Archive for August 2015

Skeeter’s Triumph: A Reborn Thyroid

Five years ago, shortly after we moved from California to middle Tennessee, Kathleen’s (then) 24 year old Skeeter was diagnosed with a low thyroid. It was under-producing. He’s been on thyroid medication ever since. We get his blood checked every six months to make sure things are still good… and until recently they had been. Read More→

Trust – It Changes Everything

He’s not Cash. But he’s doing a fine job of keeping my present tense reminded of why Cash was so special and will never be forgotten, in a way that is no longer so filled with tears but, once again, with joy. A fine job indeed. Thank you God, and Cash, for sending him. Kathleen named him Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a major prophet in the Old Testament delivering this message from God: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. Seemed appropriate. We call him Zeke. And he’s a joy.

When Zeke came into our lives, as terrific as he was, he had a lot of issues, especially around feeding time. He’s had seven owners during his seven years of life. And the one three months before we found him had completely abandoned him and several other horses when his show barn had gone into bankruptcy. The owners just walked away. Read More→

Sugar Promotes Chronic Inflammation

From Juliet Getty, my favorite Equine Nutritionist and author of the book Feed Your Horse Like a Horse, comes a very valuable article. This is so important to understand:

Sugar Promotes Chronic Inflammation

by Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D.

Inflammation. The very word triggers images of pain, redness and swelling. But in the case of injury or infection, acute inflammation is actually a beneficial means of restoring the body to health. Specific cells are called into action to remove the source of injury or infection and repair damaged tissue. It’s when inflammation becomes chronic that areas of the body may lose function. Any part of the body can be impacted by inflammation, including joints, feet, lungs, muscles, skin, digestive tract, reproductive function, heart, nervous system, pancreas, liver, as well as the hypothalamic brain centers responsible for releasing dopamine and recognizing leptin.

This article focuses on the inflammatory impact that sugar has on your horse’s health. There are several other causes of inflammation, such as stress and obesity, high dietary levels of linoleic acid (an omega 6), free-radical consumption from poorly stored fatty feeds, and trans fat (partially hydrogenated oils); however, the damaging impact of high sugar/high starch diets is commonplace. Read More

Words That Keep Us Going

An email from Coreen, a new friend: “I wanted to express deep thanks for such amazing material that you have shared in your books, and I have only read Born Wild and two others so far. This year has been a culmination of a decade of various stressful factors, and your books seem to be tying it all together in my horse world, and in my personal world. My hubby is away in rehab, probably for another 6 months now. Needless to say his issues have wreaked havoc on our marriage. I think Noelle deserves a big “hug” and many wondrous scritchins as she has helped me to see my husband with new eyes, and the two of you have helped me to feel secure in “getting out of the way” as in getting out of God’s way, AND the two of you have helped me to identify some areas about the horses where I owed my husband a HUGE apology, and we had one of the best conversations about the horses tonight that we have ever had. Read More→