The Horse's Advocate Podcast

Reducing the extra body fat on our horses is the best, if not the only, way to improve and eliminate metabolic syndrome. But is there a cost to their health in the increased production of molds with mycotoxins when doing this? I attended a symposium by the European Equine Health & Nutrition Congress in the Netherlands that addresses molds and mycotoxins in forage. This meeting would be where I cou...

Humans now live in a world where communication is one or two-dimensional. The telephone or video meeting is a two-dimensional conversation, and texting, writing, or email is one-dimensional. These types of communications don't employ the depth of vision to notice the subtle nuances of facial expression. Wearing a mask will also eliminate seeing a slight smile or frown. There is a fourth dimension...

After floating 75,000 horses since 1983, Doc T discusses the valuable observations he has observed. Without funding for significant scientific studies involving a broad spectrum of horse breeds with significant participants (1000s) for extended periods (years), we only use observational studies to understand dentistry in horses. These have no randomized populations with a control group to verify t...

Horse owners want to do the best for their horses either because of the significant investment in their purchase and training/showing or because they are guilty or worried that they are missing something important in their care. But the responsibility of providing care given by agenda-based products as the sole mentors cause lost wisdom, and the horse suffers. The reaction is to continually add fo...

Protein is a word in nutrition that horse owners have difficulty understanding. There is a good reason for this: it is more complicated than carbohydrates (sugar) and fat. But why? Horse owners aren't stupid, and on top of this, they want to do the "best" for their horses. Protein makes up the hair coat, topline muscles, hooves, suspensory ligaments, neurotransmitters (Cushing's disease), the immu...

Daniel Dauphin is a horseman from Lafayette, Louisiana, passionate about training horses using horsemanship skills he learned from mentors. His website and social media are listed below. We discuss various topics, including what drives us to become better horsemen (equestrians, horse handlers, trainers), how to become a leader, overcome fear, and how we connect with horses. Daniel also used engine...

All things in life experience an ebb and flow, much like the seasons, the loss of leaves of the oak tree, the tides or the birth and death of all living things. What is the challenge for all of us and our horses is not just having a long life but being healthy through that life. All living things go through a period of stress physically to help us remain healthy. This necessary stress triggers cel...

Within the cells of our horses are power stations where fuel converts into energy. Without this power station, called the mitochondria, the cell, and thus the horse, dies. In reality, the mitochondria are organisms (primitive bacteria) living within our cells in a symbiotic relationship - where each can't live without the other. How well the mitochondria work is related to the fuel that it eats. T...

Houston We Have A Problem With Equine Veterinarians - #023 The Horse's Advocate Podcast   The equine veterinary profession is at a breaking point. There needs to be more incentive for developing new horse vets. The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) knows it and is assembling a task force to address this. Unfortunately, they are asking all but the people they should be asking - th...

I attended two meetings recently. One was about parasites in horses and was worth revisiting for a fresh perspective. The other was about liver disease in horses.  While these sound beyond the routine needs of horse owners, many of you want to bridge your knowledge between you and your veterinarian. So I break down what they say and interpret it so you can converse with your veterinarian about the...

I attended a conference called the EquiSummit, produced by a major manufacturer of horse feed components and sponsored by the horse feed companies dedicated to supplying horses with feed and forage. Their representatives, along with equine nutritionists (consultants and professors) and veterinarians (industry employees and professors), discussed the following topics: A Horse Owner's Guide to Leaky...

Many horses perform in physically demanding competition and need feeding differently from retired horses in the field. This logic makes sense, but is it true?  This podcast looks at the requirements of equine athletes from the point of view where the basic foundations of nutrition are placed first in our thoughts, followed by what they need to survive and thrive in their sport. The idea of a grain...

Oils and fats seem to confuse a lot of horse owners, and because of this, terminology such as "Omega 3 oils" are used a lot but without understanding what they are. As a result, horses are fed a lot of oils with good intentions for their health. But does it? This podcast reviews what fatty acids are: saturated, monounsaturated (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated (PUFAs) fatty acids (fat). It also goes ove...

As horse owners, we have a right to protect and prevent injury and disease from happening to the horses under our care. However, owners are being blocked at every turn by caring people trying to improve our horses' lives. But can they do this while also being driven by an agenda? The horse owner's manual that was supposed to come with every horse has many missing pieces - or maybe the manual never...

Whether soybean meal is OK to feed horses is often asked on the FB group (The Horse's Advocate) and by my dentistry clients. If all seeds cause gut inflammation (lectins, starch) in horses and the core belief of this group is to go back to feeding horses the way they ate for millions of years, how then is providing soybean meal (SBM) a good choice for horses?  This podcast discusses how and why th...

This podcast is different from your average discussion about what to vaccinate your horses with. That would be a discussion with your veterinarian, who knows you and what diseases are in your area. However, to prepare you for that discussion, I will talk about immunology, vaccination and disease history, and false advertising by vaccine companies.  You should NOT be anti-vaccines, but be aware tha...

There is a point where the pain we are experiencing is beyond our ability to control our reaction to it. This point is our threshold, which is different for every person and horse alive.  Discovering if your horse is a wimp or a tough guy will help in how you work with them or if you need to medicate for something another horse tolerates.  But pain can be more than physical. There is also mental p...

Horses are like humans in expressing themselves as blends of four basic personalities. When working with horses, we must understand that we cannot change them just like we cannot change another human. The only one we can change is ourselves. Once we understand the personality of the horse we are working with, we can change our expression to match that of the horse we are working on. By keeping our...

Every animal on the planet does sleep, including insects, birds, fish, aquatic mammals, you, me and our horses. Humans spend a third of their lives sleeping; in that time, we repair and strengthen our health systems. So do our horses, but little is known. There seems to be an increase in "narcolepsy" in horses, which isn't the proper use in horses of this human disease. So now it is known as a "Sl...

Doc T discusses the portions of the brain responsible for the horses identifying danger, analyzing the threat, and then responding to the go/no go for launching into a fight or running from the area. Understanding the separate locations within the brain and the connections between them helps identify where you, the horse owner or trainer, need to interject yourself to defuse a dangerous situation....

There are three fundamental classes of medications in horses that I want to describe today to help horse owners understand what they are and why there is a price difference. Legend drugs are original products protected by patents and sold under a famous marketed name. The FDA approves these to meet strict standards. Generic drugs are almost exact copies of legend drugs without a fancy and well-kno...

Physics is a collection of laws that control how things work in our universe. They have no allegiance to a country, religion or even if you are a plant, animal or mineral. Instead, physics is the rule book by which we all play. How the laws of physics apply to our horses had intrigued me since about 1978 when I noticed that scientists were looking at how these laws made our horses lame. It hooked...

The Parachute Study was a parody published in a top medical journal to bring attention to the fact that there are few research papers published that we can believe. Couple this with the fact that retractions in medical journals are at an all-time high; humans and horse owners don't know anything but what they know based on their life. Who do we believe? Where do we go to get information? It boils...

Equine endocrinology is a deep and complicated subject. In this podcast, Geoff Tucker, DVM (Doc T), reports on a webinar he attended for continuing education credit presented by a pharmaceutical company. Dr. Tucker addresses their perspectives as compared to what he sees as a slightly different opinion. This presentation reviews PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermediate Dysfunction or Cushing's disease) a...

Equine asthma is similar to human asthma based on several factors associated with this lung disorder in horses. It has had several names, including heaves, COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and others. In the past, veterinarians blame allergens for triggering the airways of horses to constrict, making it almost impossible to exhale. As a result, horses can no longer breathe effectively....