Preach, sister!!
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“Your horse is really fat. Don’t ride him”
How does that work?! If the horse is so fat that month 0 saddle ≠ month 6 saddle, then - barring injury - he needs work and a saddle refit at month 6.
Not “hide the hiney” and “stand on a tyre”. The hunt would put him on steady road work for six weeks.
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Yes. Yes! YES!
I mentioned this on another thread, but since it’s relevant here I’ll say it again - I feel like there’s an almost overwhelming amount of social media voices that are preaching that everything conventional we do to our horses is causing them great pain and trauma, but they are the self-proclaimed experts who know The Truth and can teach us The Way…if we pay for their expensive classes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure some of it is good and valuable information, but it’s exhausting to be consistently sold the idea that anything less than perfect is causing active harm. The attitude that they are the only ones who are “tapped into” this information, everyone else is wrong and they are right, etc etc really turns me off from anything they have to say.
In reality I think many of us have our horse’s welfare at heart, and act with the best of intentions. In most cases, “perfect” is unattainable and good enough will be good enough.
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So I was doing a FB search for something unrelated, and got this post from TTHW in 2019. Based on this post… this is way, way too “woo woo” for me.
I wasn’t going to say anything on here, because I hate drama and avoid it at all costs-
But Dragon deserves it.The woman who bred and raised Dragon, was whom I trusted him to when I made the hard decision to let him go.
She’s an avid horse owner and breeder and claims to be an equine advocate.
After having him for a very short time, she announced to me that he was losing weight for “no reason” and he “wouldn’t let her ride him.”
So she made the decision to put him down.I tuned into him energetically, and I could feel that he had not been fed what she claimed and that she was trying to get him to perform and he wasn’t in the health or condition to do so.
I asked her for the chance to bring him home and try a few things and if nothing worked, I would put him down myself and say goodbye to my best friend.
All the while knowing deep down that this was simply an issue of someone who didn’t want to feed a horse she couldn’t use.The top photo was the condition that he was returned to me.
After a thorough vet examination we found -
He did not have ulcers.
He did not have parasites.
He did not have anything causing him to “lose weight for no reason.”
Aside from gross neglect.The lower photo with ***, is just one month later, being fed a normal 2 flakes of hay morning and night with a daily graining.
This alone, is proof that what she said was a lie.
Yet again, my faith in humanity (especially in the horse world) has been failed, and my heart is broken that my heart horse was put through trauma that he did not deserve.
On a positive note - I finally created a blend of herbs that works for his hormones and he’s been a gem, even though there are mares in training on the property.
We also had our first ride together a few days ago, and he was the happy Ferrari that I’ve always loved.Shout out to *** for hooking me up with animal element to help his body detox from the trauma, to *** for giving me your rig for the day to rescue him, and to *** for working your magic on him when I couldn’t. And last but not least - to my *** who spent his day off building a new pen just for him.
It takes a village, and I have to say -
I’m happy to have him home.
I suppose there’s no better place to rehab a horse than here
I’m not sure I should share the photo, but to me… Horse#1 was just a slightly dirtier version of #2.
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Amen
Wow. Speechless. If you have the photo, I’m curious. If you could send through a PM? If not it’s okay.
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I don’t see why you shouldn’t share the photos, you shared the text. So this is from TTHW? Via a PM or …?? She’s out there for sure, wow.
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I found another post about the same horse a few years later. What stands out to me is that after she tries painkillers she decides that yes the horse is in pain. And mentions chronic ulcers… And my understanding is the horse had been under her care for years at this point. It’s just the judginess that I’m not down with.
Of course the whole point is that she did the pillars on him and then he completely changed.
Dated from March 2022
"FB -“Say something about these photos” -
What can I say, that they don’t?
My Dragon.
My greatest teacher.
I’ll never forget the day I called my animal communicator friend to ask her to talk to him for me.
To tell him that I love him and that I was done watching him suffer and that I was finally going to let him go.
This world must not have been made for something as magnificent as he is anyway…
“Have you tried giving him a heavy painkiller?”
She asked me.
And honestly, the thought never crossed my mind.
I had reached out to every bodyworker, every respected trainer, every Vet. Even specialists at UC Davis and we were all at a loss as to what was causing his severe anxiety and aggressive behavior. Every test was inconclusive.
He would pace and pace and pace.
We tried stall rest up to a ten acre pasture all to himself.
I tried different horses, but he would lethally attack them.
I tried horses just being housed near him, and he would break through any fence to get to them.
I could no longer have him on my property and there was no point in sending this broken soul down the road yet again.
But he never once, showcased even a sliver of physical discomfort or lameness.
So my answer to my friend, was no.
“I’m getting a ton of pain from him. Deep in his belly and groin and he can’t get away from it. Occasionally he gets electric shock feelings in his heart space and down his hind legs.
No matter what he does he can’t get away from it.”
No matter what I did, I couldn’t get him to rest.
So while I was waiting for the vet to come out to put him down, I hit him with a heavy dose of painkillers as a Hail Mary.
And he stopped.
He stopped pacing.
He stopped biting the air.
He was okay with just being, still.
My heart broke all over again as I realized my friend was just in chronic pain and I had no idea.
That chronic pain put him in a feedback loop of staying on a sympathetic state.
Chronic ulcers.
Hyper vigilance
Weight loss.
I look at these photos now, and I see the tension cycle just based off of the integrity of his neck alone.
To the left we see rigidity through the entire under neck, keeping his shoulders pinned down and in. Much like you would see in a horse about to be taken down by a mountain lion.
Lines on his shoulders showing the atrophy in the muscles that serve to protect his precious nerves.
I had been trying to catch him and he was disinterested in the process as there was always something seemingly waiting in the distance to kill him.
To the right, you see a soft neck with a heart to match. Calmly offering on his own to be bridled.
Happy to go out with other horses and has no issues with his gut or weight.
Closed energy vs Receiving energy is what I call this.
.
.
.
I’m sitting pool side and catching up on emails and have one after another giddy client sending me updates or posting about the changes in not only the horses body, but their behavior.
Which to me is the biggest metric of all.
Tension patterns can change and be up for debate between Bodyworkers who have different lenses, but you can’t fake behavior and what the horse says is true.
And they’re the only ones who’s opinions matter to me.
Pillar 1 of my work, is relationshipn to connection.
Which, for those of you going through it knows that it’s the most difficult to really achieve.
Not because it requires technical skill, but because it cannot be forced, which is human natures first instinct.
It requires you to work at your horses pace and allow them the space and time to be okay with being vulnerable.
To be able to be present and willing to talk to their bodies and to you instead of running away or shutting down.
To allow them to teach you how to show up as a partner for them so they can invite you into that receiving energy.
Because after all, that’s the jewel most of us are chasing anyway 
"
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Wow, so she blamed someone else for the horse not being able to keep weight on, but when the same thing happened to her, it was suddenly legitimate? Like it was impossible the prior owner might have experienced the same issues as her? That’s horrible.
I know a lady who rescued a 30 year old mare, who was severely malnourished. She was all over social media accusing the prior owner of neglect. For a while it looked like she was right; the horse actually became obese and aside from being too heavy, seemed to be thriving. Fast-forward, and the new owner couldn’t keep weight on the horse and the horse returned to her emaciated state. The new owner blamed “old age,” (which apparently was okay for her to do) but I am guessing the horse had some chronic health issues that were in effect with the prior owner that were under control for a while with the new owner, but flared up again for whatever reason. Seasonal pain, a stressor that caused pacing, who knows.
Point being, unless it is witnessed that the animal isn’t being offered enough to eat, it’s crazy to assume abuse and starvation. Horses can have poor appetites that come and go for a variety of reasons despite being offered all the food they need to be the appropriate weight. Sometimes it’s next to impossible to figure out. Oh, and the new owner ended up putting the horse to sleep this winter.
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I cropped out the handler. The horse looks light in both images, but not exactly neglected. I could get a photo of mine looking all sad and dopey in the midday heat, and a while later galloping up for tea.
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That’s exactly how it read to me. It was obvious abuse when it happened with someone else but if course not with her!
Honestly I’m all for getting a relaxed under neck and making sure they are carrying in their thoracic sling. And obviously any nerve impingements is not a good thing. Healthy muscles and nerves are obviously a good thing that we all should strive for. I’m big on paying attention to my horse’s posture. And I’m big on bodyworker.
But why all this mystical secret club stuff, pulling on heartstrings, crying about all the haters while being so incredibly judgey? Asking a question about a method that you want someone to pay money for it is not being a hater. If you’re going to be an equine professional and have a big social media presence you have to understand you will get questions.
Honestly if she talked in a much more straightforward way and even had a video clip of just the first start of her exercises I would probably be down with it. But everything else just turns me off.
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I was headshaking before. Now I’m kinda furious. For someone who says, nay, proselytizes on posture, that horse should not have escaped her expert gaze as an uncomfortable horse. 
Neck looks great in the bottom picture though so I guess everything is ok. 
This all reminds me of a very, very important lesson a young man (10 years old I think?) learned last year. He came to find me as soon as I arrived at the barn saying my horse looked angry. I hightailed it to her stall to find she had an eye injury that couldn’t be seen until I asked her to turn towards me. To the young man I said that he did absolutely the right thing coming to find me because none of the horses in our section of the barn ever stood around angry, anger was their way to tell us they were uncomfortable, and to always, always to have someone check for injury or illness if he ever found another unhappy horse. Always.
I wish I had and everyone on the planet could learn/have learnt that lesson at such a young age.
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There are two kinds of people who rescue horses (and other animals):
-
those who love horses, see one in need, and get satisfaction from giving that horse a better life
-
those who get their dopamine hit from calling out the prior owner (and usually getting public praise for it) and showing how superior their care is
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It may be minor, but I’m not a fan of the formatting of her posts. It’s like she’s trying to make a dramatic point after each sentence or two. But I may be nitpicking.
If her program helps people, great. But I’m a little leary of people who use Facebook as the basis of their program/business. But then again, I don’t trust Facebook.
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Wait … the bottom picture is supposed to be the one “after” she “fixed” him and put oh so much weight on him and started him on her proprietary blend of herbs and spices or whatever? The one where there’s very little muscle in his back end (but his head is down so I guess his “thoracic sling” is ok)?
How trashy of her to publicly call out her horse’s breeder/former owner like that, especially when it’s clear that whatever mistake that person may have made, she made the same exact one. People who are truly good at what they do and confident in their skills don’t need to run down others to make themselves look better.
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I really think the horse looks no different. He’s just dirty in the first picture. I also find this to be really trashy and unprofessional.
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You can listen to episode 90. It’s a lot about how other bodyworkers are feeling threatened by her and that what she has created is 100% original work.
I find her to have a very big ego even though she repeatedly says she doesn’t have one. She sure cares a lot about what people think it seems to me.
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It’s being pushed really hard from every angle on FB and Instagram. Can’t seem to get away from it. But make no mistake she’s pushing it pretty hard.
Here is another one episode 25. Honestly listening to it I hear a lot of over generalizations about people on disciplines with no studies to back it up. And listening to her method and thoughts I just keep thinking… Wow that’s just sounds like good dressage fundamentals lol.
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Right. So how do you counter market that without putting her down? How do you professionally promote your services (fishing for new clients not established ones that know the difference) while they are flocking to her emotional marketing and hoodoo? How do you stand out and still look classy without saying thww is a load of…
…this was nawing at me and then i realized I cant come up with the words for it because we dont know what she actually teaches!
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