The Horse's Advocate Podcast

My wife placed a supplement ad for horses in front of me and said it was "interesting." She knows me, so she was testing me to see if this one was really special or just another waste of money. Rather than give the same old response about marketing ploys to take money without substantiating the product, I decided to go deeper. The expression "correlation does not mean causation" is familiar. But what about randomized, controlled studies - the "gold standard" of research? Do these expensive, precise studies live up to the hype? Not necessarily. Mendelian randomization is a new approach to randomizing a study population in a true and natural way. It reduces (or eliminates) biases by looking for variations in the genetic code that have occurred over millions of years. This podcast goes into SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) and GWAS (Genome Wide Association Studies) to see if this new research technology has come into horse research, and more importantly, if it can prove the use of supplements to make horses healthier.

Cornell Veterinary School is well established as one of the best veterinary schools in the world, renowned for specialties like wildlife, infectious diseases, and equine practice. A quick search of data shows that Cornell's vet school was ranked #1 from 2000 (no data before this) until 2015. Currently, it is ranked #2 in America (behind the University of California, Davis) and #3 in the world (behind the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, and UC Davis). Being accepted into their program was not only an honor, but also a miracle: one of only 80 people accepted in 1980. I tried not to sleep through my classes. When I graduated, I set up my equine practice 15 miles from the school, which allowed me to use it as my referral hospital. One afternoon in 1991, I sent in a colic I considered surgical. The resident veterinarian performed a rectal exam and confirmed the presence of a displaced bowel. But, instead of agreeing with the surgical treatment, he said, "I think this is one of those new colics I just read about!" My look of surprise went unnoticed as he continued with the description of a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment, a new form of colic recently reported in a veterinary journal. And while the first report of this colic was in 1902 in Hungary, it was not until 1991 that a JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) article reported it, making it widely known among veterinarians. Now, I often hear clients mention that their horse recently suffered from a nephrosplenic ligament entrapment colic. The pattern of current ailments of horses not mentioned in my 1984 veterinary textbooks invites the question of why. This podcast covers these "new" diseases and stimulates us to ask what has changed in the care of horses to cause them.

Most advice from horse professionals focuses on solving problems using standard approaches, rather than looking for the root cause. For example, if you look at a chart of all causes of death in horses, dental issues barely register compared to colic, laminitis, or metabolic diseases. Many horse owners truly love their horses, even if they struggle to explain why. They want the best for their animals, but often depend on experts for advice and care, without considering how they might prevent problems before needing expert help. Horse owners often look for someone to fix their horses when something goes wrong, but horses are not like cars that can just be repaired in a shop. Still, both veterinary and non-veterinary care often treat horses as if they are objects with problems to solve, without considering the horse's perspective. It's true that many skilled people can help fix these issues, but it's worth asking if every repair is really needed, or if there might be simpler solutions. Sometimes, people approach fixing horses in ways that make themselves seem more important, which can make things more complicated than necessary. Many horse owners, even though they care deeply, follow expert advice without always considering what's best for the horse. In my podcast, I talk about a new way to treat a passage between a horse's mouth and sinus, where food can move from the mouth into the sinus and come out the nostril. To us, this discharge smells bad and needs daily care, but from the horse's point of view, it doesn't seem to be a problem—at least, scientific reports don't mention it. How common is this issue? Do horses really need to be fixed if nothing is done?

Horses have tiny engines within almost every cell of their bodies, and each of these runs on fuel that comes from the food they eat. These engines are called mitochondria. This podcast describes these engines and what happens to our horses when they stop working efficiently. One thing is for certain: adding more fuel doesn't help them run better. The only way to improve the health of horses is to improve the way their mitochondria work. But is producing power the only thing mitochondria do? Research into mitochondria shows that these powerhouses of the cell were once bacteria with their own DNA, and they communicate with each other and insert snippets of their DNA into the human DNA. They also need time to clean up and repair themselves. They can operate on two different fuels, but exhaust themselves when running on only one, becoming stuck and unable to switch to the other. This leads to poor health, breakdowns, and premature death. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

Having fear can cripple most people from enjoying life. Horse people suffer more than most from fear of horses because what they enjoy most in life are horses. This becomes a paradox that worsens their entire life. However, there are tangents to the fear horse owners have, such as the fear that they are not caring enough for their horses, and, therefore, the horse will suffer from the owner missing a critical aspect of care. This drives owners to do more (and spend more money) than is necessary. Worry is a fear of inadequacy. Charlatans profit from this fear. Most people believe that the thing they fear is the cause, but the truth is, fear comes from within the individual. Fear is also an emotion; energy in motion. When a horse brings energy to a human, the natural response is for the human to raise their energy to match the horse's, creating more energy and escalating the horse to a higher level. The secret is to learn to control your energy and bring it down, which, in most cases, automatically lowers the horses' energy. An essential hack for reducing emotional energy is to lower inflammation in both humans and horses. Another hack is to compartmentalize the sources of your thoughts and feelings in the brain. I discuss these on this week's podcast. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The temporomandibular (TM) joints in horses are evolutionary masterpieces that have evolved over 55 million years. But suddenly, the experts are saying that the joints are failing because the mouth has become "unbalanced." I disagree. The experts say that unridable horses have pain in the TM joints that connect the jaw to the skull. Their conclusion is that the teeth are "unbalanced," with an uneven bite seen with the incisors and an imperfect angle of the cheek teeth's chewing surface. Their conclusions cannot be resolved using First Principles Thinking. I've worked with horses for over 50 years, and for over 40 of those, I've floated teeth on over 80,000 horses, but I cannot draw the same conclusions these experts can about the association between the shape of the incisors and the TM joints. I am referencing an article printed in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (March, 2024) by James L. Carmalt, VetMB, PhD, DABVP, DAVDC, DACVSMR, DACVS from the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. The title is: "Equine poor performance: the logical, progressive, diagnostic approach to determining the role of the temporomandibular joint." There are numerous quotes from this paper I could use to substantiate my position on any dysfunction of the horse's TM joints; however, the author's words are worth reading in their entirety. It must be noted that humans, according to my dentist, chew about 2000 times a day, or 735,000 chews in a year. However, horses chew between 10,000 and 40,000 times a day, with the median being 25,000. This number becomes 750,000 chews in 30 days, which is more than humans chew in a year. Horses chew about 9 million times in a year. So, to assume that all horses are developing TM joint problems because their teeth are not "balanced" seems preposterous. If you are interested and have time, please read Dr. Carmalt's paper, which is available as an attached PDF at Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com or online. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

First Principles Thinking involves examining complex problems in terms of their most fundamental and undeniable truths. Applying First Principles Thinking to everything we do with our horses to help them, and us, in every task, is what I have been doing for a while at The Horse's Advocate. Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said that "the first basis from which things are known" is where we need to start thinking to solve a problem. In other words, First Principles Thinking is when you take basic assumptions or truths and break them down further or deduce from them something more fundamental to the point that this action can no longer take place. I can make the concept simpler: play the child's game of "But why, Mommy?" Do this until you are satisfied. Unfortunately, Mommy often says, "Go ask your father!" And his answer is usually, "Because I said so!" Indoctrination starts this way. This podcast is about a way to find answers and avoid the indoctrination forced on us by marketing and horse professionals. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

The Ketogenic diet is popular for weight loss in humans, but does it work, and can it work with my grass-eating horses? The simple answer is yes, and you don't need to make them carnivores! A ketone, also known as beta-hydroxybutyrate, can be produced in two ways in horses. The first is the bacterial breakdown of cellulose in their hindgut. I have discussed this elsewhere, and it is the primary source of this ketone. The second way occurs when a horse consumes its body fat, which then forms ketones. The most common way to force a horse to consume its body fat is to starve them, and this is exactly what happens in starvation. But we don't need to go that far. What starts the horse making its own ketones is deciding to stop eating. There are two ways to do this: feed adequate amounts of high-quality protein, and stop feeding excess glucose (sugar) in the form of starch found in grains, grain mixes, balancers, supplements, treats, and excess hay. Believe it or not, but the more you feed food filled with glucose, the hungrier the horse will become. It is a paradox, but it is essential to understand if you want your horse to lose body fat, maintain muscle, become healthy, and remain sound. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, barns, and farms. Its information is free, and a membership option lets horse owners attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Thank you for sharing and "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

Indoctrinate is a verb defined by Apple's Dictionary as "teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically." Apple's thesaurus offers these similar words: "BRAINWASH, propagandize, proselytize, inculcate, re-educate, persuade, convince, condition, discipline, mold; instruct, teach, school, drill, ground." It implies that the students, or the horse owners, believe everything they are taught. The "teachers" of horse care range from marketing ads and barn gossip to social media fodder, to poorly trained and unlicensed professionals, and even to young licensed professionals. Missing are mentors with decades of experience who have learned from experience and have no agenda in their teaching other than to support and nurture the student. The Wall Street Journal wrote an article in their newspaper titled "Cognitive Laziness," where the author was tasked to determine if "fake news" existed. The article didn't answer the question because it was so obvious that it didn't need to. However, the conclusion was that the receiver of any news, fake or not, was too lazy to verify its validity. Are horse owners also too lazy to do critical thinking of what we are told is "good" for our horses? I don't think horse owners are lazy at all! They work more than one job to pay for their care, then wake before dawn, get dirty every day, and risk everything to drive to an event to win a ribbon. Most horse owners don't have the time to even read this summary of my podcast. But when something goes wrong with a horse, the natural response is to do "research," which is a very precise science most horse owners aren't trained to do. Further, research takes time, which busy horse owners don't have. Indoctrination is the result rather than critical thinking, and often, the horse suffers. The purpose of what I do here at Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is to do the work for horse owners. However, I expect you to ask questions and to challenge what I say, or at least take a moment to think it over. Continuously ask this question: "Is what I'm doing the best for my horse?" Together, we can Help Horses Thrive In A Human World™. ********** Community.TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a place to learn about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its information is free, and there is a membership side that allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and deepen their understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide who works with horses. The Equine Practice, Inc. website discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. Click here to make an appointment. The Horsemanship Dentistry School is a place for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. Please give a thumbs-up or a 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."