The Horse's Advocate Podcast

James Belden, DVM, is a quiet horse vet who became a friend when I helped him find the Hertz car rental facility at Newark airport on a cold January day in 2006. From that serendipitous meeting, James became a mentor and kindred spirit. He is my colleague with more horse experience than I can imagine with all types of horses and veterinary cases. James worked with horses on the farm as a boy and m...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I have a special message at the end of this podcast, but the essence of it is this - I am thankful for each person who takes the time to listen to my podcast and then share it with others. Together, we all will Help Horses Thrive In A Human World! I ran across a brief article filled with so much misinformation about dentistry in horses and its relationship to their nu...

Here are the lectures covered on this day. 1) A Review Of A Novel Treatment For Equine Osteoarthritis: Intra-articular 2.5% Polyacrylamide Hydrogel - Megan Green, DVM - A product manufacturer presented this talk. She described using a registered medical device injected into the joints of horses (and humans) that helps cushion the concussion and provides a scaffolding for cartilage repair. 2) Diagn...

Here are the lectures covered this day. 1) Relevance Impact of Common and Lesser Characterized Respiratory Viruses Associated With Upper Airway Disease. Nicola Pusterla, DVM . Identifying common viruses and separating them from the common bacterial infections of the upper airway is the main focus of this talk. Discussion includes Equine Herpes Virus 1&4, 2&5, Equine Influenza Virus, Equine Rhiniti...

Here are the lectures covered on this day. 1) Why Understanding Injury Pathogenesis Is Important, Chris Kawcak, DVM . He first discusses why understanding injury is essential, then moves to define lameness versus asymmetry. The problem is predicting the outcome for individual horses. 2) Using What We Know To Influence Injury Prevention, Chris Kawcak, DVM . The task of identifying at-risk horses be...

Here are the lectures covered on this half day. 1) Healing With Horse Power, Liberty Getman, DVM - discussing regenerative medicine for osteoarthritis using IRAP (interleukin-1 receptor antagonist protein), PRP (platelet rich plasma), Restigen®, Pro-Stride® and PPP (platelet poor plasma).  2) Emergency Service: Thinking Outside The Box, Amy Grice, DVM - The crisis of the reduction of equine veteri...

The annual Florida Association of Equine Practitioners meeting is in Palm Beach, FL this week. I review the topics to be covered, helping you see what the world of practicing equine veterinarians is discussing. I also discuss the importance of the insulin-to-glucagon ratio in adding or removing body fat as a glimpse of the detailed discussion on the recent membership "Rounds With Doc T." *********...

I want to give horse owners a different perspective on whether to feed their horses vitamins. Most discussions on this subject discuss what diseases are prevented by supplementing with which vitamin. I will not repeat this because 1) others have done this, and 2) there needs to be more good science behind their findings. Instead, I will tell you how vitamins work, if supplementation works, and the...

What is an identity? Is it the thing that makes you an individual, or does it make you identical to others? Which one is it for an equine veterinarian? As the number of veterinary schools and new graduates increases, the latter definition of identity generates like-minded, cookie-cutter professionals focused on themselves rather than the people they serve. Yes, after today's farm visits, I'm a bit...

Equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) is a collection of factors and events within the horse affected by food, stress, and sleep. This podcast focuses on the fact that behind the top three causes of medical deaths in humans (atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease, cancer, cognitive disorders) is a metabolic system not functioning to its full potential. Could a poor metabolic system also be causing healt...

Equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) is a collection of factors and events within the horse affected by food, stress, and sleep. This podcast summarizes information in general terms for most horse owners. While preparing it for broadcast, I realized that making a part two would help further understand the questions raised within this podcast. This podcast covers the ingested materials (air, water, mine...

For many of us, it's hard to understand math. But twisting numbers to explain what we observe only makes things worse. With confusion in our understanding of what the scientists find in an experiment, we turn to others, like magazines, news articles, and social media, for a distilled explanation. Further, we assume these distillers of information have it right, but unfortunately, they usually don'...

The Beatles played music from the 1950s through today, though two of the "Fab Four" are now dead. Their "invasion" of the United States occurred in 1963 when I was in 5th grade. While some of you listening to this have probably never heard of this iconic band, their music still plays around the world. Their song, "Here Comes The Sun," is one of the top songs, if not the #1 song, ever played by lis...

The road near our house is under construction, causing traffic snarls for over a year, and completion this year is unlikely at the work rate seen this weekend. Two days are dead quiet on the construction site. From Friday night to Sunday night, workers do everything except build the new highway: family time, sports, and recreation. Why? Because road construction is a job. These people may be good,...

This podcast covers three topics within the interest of dentistry in horses. EOTRH (Equine Odontoplastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis), dentistry in donkeys at The Donkey Sanctuary in the UK, and the problems that can occur with cheek tooth extractions in horses. Dentistry in horses is what I have done since 1983 and exclusively since 1998. I have drawn my own conclusions by studying the c...

This podcast is chapters sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen of my autobiography,  Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . If you are new to this podcast, please go to podcast # 078 to start from the beginning of this book. This podcast is the final episode of the reading of this book. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration if you need help findi...

It is a simple math problem, as easy as a homeowner's budget. If more equine vets leave practices than there are coming into practices, there will be fewer to care for our horses. Just like the expression, there is more month than money. The reasons fall into several groups. The first and most important reason is money. Small animal vets make about double what a horse vet makes. The second reason...

This podcast is chapters thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen of my autobiography,  Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . If you are new to this podcast, please go to podcast # 078 to start from the beginning of this book. Over the next few months, I'll record and put out all 18 chapters of my autobiography. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration...

This podcast is chapters eleven and twelve of my autobiography,  Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . Over the next few months, I'll record and put out all 18 chapters of my autobiography. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration if you need help finding your journey. May 2023 represents my 50th year working with horses. So how did I get here...

This podcast reviews a vet school's economic impact statement and a special Equus magazine about the health of our horses. When I read these, my first reaction was a concern for my colleagues and, worse, all horse owners. To appease the workforce demand for quality time and a work-life balance, veterinary schools are increasing the number of veterinarians graduating yearly. An assumption is that t...

This podcast is chapters eight, nine, and ten of my autobiography,  Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . Over the next few months, I'll record and put out all 18 chapters of my autobiography. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration if you need help finding your journey. May 2023 represents my 50th year working with horses. So how did I get h...

Dr. Martin Goldstein is known as "Dr. Marty" and "The Dog Doc." He earned his veterinary degree from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine in 1973, as I did in 1984. We walked the same halls and learned from the same professors. Yet Dr. Marty saw something wrong early in his career. The animals he treated with academic knowledge should have improved, but instead, they became sicker and died.  T...

This podcast is chapters six and seven of my autobiography, Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . Over the next few months, I'll record and put out all 18 chapters of my autobiography. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration if you need help finding your journey. May 2023 represents my 50th year working with horses. So how did I get here? Wha...

How long ago is relative to how old we are. To a baby, yesterday seems so long ago. A 24-year-old may think they have "forever" before them, hoping the past stays in the past. As a 70-year-old, I believe that my "runway" is short, and I often reflect on the past, as I did last week attending my father-in-law's funeral. Relative to me, one or two hundred years ago doesn't seem that long ago. My 50...

This podcast is chapters four and five of my autobiography, Since The Days Of The Romans  - My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses . Over the next few months, I'll record and put out all 18 chapters of my autobiography. I hope you enjoy hearing my story and find inspiration if you need help finding your journey. May 2023 represents my 50th year working with horses. So how did I get here? Wha...