The Horse’s Advocate Podcast episodes are in chronological order below – the most recent is at the top.
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Podcast #095 – Scientific Studies, Marketing, and Horse Care
In this podcast, I explain in easy terms how a thought becomes a study and how the results are analyzed with math to predict if something causes disease and, more importantly, if it is clinically meaningful. The bottom line of how science affects our horses is why we must consider these basic ideas and analyze…
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Podcast #094 – Horsemanship – Here Comes The Sun
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.…
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Podcast #093 – Is Passion Missing In Veterinarians Today?
Veterinary medicine is a calling, a passion, that drives people to do extraordinary things, such as commit to healing animals at any moment, despite the personal cost. Today, however, veterinary medical organizations are spending a lot of time working to change the profession to meet the perceived needs of veterinarians. Ignored are the animals and…
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Podcast #092 – EOTRH, Donkey Dentistry, and Cheek Tooth Extractions
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.
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Podcast #091 -Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 16, 17, and 18
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…
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Podcast #090 – Crisis With Equine Veterinarians
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.
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Podcast #089 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 13, 14, and 15
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…
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Podcast #088 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 11 and 12
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…
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Podcast #086 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 8, 9, and 10
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…
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Podcast #085 – Integrative Medicine With Dr Marty Goldstein
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…
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Podcast #084 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 6 and 7
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…
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Podcast #083 – Horse Care Old And New
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…
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Podcast #082 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 4 and 5
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…
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Podcast #081 – The Horse Race Between Evolution And Technology
Evolution defines the development of a species, such as the horse, throughout all time on Earth. However, the starting point may be adjusted to any moment we choose, for example, identifying a particular breed, when man domesticated horses, or when the first resemblance of a horse appeared. The time between the selected point and today…
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Podcast #080 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Chapters 2 and 3
This podcast is chapters two and three 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…
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Podcast #079 – Equine Dentistry For 40 Years
Four decades of floating horses have filled me with experiences hard to gain from a textbook. In fact, in 1983, there was only one book on equine dentistry written by an equine dentist from New Jersey; however, other mentions in textbooks on horse care date back 100 years. The questions often asked by horse owners…
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Podcast #078 – Since The Days Of The Romans – Forward, Introduction, and Chapter 1
May 2023 represents my 50th year working with horses. So how did I get here? What brought me from being a wandering young man to becoming an equine veterinarian? In 2014, I wrote my autobiography to help others trying to find their way but having obstacles block their path. This recording is my story of…
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Podcast #077 – The Messages Veterinarians Receive In Their Inbox
I received the following emails targeting equine veterinarians with various announcements last week. You must be “cognitively diligent” to read the subtle messages and misdirection, confusion, and sometimes utter nonsense within their messages. Everyone has an agenda. As veterinarians or horse owners, we must read between the lines, question what is said, and discover if…
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Podcast #076 – Feeding Sale Yearlings And All Horses
This podcast answers a question about the feeding of young, growing horses and their mothers sent to me by someone in Thoroughbred breeding and sales. Here is the question: “I assume that your no-grain diet is only for mature non-pregnant, and non-lactating mares. I’m interested in trying to find a way to use less grain,…
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Podcast #075 – The Role Of Being An Advocate For Horses
This podcast looks at a human study that initially solidified the benefits of consuming EPA, one of the Omega-3 fish oils so popular today. However, recently, the same investigators of this study reviewed their data using different biomarkers and found that their results were not statistically significant. In other words, what they had said about…
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Podcast #074 – Get Your Brain Right, Get Your Horse Right (“Cognitive Laziness”)
I am returning to podcasting after a 6-month break. I will tell you about why in the NEXT podcast. Instead, in this podcast, I want to read a blog I wrote back in March 2020. There are two drivers for my action here. The first is the recent uptick in the discussion about artificial intelligence.…
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Podcast #072 – Cognitive Dissonance In Horse Owners
I discuss how we get bombarded with contradictory information in horse care. To preserve our sanity, we tightly hold to what we believe, given to us by trusted sources. Who to believe? That depends on how hard we want to dig for information.
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Podcast #071 – Review Of Feeding Horses
Over the past month, I have heard many great stories about how well the no-grain plus soybean meal diet works from my dentistry clients. However, they also tell me how difficult it can be to tell others about it. This episode starts by explaining why I have been absent for a few weeks. Sorry about…
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Podcast #070 – Aging The Horse By The Teeth
Several years ago, I asked owners with horses of verified age (papers or lip tattoos) to allow me to photograph the incisors. I shot the left and right lateral, the straight-on, and the open mouth of the lower occlusal surface views. My goal within the project’s time constraints was to get ten random horses of…
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Podcast #069 – Water For Horses
Water is one of the necessary ingredients to maintain life. Every animal and plant on Earth knows this, but because of the familiarity, we often don’t think much about remaining hydrated. In this episode, I read an article from the August 2022 issue of “The Horse” that Purina sponsored. During the reading, I added my…
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Podcast #068 – A Perspective On Veterinary Medicine With Dennis French DVM
My guest today is Dr. Denny French, a second-generation large animal veterinarian from the midwest United States. He was a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Veterinary Medicine for 30 years. In 2009, he migrated back to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Veterinary Medicine as a professor and head of the…
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Podcast #067 – Equine Psychotherapy
I talked with Bonny Barry of Equine Reflections (EquineReflections.org), a non-profit horse therapy center in Folsom, Louisiana. Bonny’s honesty about her journey into this field will affect you whether you have been abused or not. Her stories of patients, unable to speak, connecting with the horses, and then expressing thoughts locked up in their silent…
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Podcast #066 – Mission Statement
Horses thriving is open to interpretation, but as we look at our horses, we all see the difference between thriving and existing. We see this in ourselves. Thriving is a goal we all want, but life usually is about surviving. The human world adds restrictions to the horse, often proclaiming to help horses thrive. But…
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Podcast #065 – Is What We’re Being Taught Correct?
Horse owners are overwhelmed with conflicting “facts” about the care of their horses. Yet, an underlying theme of all the research I find is that everyone wants to treat a condition rather than discover the cause of it. After all, if we could prevent disease and injury in our horses, would veterinarians and human doctors…
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Podcast #064 – Accepting Fat Horses
As long as there isn’t an ice age, the thin horse will survive and thrive longer than the fat horse because the downside of excess body fat is the propensity for unsoundness and illness. Fat horses don’t thrive while the food remains available. In this podcast, I review why it is important to reduce body…
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Podcast #063 – Horse Microbiome, Dentistry, And More
In this podcast, I talk about a variety of subjects. Some I have discussed in detail elsewhere, and some are new. These subjects include the microbiome of horses (and what we know in humans), prebiotics and probiotics (and what I will be taking), what happens to sugar in the diet, how body fat forms, and…
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Podcast #062 – Horsemanship And Confidence Versus Arrogance
I discuss how we can change ourselves in a way that doesn’t complicate our life but enhances our ability to connect with those horses who would not otherwise want to. I use these principles daily and describe the horses we saw during the past week to show how Melissa and I used them to teach…
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Podcast #061 – Weight Loss In Horses – Dental Or Not?
Many horse owners associate weight loss in horses with dental issues. The most common sign of a dental problem is “Quidding” or the formation of a “Quid.” Will the horse lose condition (weight) because of this? I discuss the other reasons for weight loss, the most important being that losing body fat may be a…
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Podcast #060 – Dennis Brooks DVM, Horse Eyes and Veterinary Medicine
Dennis Brooks, DVM is an equine ophthalmologist with a worldwide presence established over 40 years. We chat about many subjects: *Where are veterinarians and the profession today? *How is today’s veterinarian different from 40 years ago? *Why are suicides increasing in veterinarians, more so in females? *What got him started in looking at eyes, and…
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Podcast #059 – What Are We Feeding Our Horses, And Why?
Millions of scoops of grain are fed to our horses every day around the world, yet when I ask horse owners what they are feeding their horses, I usually get blank looks. I grab a feed tag from any bag in the feed room and start reading the first ingredient to the 5th, or 8th,…
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Podcast #058 – A Review Of A Horse Magazine #2
This podcast is the second time I have picked up a popular horse magazine, reviewed the articles and added my thoughts on the ones I selected. I received some positive comments the last time I did this and thought I would do this again. After all, you are reading these magazines without any balancing views.…
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Podcast #057 – Protein and Gastric Ulcers In Horses
Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome, or EGUS, is being treated in more horses today than almost any other disease considered “routine.” The advent of visualizing the stomach lining using a fiber-optic endoscope is now available to nearly every horse owner through their local veterinarian. In addition, medicines are available to treat horses suffering from this condition,…
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Podcast #056 – Horse Dentistry Questions
This episode goes over some frequently asked questions I often get asked as I meet horse owners. My answers are not based on scientific facts because there are no clear scientific facts in equine dentistry. Instead, I base these answers on the more than 75,000 horses I have performed dentistry.
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Podcast #055 – Horses And The Web Of Influence
In this episode, I go through an email I received from Africa with a connection in the state of Washington here in America. Their results with laminitis are remarkable. But this is not the only feedback I receive. I get messages from around the world – and almost every one of them is positive beyond…
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Podcast #053 – Horses And The Road Less Traveled
Feeding our horses as they have for the past 30 years is the “well-worn path.” Insulin resistance, Cushing’s Disease, suspensory ligament disease, decaying teeth, dropped fetlocks, early retirement, obesity, and more are the “known obstacles,” but we know them and therefore are comfortable with them. But feeding horses as they were for millions of years…
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Podcast #052 – Conflicting Information For Feeding Horses
My last podcast (#051) was about the infodemic we are experiencing in the horse world. This is where there is so much conflicting information about the care of horses. In this podcast I want to look at the infodemic in only one aspect of horses – how we need to feed them.
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Podcast #051 – Horse Owners Experiencing An Infodemic
This will be a podcast where I vent my frustration in my attempts to help horse owners help their horses thrive in a human world. All I try to do is get the information out that is as unbiased as I can possible make it. But in the past week I have had several troubling…
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Podcast #050 – Horse Seminar Summaries
I attended 3 equine seminars all with veterinarians discussing different matters: 1) “How Horses Think” put on by Cornell University (not the vet school) 2) “Laminitis Rounds” put on by the American Association of Equine Practitioners 3) “Fiber intake, Fermentation and Dental Condition” put on by the European Equine Health and Nutrition Congress. I also…
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Podcast #049 – Why Do We Go To The Horse Barn?
Why Do We Go To The Horse Barn? Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World is what we do at The Horse’s Advocate. But what about us? How do we thrive in this human world filled with tragedies and unrest? The answer is simple. We go to the barn!
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Podcast #047 – Cavities In Horse Teeth And More
I go over some of the recent articles showing up in the magazines and news feeds for horse owners discussing 1) cavities in the cheek teeth of horses and 2) the inhalation of tooth dust from motorized dentistry tools. I read the lay article and then look at the scientific journal where the information came…
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Podcast #046 – Horse Psychology With Dr Jenny Susser
Today’s guest is Dr Jenny Susser, a sport and performance psychologist from Ocala, FL. In her words, she “successfully applies her years of experience merging mind and body wellness with performance, helping people making a lasting and positive difference in their personal and professional lives.”
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Podcast #045 – The Importance Of The Top Line In Horses
The top line of horses is the muscles along the back bone from the withers to the rump. It is where the saddle or load goes onto the horse. It is an indicator of the overall athletic condition of the horse and is often seen as a “poor” top line when the back bone (spine)…
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Podcast #044 – Therapeutics In Horses – Safety And Side Effects
I report here on the safety and side effects of 4 different therapeutics used for specific purposes in horses. These 4 studies were presented at the 2021 AAEP meeting I attended virtually. 1) Using butorphenol and detomidine in scoping TB yearlings for laryngeal function. 2) Using Equioxx or Banamine to determine if there is sub…
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Podcast #043 – Wounds In Horses
This is a review of what kind of wounds occur in the horse, what needs to be done about them and how to make them heal with the best possible outcomes. In a nutshell, there are partial skin thickness wounds and full thickness wounds.
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Podcast #042 – A Review Of A Horse Magazine
I am on a path of revealing just how science works and why it is a well orchestrated drama to usually promote an agenda. I try not to be cynical or even blind but in this age of slogans such as “Follow the science” I need to define not what science is (I did this…
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Podcast #041 – Dentistry Lectures At The 2021 AAEP Meeting
The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) held their annual meeting last month and offered a section on the current state of equine dentistry. There were 8 lectures and a panel discussion. I report here what they said in each lecture and then add my commentary and interpretations as to how it applies to horses…
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Podcast #040 – Keeping Equine Practitioners In Horse Practices
Horse owners are facing a shortage of equine veterinarians if they live any distance from horses living in a dense population. The cost of a veterinary education and the poor return on the student’s investment compared to their small animal colleagues is the biggest reason. While you think the vet’s bill for work on your…
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Podcast #039 – Sand Colic In Horses
Sand colic in horses is defined as a blockage in the digestive tract due to the accumulation of sand. It is common where horses graze on land with a sand base. But even if your horses live nowhere near sand, this podcast has value. The root cause of sand accumulation may be experienced by your…
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Podcast #038 – Horses In Addition And Subtraction Of Science
Today’s podcast will look at the complexities of the art of scientific research and how it is being manipulated by marketing with the result not always in the best interest of horses. Is it the scientist’s fault? Not really. It is the art of science that non-scientists don’t realize is fallible. This leads to a…
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Podcast #037 – Horse Feeding And Nutrition – A Book Report
I just finished half of an old book on feeding the horse written by a professor of nutrition. It is called “Horse Feeding And Nutrition” by Tony Cunha. It was first published in 1980 and this was the second edition in 1991 – 30 years ago. What was so striking to me were these several…
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Podcast #035 – Three Dimension Communication With Horses (Part 2)
This is the second part of a discussion I started in episode #030. I continue that discussion of relating the brain of the horse with the human brain as the recent discovery of 4 distinct centers of the mammalian brain described by Dr Jill Bolte-Taylor in her book, “Whole Brain Living.” In the past, I…
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Podcast #034 – The TMJ Of Horses
This podcast discusses my experience with tens of thousands of horses and discusses what I have found in my observations and I compare this to what others say about “TMJ” in horses.
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Podcast #033 – Understanding The Basics Of Colic In Horses
As a veterinarian, I have seen many horses with colic and as a horse owner, I have experienced colic personally. There is one thing for certain and that is we need to prevent it from happening in the first place. This is why The Horse’s Advocate explains the harm of inflammatory diets in other podcasts…
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Podcast #030 – Three Dimension Communication With Horses (part 1)
This podcast discusses how our brain works based on the experiences of Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. in her book “Whole Brain Living.” Through the loss of her left half of her brain through a hemorrhage, this Harvard professor of neuroanatomy pieced back the lost functions and through her 8 year journey discovered new concepts of…
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Podcast #029 – 75,000 Horses Floated By Hand
Dr. Tucker discusses a variety of issues commonly asked by horse owners and veterinarians. Specifically, myths are evaluated and theories are offered and also evaluated. This podcast crosses a dozen or more ideas you have often wondered about the teeth of horses, their care and why it matters.
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Podcast #028 – How Is What You’re Doing Working For Your Horses?
Horse owners want to do the best for their horses either because of the large investment in their purchase and training / showing or because they are guilty or worried that they are missing something important in their care. The responsibility of providing care has been given by agenda based products as the sole mentors.…
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Podcast #027 – Protein In Horses
I explain what a protein is and the amino acids that make up all proteins. Then I describe the two reasons why horses are chronically deficient in protein: 1) lack of intake of high quality protein having all the essential amino acids and 2) increased destruction of proteins by the body trying to survive living…
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Podcast #026 – Horsemanship With Daniel Dauphin
Daniel Dauphin is a horseman from Lafayette, Louisiana with a passion for training horses using horsemanship skills he learned from mentors. His website and social media are listed below. We discuss a variety of topics including what drives us to become better horsemen, how to become a leader and overcome fear and how we connect…
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Podcast #023 – Houston We Have A Problem
The equine veterinary profession is at a breaking point. There is little incentive for developing new horse vets. The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) knows it and is putting together a task force to address this. They are asking all but the people they should be asking – the horse owners themselves. Their efforts…
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Podcast #022 – Parasites Revisited and Liver Disease
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, I know that many of you want to bridge your knowledge between you and your veterinarian. I break…
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Podcast #020 – How To Feed The Competing Horse
Most horses are used for strenuous competition and we would think that they need to be feed differently from retired horses that are in the field. This podcast looks at the requirements of these athletes from a point of view where the basic foundations of nutrition are placed first in our thoughts followed by what…
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Podcast #019 – The Role Of Oils In Horses
This podcast reviews what fatty acids are especially the saturated, MUFSA’s and PUFA’s. It also goes over where horses get their fat out in the “wild.” It is obviously not fish or fish oils nor is it flax or other seeds or seed oils. Once understood, horse owners will then understand what to feed horses…
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Podcast #018 – The Right To Prevent
As horse owners, we have a right to protect and to 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 make the lives of our horses better. But are they able to do this while also being driven by…
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Podcast #017 – Is Soybean Meal OK to feed horses?
This is a question asked on the FB group – If all seeds cause gut inflammation in horses and the core belief of this group is to go back to feeding horses the way they were created, how then is feeding soybean meal (SBM) a good choice for horses? This podcast discusses the reasons for…
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Podcast #016 – Vaccinations For Horses
This is not your average discussion about what to vaccinate your horses with. That would be a discussion to have with your veterinarian who knows you and what diseases are in your area. However, to prepare you for that discussion, I will attempt to give you a bit about immunology, a bit about vaccination and…
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Podcast #015 – The Threshold Of Pain In Horses
There is a point where the pain we are experiencing is beyond our ability to control our reaction to it. This point is our pain threshold and it 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…
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Podcast #014 – The Personalities Of Horses
Horses are like humans in the way they express themselves as blends of four basic personalities. When working with horses, it is important to understand that we cannot change them just like we cannot change another human. The only one we can change is ourselves.
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Podcast #013 – Sleep In Horses
Sleep is something every animal on the planet does including insects, birds, fish, aquatic mammals, you, me and our horses. We humans spend a third of our lives sleeping and 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…
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Podcast #012 – Fight Or Flight In Horses
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 launch into either a fight or running from the area. Understanding the separate locations within the brain and then the connections between them helps to identify where you,…
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Podcast #011 – Drug Classes In Horses
There are 3 very basic 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, generic and compounded.
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Podcast #010 – Fun With Physics And Horses
Physics is a collection of laws that control how things work in this world. They have no allegiance to a country, religion or even if you are a plant, animal or mineral. Physics is the rule book by which we all play. How the laws of physics apply to our horses is something that has…
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Podcast #009 – Why Horse Owners Need To Understand The Parachute Study
This 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, both humans and horse owners really don’t know anything but what they…
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Podcast #007 – Equine Asthma
Equine asthma is similar to human asthma based on several factors that have now been associated with this lung disorder in horses. It has had several names in the past including heaves, COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and others. Geoff Tucker, DVM (Doc T) explains what is known based on a recent webinar he attended…
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Podcast #004 – Frequency Of Floating Horse Teeth
The frequency of floating a horse is variable and is related to the individual horse. Often, we think of prevention on a mechanical device, like how often do you change oil in a car’s engine. A horse is a living being and not a machine. It is the threshold of pain that determines how frequently…
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Podcast #001 – Medications in Equine Dentistry
Medications in Equine Dentistry are essential to understand as to why they are used and more importantly, why they are often not used properly. One of the buttons you can push on me is this – I really dislike using the terms “tranq” and “sedate.” These imply that the cause is the human working on…