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Updates from Doc T – On The Road Again…
February 11, 2021
It has been 1 week since the launch of this member site and I am so grateful to all of you who have decided to become members! All over the US plus 2 from the UK and 1 from Italy. Hi y’all!
I am on the road for a while traveling to barns and floating teeth so my available time to get in here is less than when I am home. Please be patient! In the meantime please make yourselves at home here and add some thoughts for all to add to.
I updated 1 topic in the “Horse Care” section about the Silver Dapple Gene. I saw one and realized I didn’t have a topic on that – so I added one. You can also find topics worthy of comment or some that are missing or that you want me to add content to. Requests get priority.
Matt has added my wife’s beautiful monthly newsletter with articles I have written. Please check the newsletters out.
Matt will also be adding soon some podcasts I have recorded. Later this month I will be creating some more. Any topics you want me to discuss?
I have to get to the car now. Bless the Tesla service techs who got to my car on Monday as a “walk in” to replace my dead 12v accessory battery so that I could get on the road. The horses I have seen so far this week have been so responsive to the removal of oral pain. I started to really think about making the “Irrefutable Laws Of Horsemanship” course that will be based on my book. Have you all read that? It is part of the membership and is found in the resources in the top menu.
Got to get going. Heavy city traffic to get through before the farm land. I’ll be back next week. Doc T
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February 22, 2021
Hello everyone from Nashville, Tennessee! I’m on my final leg of my monthly excursion to some part of the US to work on the teeth of horses. This trip has been a bit of a mess due to winter storms with 3 days spent in a hotel room in states where they own no snow plows or salt.
Thankfully I’ll be heading south later today and back in FL soon and home a bit later. Stops in Tallahassee and Ocala.
Rescheduling and driving tossed my brain and I forgot to add a Thursday Thoughts here – my weekly update on this site and what I have added or updated. My mission is to always add a weekly update on Thursday. Please forgive me as this is not a habit yet.
Here is a reminder though which Matt will be posting soon – and you all have received an email about. I’ll be having a Zoom meeting this Sunday at 8pm New York time. The topic is Aerobic exercise and its effect on insulin resistance. This will be a review on insulin resistance and the work around we all can benefit from.
Also, if you know of someone interested in becoming a member, I will have another Zoom on Monday March 1st which is a repeat of the introduction to this site. Feel free to pass along that link to them or to post it in your social media.
Gotta go float some teeth. I’ll be back in a few days. Doc T
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March 16, 2021
It has been a while since my last “weekly” update. I have been to several snow covered states as well as dozens of barns to float a bunch of horses. I’m also experimenting with several sleep apps on my phone and wrist to figure out my sleep cycles and to smooth them out as I go from hotel room to hotel room.
In this COVID world, I have prioritized 3 things: my sleep, my eating times and my diet. My goal is to reduce my waist size which correlates to my metabolic health. It turns out that “Metabolic Syndrome” in humans is determined by several factors including blood triglycerides, fasting blood glucose, blood pressure and serum HDL cholesterol. However, according to the World Health Organization, the National Cholesterol Education Program, the International Diabetes Federation and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the number one criteria for diagnosing metabolic syndrome in humans is obesity. The waist measurement (around the umbilicus) is the key determinant. For men it is 90 to 102cm (38 to 40 inches) and for women it is 80 to 88cm (31 to 35 inches).
YIKES!!
I wonder how to convert this to horses? I can think of the BCS (body condition score) but I wonder if there is a math formula we could try (girth x length). However we can all see a “fat” horse when we see it. And with some of the things said here, we now know that horse, like humans, with metabolic syndrome (EMS) there also exists IR (insulin resistance. So more to come on this…
I also had a horse I could not float this week. Actually it is the 3rd time I’ve tried but I really want to survive so I elected not to float him. My opinion is that medications would not help. So how do I connect with 99% of horses? This needs to be recorded and a discussion of what to walk away. The “cowboy” they had sent this horse to had broken many bones in his body….
I also saw for the first time a gasoline nozzle being used as a water valve at the end of a long hose used for filling water buckets in a barn.
[caption id="attachment_61560" align="alignnone" width="640"]
Gas pump water valve[/caption]Finally, I attended a webinar put on by the AAEP discussing EHV-1 and all vaccinations in light of the EHV-1 outbreak in Spain. Several clients are calling concerned about this viral disease in horses that has affected over 100 of the 300 horses stabled at the Showgrounds in Spain and killed 11+. The consensus was that the EHV-1 vaccine will help but it is not guaranteed to protect all vaccinated horses from this disease – but do it anyway if you are going to shows. I have an “old” but still valid view on vaccines in the topic section.
Time to go into the very cold temperatures. Hoping my barns will have hot water for my hands. Doc T
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