The Soul of a Horse (11 page)

15

And Nature Dies

“I
’m sorry, I don’t care what you say, I’m not watching my horse stand around out there freezing when I can put a blanket on him and he’ll be warm.”

“It’s only fifty degrees,” I mumbled.

“I’m cold, so he must be cold.”

“Are you a horse?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes and walked away. I have always believed that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I was about to learn that this isn’t always the case.

“What possible harm can come from it?” she tossed over her shoulder.

I followed.

“The blanket disturbs his natural thermoregulatory system.” I was spewing research I had learned of only the day before. “He can’t grow his winter coat with a blanket on. And his system works on the whole horse, not parts. When he’s covered with a blanket, he’s half warm and half cold. His system has no idea what to do.”

“Well, go talk to his system, not to me. Cold is cold and warm is warm.”

“For millions of years the horse has done just fine without blankets,” I crowed. “When you disturb his natural systems, you’re messing with nature, with his genetics, and ultimately with his health and safety.”

She turned on me.

“Do what you want with your horses and leave me alone, okay?”

Clearly my bedside manner needed work. I stood there frustrated, with no clue why this newly discovered information was of no interest to someone who I knew truly cared for her horses. I would never make it in politics.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, “All truth passes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” Knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. Or understand the mystery of this woman’s reaction. It was merely preparation for what was to come.

I was standing by a small arena at a local horse club event. The woman next to me was the mother of a teenager trying out a beautiful gaited pinto horse in the pen. The horse was prancing, lifting his legs high, and looking very spiffy. At one point the owner said proudly, “And he’s totally barefoot.”

“Wow,” said the mom. “Just think what he’d look like with shoes on!”

The owner had the grace to ignore the comment. I didn’t.

“Why ever would you put shoes on him? He’s happy and healthy and looks great.”

“Oh, if you compete on him, he
has
to have shoes.”

“Why?”

“He just has to.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s probably in the rules.”

“Barefoot horses compete,” I said.

“Well, trust me, he needs shoes. There are special shoes that make gaited horses prance higher.”

“Oh, so that’s something
you
want, not something the horse wants.”

There I go again,
I thought. Like a reformed smoker. My presentation definitely needed work.

“Doesn’t hurt him,” the woman said.

I took a deep breath, swallowed the words that were threatening to escape, and handed her a card with our website on it, suggesting that she look at some of the new research documented there on how shoes affect the health of a horse’s hoof. Then I mustered a friendly smile and left.

I told Kathleen the story.

“We’re going to lose every friend we have if you don’t shut up,” she said.

“I never saw this woman before,” I whimpered. “She’s not a friend.”

“You know what I mean. People don’t want to hear this stuff.”

“Do you disagree? Is it incorrect information?”

“Of course not,” she said. “But…”

“But what?”

She just looked at me for a long moment.

“Think about Skeeter,” I said. “And how much happier and healthier he is since you brought him here.”

“I know,” she said. “I know. You’re right, but it’s so frustrating to have people’s claws come out like they do. When you slap people in the face with the notion that they’re doing something wrong, the natural reaction is always going to be to defend themselves. You do it yourself.”

“I do?”

Her mouth dropped.

“
All
the time.”

“When?”

“Last night when I told you that paragraph in the book was not good. You bitched, and screamed, and got ugly…and then got up this morning and changed it.”

I thought about Schopenhauer’s quote.

“Phase Three,” I said.

We both smiled.

It kills me to find that so many horse owners make decisions based upon what they
think
is best for the horse without really doing the research. Or use human criteria to make the decision, not equine criteria. And the horses suffer as a result.

It began, I suspect, back when man first decided to dominate one of these thousand-pound animals. Working strictly from fear, with no comprehension of the possibilities available when the horse is given choice and a relationship is built, he must have believed that force was the only consideration for domination. And if one doesn’t dominate a beast so large, surely the beast will do the dominating. And hurt you. And ignore your will. This was the lesson taught by the old cowboy from whom we had bought Mariah. And, in days of old, such an attitude was just fine with everyone because that’s what man did. Dominate.

Genetics again.

At the expense of the horse.

A well-known clinician was asked to respond to a question from a woman who wanted to enter jumping competitions with her horse. It seemed that whenever she went to such a competition, her horse refused to jump. She wondered if it could be a negative reaction to being around so many horses or being inside a big, noisy facility. “Please tell me what to do,” she begged. I never saw the clinician’s response, but I hope he told her to begin by evaluating whether or not her horse
liked
to jump. Before being asked to do extreme competition, shouldn’t a horse have some inherent desire to do it?

Like the new Benji. She enjoys performing, reaching, figuring things out. We have other dogs who could care less. And one who would be totally intimidated by the workload. To put that dog through a movie production would not only be a disaster, it would mean massive stress for the dog.

When we were searching for the new Benji in shelters all over the country, I looked for a dog that not only resembled the original Benji, with those famous big brown eyes, but was smart and intuitive, and, most important, loved to work, loved to please his master, loved to take on the kind of long and difficult chores that are always present during the production of a movie.

It’s true that a horse who doesn’t like to jump, or rope, or cut cattle, or run barrels, or race can be made to do it. If the horse is strong and athletic, he can probably be made to do it pretty well. But doesn’t it stand to reason that if the horse really enjoys doing something, he will do it better than if he doesn’t? And he’ll be a happier horse. And he and his human will have a better relationship. And he’ll be without the stress that comes from doing what he hates, or what he is mortally afraid of doing. Which means he’ll live longer.

And if participating in the competition is of his choice because he
likes
doing it, and if he’s been taught well, there will be no need for force. Or cruelty.

What kind of force or cruelty?

When Dr. Matt was out to vet check Kathleen’s new horse, Skeeter, he ran his hand gently across the big palomino’s rib cage. There were thirty or forty small dimples in the coat and skin. On each side. Dimples like you might see in someone’s chin.

“Know what those are?” he asked.

“No idea,” we said.

“Internal scars from spurs.”

Our mouths dropped open. And we choked back tears. Skeeter is a beautiful eighteen-year-old quarter horse, who has done some dressage but was mostly used as a roping horse in competitions.

This is the sweetest horse you could ever want to meet. As willing and well mannered as Cash. Without a mean or ornery bone in his body. Yet somewhere back in his history, some human was so obsessed with ego that spurs were used violently enough to leave more than eighty scars in his sides. There is simply no acceptable excuse for that sort of treatment of another living being.

Either Skeeter didn’t like what he was doing and had to be forced to do it with extreme spurring or he hadn’t been well trained and therefore didn’t understand what he was doing well enough to do it without injury.

From the day he arrived at our place, watching his expressions has tickled me to laughter. He loves his new life, but his scrunched eyebrows and big questioning eyes seem to belie a fear that any minute he might be awakened from a spectacular dream.

He won’t be. That’s our promise to Skeeter.

He joined the herd in our natural pasture, and for a while he seemed to not know what to do with all the space. He would just stand around, bug-eyed, and watch the others. Eventually he assimilated, but he still seems to be amazed that life can be so good. And we’ll not take that away from any of them.

“But ugh, being in a natural pasture 24/7, they stay so
dirty.
”

“Horses do like to roll.”

“I like my horses clean.”

That conversation actually happened. What was best for the horse was of no concern. What the human liked was the issue.

There’s a photo of a stalled horse in
Horse & Rider
magazine. Below the photo is this headline:
I AM CONFINED…THEREFORE I AM AT RISK.
The subhead: “Confinement-related stress can cause stomach ulcers in your horse—in just 5 days.” It’s an ad promoting medication for the ulcers. Not a word about eliminating the source of the stress or any discussion about other health problems that could be caused from a stress so tormenting that it produces stomach ulcers.

That same stress, according to Dr. Katherine Houpt, a leading animal behaviorist at Cornell University, in an interview in the same magazine, is responsible for virtually all of the so-called stall vices. Pawing, weaving, head bobbing, stall kicking, cribbing, wind sucking, wood chewing, and tongue lolling are all a direct result of the horse’s not being out with the herd, moving around, munching most of the time, with lots of roughage in his diet. Getting the horse out of the stall is all it takes. According to Dr. Houpt, these “vices” have never been observed in horses who live as mother nature intended. Considering the number of products being advertised to “solve” these problems, one has to offer kudos to
Horse & Rider
for having the courage to even publish such an article.

Humans trim their horses’ coats in winter to keep them
looking good
for the show ring. This undermines the horse’s ability to protect himself from the cold. Wearing blankets does the same thing. As does living in an enclosed barn, especially a climate-controlled barn. Yet this is the lifestyle of the majority of horses in the United States. Such accommodations, usually a small stall, also remove the horse’s ability to fulfill his need to move, which affects his feet, circulation, immune system, and general health, as mentioned earlier. And it takes him away from the herd, which causes more stress. And makes him unhappy. And, as you’ve also read before, often leaves him standing in his own urine and poop, which also adversely affects his feet, circulation, immune system, and general health.

And so it goes.

Humans have the most extraordinary ability in the world to rationalize.

When Dr. Matt came by to do the vet check on Skeeter, he was wielding a huge oval-shaped stone, much larger than a softball. It looked like a rock out of our pasture…but it was out of a horse. A horse who had been fed a diet of 100 percent alfalfa. Alfalfa is not grass hay; it is a legume, and alfalfa grown in the southwestern part of the United States is very high in magnesium and calcium, the building blocks of stones. Per pound, there is actually four times the amount of calcium in our alfalfa than the average horse needs. An epidemiology study at the University of California, Davis concluded that 95 percent of horses referred for enterolith (stone) surgery ate a diet made up of more than 50 percent alfalfa. Yet Dr. Matt estimates that a majority of horse owners in our area feed 100 percent alfalfa. He does surgery regularly to remove these stones, and several times a year he has to put horses down because they’re too far gone—the stones too big, like the one he was holding in his hand.

Why do they do it? With all the information available about equine nutrition, why would anyone in this part of the country feed straight alfalfa?

“We work our horses hard. We’re riding three or four times a week. We need them to perform. Go fast. Alfalfa keeps them
hot.
”

Is there another way to keep a horse’s energy level up without ingesting so much calcium and magnesium? Of course there is. But it might cost a bit more. Or take a bit more effort.

Eighteen-year-old Skeeter was on straight alfalfa when he came to us. We tapered him down to 20 percent alfalfa and 80 percent coastal Bermuda, plus a scoop of Purina Strategy pellets morning and night. He lost a bit of weight, apparently accustomed to the energy and protein in alfalfa. So we studied a bit, spoke with Dr. Matt, swapped the Strategy for Purina Senior, and added some soaked beet pulp. A bit more trouble, maybe a tad more expensive. But his weight is fine, he’s a happy camper, and he’s not getting those excessively high doses of calcium and magnesium that can cause huge life-threatening stones.