis, it's internal bruising of the soles'. Thinking my intuition was quite mad, I ignored it. But it wouldn't go away. I spoke to the vet twice, I rang a laminitis helpline, I asked experts everywhere. They all told me it was laminitis. Was this false hope on my behalf? I so badly wanted it not to be laminitis.

My intuition got stronger and stronger. There was something about this that didn't stack up. Certain aspects of Danny's gait and behaviour indicated that it might - just might - not be laminitis.

I finally managed to get a slot with my farrier and told him of my feelings. He said, 'He certainly walks as if it is laminitis, but something doesn't stack up!' Eureka - someone that agreed with me! Danny had no pain in his toes, but a lot at the sides. The farrier felt that it was possible severe internal brusing of the sole. He advised to poultice it for four days - oh a job I would rather swap with sticking pins in my eyes! Danny will not stay in a stable - he jumps out - so his feet have to be swathed in duck tape to keep the poultice clean. It's an hours work twice a day, for two feet and he wasn't cooperative!

Anyhow, each day I thought I detected a slight improvement. Certainly on the soft ground he walked normally. After four days I was sure. There were definate improvements. The farrier came back and fitted pads and shoes to protect his soles from further bruising whilst they healed, and now he is being led out for half an hour a day to get him used to walking again. He has lost a lot of confidence, but is walking pretty much sound.

During the worrying days when I believed that it was laminitis, I said to my partner and friends, 'If I turn out to be right about this bruising, I will never question my intuition again'. I operate on an intuitive level 99% of the time, but with my horses I am so close to them that my nurturing sometimes gets in the way. However, as a woman of my word, I now commit to the universe that intution rules, even when the odds look stacked against me.

Trust your own feelings guys, they are so much more dependable [in most circumstances] than logic.

Laminitis

In twenty years of owning horses, I have never had to manage a horse with laminitis Just before Christmas 2007, a vet diagnosed My Welsh Section D Danny as laminitic. It turns out she was wrong - see Intuition post.

Danny was on longish grass and it was frosty, a situation which apparently creates more fructons than normal. The hind gut cannot cope with this, and so acids and toxins are released into the body, damaging blood vessels and organs. Naturally this process then affects the blood flow down to the sensitive laminae and in a very short space of time, the horse has laminitis.

When I thought he had laminitis, I spent a considerable amount of time trawling through the Internet for answers.

On some web sites I found little comfort for a long term prognosis. Other sites were written in scientific 'veterinary speak' that was almost impossible to assimilate. Surprisingly, I only found two or three web sites that mentioned the danger of frosty grass. In my opinion, the amount of conflicting advice is a confusing minefield to an average person.

I found one web site that I would like to recommend that you all read thoroughly. Any horse - at any time - can get laminitis. It's not just fat native bred ponies, although one general consensus is that you rarely see a fit horse with laminitis!

The web site is http://www.laminitis-advice.co.uk/

I am not an expert in this area, but this is the info I have gleaned from my research.

Get into the habit of: -

• Checking the digital pulse every day - this should be a fairly weak pulse and if you find it is pounding this is a danger sign, but also be aware that bruised soles can create an elevated digital pulse as well - which is how the young vet misdiagnosed my horse.
  
  
• Condition score your horse, rather than relying on what he looks like. Get a good weigh tape. Equi-Life do them and you can buy them pretty cheaply off the net. I measure my horses at least five times a week now and even if the tape is not accurate, I can at least spot any fluctuations in their weight.

• Keep your horse's weight down. Strip graze where you can or fit a grazing muzzle http://www.grazingmuzzles.co.uk/
  
  
• Nitrogen based fertilisers can bring on laminitis so beware of leaving your horse in a recently fertilised field or in a field next to one being fertilised. My farrier told me a story of 23 horses in one field coming down with lamintis because of this and five of them had to be destroyed.
  
  
• Get your horse off long frosty grass, particularly in early morning sunshine
  
  
• If your horse looks stiff or is shifting his weight from foot to foot, or seems out of sorts this may be an early warning signal
  
  
• Call the vet if there is the tiniest concern. If you catch it within the 12 hour development stage, there is more chance of a quick recovery
  
  
• If your horse is at risk of laminitis use Global Herbs 'Laminitis Prone' liquid. This is a liver detox and helps the body to deal with the toxins and tones up the digestive system
  
  
• With horses at risk feed only those products recommended by the Laminitis Trust.
  For instance Hi Fi lite and Spiller High fibre cubes or Speedi-beet.
  High fibre is much easier to digest and any diet high in sugar is best avoided. The Laminitis Trust symbol is on those foods that are suitable for laminitics or those at risk. I now feed two small high fibre meals per day to help cope with hind gut acidity.
  
  
• Investigate supplements that help the hind gut to perform better. I am in this process now and when I find one that works I will post it here
  
  
• If you have access to a local healer do give them a try. I have had great success with laminitic horses. It helps the horse's mental state as well as the physical.

I hope that this post has helped you all to learn more about laminitis, particularly the preventative measures that you can take.

Happy New Year

Jan

5 Top Tips for what to do when your life goes pear-shaped

Lets face it it happens to us all at some point, and when you have a horse in your life being in the pear shaped position is far too regular an occurance!

Here's what you do:

1. Accept the situation
Resisting your situation makes you feel bad. Accept things as they are and your brain will find solutions. You cannot change what has happened, so it is better – and healthier – to start asking yourself, “How can I overcome this?”

2. Welcome change
Nothing stays the same and, in our experience, when people look at change as a positive event, the fear reduces and they start taking action. With this mindset, you can find the courage to follow your dreams.

3. Don’t be a victim
If you blame a person or external event for your situation, you have by definition become a victim. But, at some level, you create everything in your life. Make it a habit to consider consequences. For instance, deciding to resign and start a business, you must ask questions like, “How would I cope if the business didn’t make any money, do I know enough about marketing, and do I have the funds to get expert help?” This helps you to make informed choices.

4. Recognise opportunity
Adversity is always an opportunity for personal growth. When life gets tough say to yourself, “Something great is going to come of this”. At first it will feel insincere, but keep at it and it will become second nature. Entrepreneurs like Richard Branson never adopt failure; he always sees an opportunity and takes it. Adopt a Branson mindset and you cannot fail to be successful!

5. Find support
Find someone that will mentor you, and who doesn’t buy into failure, a person that will say, “Come on – what are you going to do next?” and then support you through each step. Do not allow pessimistic people to hold you back by feeding into negativity. Good support will reinforce your decisions and actions, and give encouragement when your optimism is floundering.

Have a great day!

Jan

You never know!

Today was a worrying day. It appeared to start as normal. All three horses seemed fine. I let Toady out of his evening 'diet' patch for a while and poo picked the field. I realised I had left Toady's sweet-itch hood in the house, so had to walk back to get it. When I came back I noticed that he wasn't grazing, so I watched him some more. He was scratching the ground and seemed irritated. The long and short of it was that he couldn't eat. When we offered him grass it just sort of dribbled out of his mouth.

Now in these sort of circumstances I tell people, 'do not worry, it will not do any good and will worry the pony'. So what's the first thing I did? Yeah you got it, went into total worry mode. Anyhow I called the vet and waited a very impatient hour for him to arrive. When he did we were no closer to an answer. Heart, temperature, droppings, colour etc was all normal, and it wasn't choke. He had a quick look at his teeth and they looked ok. He left and I was to call later with an update.

All afternoon I fretted. I watched myself worrying and I observed that I was not following my own advice, but there you have it, I am human after all :-)
I was sensible enough to leave him be for the rest of the morning, so I wasn't pushing my worrying energy at him, and I gathered my thoughts for the afternoon after giving myself some space and comprehending that the problem had to be his teeth.

This evening the vet sedated him and had a good look into his mouth. It turns out that he has a large gap inbetween two molars and grass had impacted. He cleared this out and suggested that this was the problem. Long term prognosis is that he may have to go to Bristol and have an operation to fill in the gap, to prevent this happening again. We just have to watch him carefully.

The truth is that if I had not forgotten the hood, I wouldn't have noticed that Toady wasn't grazing, as he often has a good look around the field before he settles down. Every time I go to the field he comes up to see me. At tea time he would be waiting for his food at the gate [he was able to eat grain, just not grass] So I feel very grateful that I was given the chance to be made aware of his plight.

My moral is that we often don't take the time to just watch our horses closely enough. I thought that I did, as most days I lean on the gate and watch them for ten minutes or so before I leave them. But I realised today that I maybe don't always if I am in a rush or its pouring with rain, or some other pathetic external inexcusable reason. If they are standing and look quite bright [as Toady did] we assume they are ok, and usually they are. But there might be one time when they are not, and today was one of them.

You never know what is around the corner. Four years ago I left a happy healthy 5 year old pony playing in the field, and came home a few hours later to find him dead. He had died of sudden death syndrome. I have always said goodbye to my horses every time I leave them, but since Charlie's passing, I have made more of a point of it. Life is so precious and can be taken so quickly. We must never take for granted that the furry lifeforce that shares our life is always going to be there.