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Whew! I finallygot time to get more Bloggin’ done.  Here are more wonderful Vendors and Professionals that contributed their precious time and financial resources for the Fundraising Event.

Thank you Dawn Spiegelberg of BODYWISE Bodywork LLC, located near downtown Bothell, Washington, is licensed to provide professional massage therapy for people and horses, incorporating specialties such as Deep Tissue, Myofascial Release, Structural Bodywork, Craniosacral, Neurostructural Integration, Injury Treatment and Pregnancy Massage, and Certified as a Personal Fitness Trainer, BODYWISE integrates a fundamental knowledge of movement to bring about lasting improvements in health, postural alignment, muscular development, and core balance.

Give Dawn a call and find out why a large number of HHABC clients are enjoying the combination of Bodywork on and off the horse!

Dawn Spiegelberg, LMP LAMP
206.898.5327
info@bodywisebodywork.com

“Robbin” shares a moment with her Massage Therapist “Dawn”

Thanks to Megan Ayrault Founder of All About Animal Massage.

AAAM is a community of animal lovers, including our wonderful Expert Advisors and AAAM founder, Megan Ayrault. Together with animal care professionals from around the world, we are here to provide you the education, resources and inspiration you seek in caring for and learning about the animals in your life with massage and related therapies.

Find out about Megan’s new books by visiting the website or email Megan:

Megan@AllAboutAnimalMassage.com

Thanks to all the Bakers,Car Parkers, Greeters, Gamers. And Thanks to Hobbit and Kathryn for showing how Natural Horsemanship can produce a long lasting, natural relationship

HHABC is proud to announce an additional charity we are partnering with for the May 22 Event. Treehouse in Seattle offers programs for kids in foster care what all children so desperately need: a safe place to dream.

Treehouse fills the gaps.

Since 1988, Treehouse has filled the gaps for kids in foster care, providing services that no other agency addresses: money for extra-curricular activities and summer camp, professional educational support services, resources to fully participate in the everyday activities of growing up, clothing and supplies to help them fit in at school.

HHABC will become an ongoing partner for this wonderful organization and provide special event days for these kids. Learn more about Treehouse and how you can help by visiting their website:  www.treehouseforkids.org.

WHAT WE CAN DO TO HELP:

• Bring gently used or new kid clothing for the clothing drive and drop off at HHABC. A bag of used clothes will earn games, pony rides, pictures and more during the Event.
• Donate at the info booth
• Tell all your coworkers and friends about the event to bring clothing or food and of course the kids or themselves to this great event!
• Donate any gently used garage sale clothing after the Event

Help HHABC raise much needed funds, clothing, food and more for horses and humans May 22!

HHABC is committed to assisting local charities that help support or provide for horses and humans in our community. This year we are once again partnering with Hope For Horses in Woodinville and Canyon Hills C0mmunity Church.

What a privilege it is to assist 2 great organizations in our local community that provide hope for hungry humans and horses.

Hope For Horses is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization registered to do business in Washington State located in Woodinville.  For nearly ten years, they have championed humane care of all equines through legislation, cruelty investigations, assistance in impoundment, rehabilitation, education, and outreach.  Horses are facing a crisis in our country.  Across the nation, they are being abandoned, left to starve, or forced to endure long treks outside our borders to a place of certain death .  They are starving, in need of medical attention, or have lost all hope.  They need our help.  They need your help.  Learn More about how you can volunteer or help this Charity of Champions assist our equine friends! 

Canyon Hills Community Church Food Bank is opening May 1, 2010 to serve the surrounding local area at Canyon Park in Bothell, Washington. They need donations of food for the many hungry people who have been hit hardest by the economy. Click the link to find out what type of food they need. HHABC will be collecting the food donations at the May 22 event. 

ANNUAL CHARITY EVENT

**ONE DAY ONLY**

Saturday, May 22, 2010 – 10am to 4pm

♦ Tack Sale ♦
If you are interested in consigning an item – Call (206) 351-1248

♦ Junktique Sale    ♦ Natural Horsemanship Demonstrations   ♦ Silent Auction

♦ Pony Rides     ♦ Yummy Bake Sale     ♦ Games     ♦ Book Signings by local authors

AND MUCH MORE…

Help us support these GREAT causes:

http://www.hopeforhorses.net/                                www.canyonhillscommunitychurch.com

So save the date! Bring the family & friends! A bag of non-perishable food items for the food bank will get you entered in our hourly drawings for HHABC Gift Certificates, Free Pony Rides, Game Tickets and more! See you there!

Driving Directions:

From Hwy 9 – head west on 180^th St. S.E.  Go 1 mile and turn right onto West Interurban Blvd (NOT Interurban Blvd.).  Go 1 mile- we are on the right.
From Bothell-Everett Highway – head east on 180^th St. S.E.  Go 2 miles and turn left onto 51^st Ave. S.E.  Go ½ mile and turn right onto West Interurban Blvd.  We are on your left just past Doggy Haven Resort.

 Most Frequently Asked Questions…Click here for the answers

How does massage work? 

What is . . . (Myofascial Release)? Does it really work for animals, too?

My animal has . . . (a disease / difficulty / behavior problem). Will massage help?

How can I learn how to massage my own animal?

What are the regulations for animal massage in my state?

Blue at 3 in Montana

Mary L-W (a Boarder at HHABC) owns one of the rarest genetically  colored horses in the world (His name is Blue-and no…he is not blue…haha). I found an excellent discussion at a website that describes rare and unusual horse colors and found, to my surprise, a treasure trove of information explaining these colored jewels of the equine world. Not only is Blue’s color unusually rare, but this is a horse of a different mind and color…he fetches like a dog…(Video coming soon).  Seriously he is the “Barn Clown” and he is entertained several times a week by his equally silly humans.  I know he whispers to the other horses in the pasture how funny we humans are when we play with him in the arena…who’s training who?  He has us running around throwing his ball and toys so he can retrieve them…sorry…I digress…

"Is that one shot or two?"

"Human- Whispering"

Genetic discussion of Champagne dilute gene horses: A Champagne horse is any horse with one (heterozygous) or two (homozygous) Champagne color dilution genes. The champagne gene appears the same in appearance (phenotype) whether it is homozygous or heterozygous. Champagne dilute horses will usually (but not ALWAYS) have a specific kind of freckling on the skin, (different from mottling of spotted horses, and other dilutes) that is evident where hair is thin (muzzle etc). It will also lighten their eyes. Foals will have blue eyes at birth, which gradually darken to hazel to light borwn at maturity. Many champagne horses are also very shiny, with a metallic sheen to their coat. But not all of them! And the satin sheen may be a completely separate gene! (See weird!). Gold Champagne is champagne on sorrel or chestnut. Amber Champagne is champagne on bay. Classic Champagne is champagne on black. Sable Champagne is champagne on a brown horse.
      This dilute gene is quite rare in most equine breeds, and for that reason, we are interested in listing all horses with the champagne dilute gene, even in the heterozygous form. Remember mares owners, breeding to a heterozygous stallion gives a 50% chance of color inheritance to the foal, whereas breeding to a homozygous stallion will guarantee inheritance to the foal (as much as possible with Mother Nature).  Read More about rare and unusual colors.

Read more about other unusual colors…

Many people confuse “buckskin” colored horses with “dun” colored horses. The information below was gathered from several websites explaining the differences. Click on the photos of my horse “Tiger” and see if you can identify his color-coded features.  He is a 13 yo 1/4 Arab and 3/4 Quarter Horse cross.  His Sire (Papa) was a rare Tovero Paint (look up this unusual color) and his Dam (Mama) was a Tobiano Pinto (1/2 Arab, 1/2 QH). Can you see the prominent dorsal stripe down his back through his tail. I wonder where I got his name…

Buckskin horses are a light-to-dark sandy yellow or tan color with all black points. Buckskins are very similar to duns, however, buckskins do not have a dorsal stripe or other “primitive” markings that are shown in the dun color. 

A true colored buckskin should be the color of tanned deerhide with black points. Shades may vary from yellow to dark gold. Points (mane, tail, legs) can be dark brown or black. Buckskin is clean of any smuttiness. Guard hairs which are buckskin colored grow through the body coat up over the base of the mane and tail.

Dun horses have a sandy/yellow to reddish/brown coat. Their legs are usually darker than their body and sometimes have faint “zebra” stripes on them. Dun horses always have a “dorsal” stripe, which is a dark stripe down the middle of their back. Sometimes the dorsal stripe continues down the horse’s dock and tail, and through the mane. Many dun colored horses also have face masking, which makes the horse’s nose and sometimes the rest of the face a darker color than the horse’s body.

Dun is found in many breeds such as Quarter Horses, Spanish Mustangs, Miniature Horses, Icelandic Horses and many European pony and draft breeds. Fjords and the Sorria are exclusively Dun and in some breeds such as the Arabian and Thoroughbred, Dun doesn’t exist at all.

Since Dun closely resembles Buckskin when it’s present on a Bay base color, it’s common to hear the term Buckskin and Dun used to describe any horses that have a tan colored body with black points whether there are primitive markings present or not. The difference between this gene and the Cream dilution gene is that Dun also causes primitive markings to be present on the horse. These are a shade or two darker than the body color and include the following traits.

Dorsal Stripe
This is a dark line that goes from the base of the mane to the base of the tail. Sometimes it goes through the middle of the mane, tail or both giving the horse a dark streak through the middle of each. This trait is always present on a Dun horse and should not be confused with the more subtle dorsal stripes caused by countershading. Terms associated with this Dun trait are: eel stripe, list, lineback and backstripe. You may hear people call Dun colored horses, “lineback Duns”.

Zebra Stripes
Another trait caused by the Dun gene is horizontal marks on the legs of the horse. These range from above the hock or knee to below and usually fade into the dark part of the leg. These lines are commonly called Zebra or Tiger stripes. These can be very dark like in the photo or so light they are hardly visible. These marks may not appear on all Dun horses and it is sometimes very hard to see them on darker shades.

Shoulder Stripe
These are dark marks that can be very obvious or subtle shading that cross over the withers onto the shoulders of the horse

Cobwebbing
Some Dun horses have darker rings or stripes on their foreheads. This is commonly called cobwebbing or spiderwebbing.

Brindle Dun
A different and unique body coloration with stripes appearing over the barrel of the body and most, if not all, the dun factor characteristics. Brindle Duns show up in the Netherlands and they are referred to as an ancient dun color. The peculiar body markings can appear in the form of tear drops or zebra stripes.

The history of the Azteca can be found at many websites.  One in particular I found useful in describing this magnificent breed is By, Bonnie McMillan.

"Tico" 4 yo Azteca-B offered at $3500

History

The Azteca is the result of a great love of horses in Mexico. Mexico has always had a great interest and admiration for horses and equine sports. Although various equine breeds existed in the country, there was no native Mexican breed. Even the Criollo horses that so valiantly served their masters in the Mexican Revolution which was fought on horseback were not truly a native breed. The hardy Criollos were descendants of Spanish stock introduced by Spanish colonists. During the Revolution, many of these horses were killed and breeding had all but stopped resulting in near extinction of the Mexican Criollo horse.

In the early 1970’s, a group of distinguished horsemen took on the task of creating a breed of horse native to Mexico. They wanted a horse possessing its own specific conformation, characteristics and set of purposes. They envisioned a horse reminiscent of the Criollo so often depicted in works of painters and photographers that recorded the period of the revolution. They desired a graceful, manageable horse to work and ride that possessed an aptitude for the highly popular Charreria. It was decided that the breed with the desired characteristics could be developed by carefully crossing Spanish Andalusian stallions to Quarter Horse and Criollo mares of certain specific types.

After various attempts at crossing some of Mexico’s best imported Andalusian stallions with Quarter Horse and Criollo mares at the Domecq Center of Equine Reproduction in Texcoco, a horse displaying the desired characteristics appeared. These early crosses were given the name Azteca by some of the country’s charro association members. The charro requires a flashy horse that is not too tall but of a suitable height for colea, the taking down of a bull by its tail, a horse quick enough to keep up with the cattle and strong and balanced to throw them. The horse must be calm enough for roping, yet be agile and quick for reining in the Mexican cala. The Azteca is bred to be a perfect mount for the charro.  Read the rest of this article…

Another place to look for information is :

The American Azteca Horse International Association – AAHIA

I am pleased to offer an Azteca B Gelding for Sale:  “Chantico” (Angelita x Cazar) at Horse Haven at Bear Creek.

Please view his full ad in the Horse Sales page on this site.

February 19, 2010 by hhabc | Edit

When Lily first showed signs of what later would be called gastric distress, it was masked as a “cinchy, irritable” horse. Gentle cinching, and the use of softer materials decreased the symptoms and we went on thinking “sensitive-skinned” horse. What I had not counted on was her past show jumping career may have followed her. 

As a low-key walk, trot school horse in my program from a routinely competed show jumper at ages 4 – 7, Lily was harboring a hidden history in her GI tract that would eventually lead to her death. As her “cinchiness” agitation toward students worsened, I contacted a local equine nutritionist and altered her diet. She already had full-time paddock/stall access, fed frequent high quality Orchard grass hay and regular exercise. We added rice bran and moistened orchard pellets to ease her digestion. I also notified our Vet and we implemented an effective Ulcer healing and maintenance product that would ease her discomfort and we could determine if it was ulcers by the decrease in symptoms. 

This helped for awhile, and then her symptoms worsened again and seemed to come and go with more frequency. Our Barn Vet was again notified and a plan to scope her was implemented. By the time the appointment came, Lily had been on several months of the Ulcer medicine. The scope was able to reach the part of the stomach that empties into the small intestine and showed extensive scarring from “healed” ulceration. It was definitive she had healed ulcers, but why were her symptoms worsening? Over the next 10 days Lily declined rapidly. She stopped eating and drinking and had to be rehydrated twice. Blood was drawn and she was found to be in advanced liver failure. Her pain was increasing and I made the heartbreaking decision to end her suffering. 

Although we are not fully able to understand why she went into liver failure, speculation that there were ulcers in the small intestine that scarred over the bile duct where the liver empties bile into the intestine may have occurred. Could this have been avoided? See the article below from Tuft’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine:  

Gastric Ulceration in Sport Horses 

Sport horses tend to be stabled horses, and consequently suffer from one of the most common health problems of the stabled horse – gastric ulceration. We humans have the luxury of a quick trip to the drug store for our favorite heartburn remedy, and we can call our physicians for a more in-depth diagnosis of why we experience such agonizing gastrointestinal pain. Horses can only show us by indirect signs that they are in chronic, debilitating pain. It isn’t surprising that gastric ulceration can actually be a cause of poor performance in the sport horse. 

• What is gastric ulceration? 

In any species, we are referring to an erosion, or sloughing of one or multiple areas of the surface layer of the stomach. Gastric ulceration is very common in horses. In various studies, from 70% – 100% of horses examined had endoscopic evidence of gastric ulceration. This, however, does not mean that all of these horses had clinical signs of gastric ulceration. Unlike people, who develop gastric ulcers in response to a bacterial infection, no infectious cause of gastric ulceration has been identified in horses. Few specific causes of gastric ulceration have been clearly identified. However, most practitioners recognize that stress seems to precipitate gastric ulceration in foals; and infrequent feeds of low-roughage, high carbohydrate foods and a high level of training have been implicated in adult horses. Unlike humans, horses secrete gastric acid continuously, whether they are eating or not. In the wild, horses spend the majority of their days continually eating small amounts of relatively poor quality, high roughage food. Continual acid secretion accommodates this natural lifestyle perfectly. When horses are fed large quantities of high quality food infrequently, their stomachs rapidly empty, essentially leaving the stomach with nothing to do. The stomach has a variety of protectant factors against the effects of gastric acid, but when the stomach is empty, the horse’s ability to withstand the effects of gastric acid can be overwhelmed. The use of certain anti-inflammatory drugs (such as phenylbutazone (‘Bute’) or flunixin meglumine (Banamine™) canalso induce gastric ulcers in horses (more on this later). If gastric ulceration becomes severe, the erosions may begin to bleed. Horses can eventually become anemic and low in protein due to losses through the gastric ulcers. What are the signs of gastric ulceration? Symptoms associated with gastric ulceration in adult horses may include recurrent or acute colic, decreased appetite, decreased manure production, poor body condition, poor haircoat, poor performance, and a crabby attitude.  

Read more about: 

• What are the signs of gastric ulceration? 

• How do I find out if my horse has gastric ulcers? 

• How do I prevent gastric ulcers? 

• Learn more about gastric ulcers 

WOW (Words of Wisdom): 

If you suspect your horse has ulcers, notify your veterinarian immediately and get treatment as soon as possible.  Many horses are mistreated and blamed for poor performance as “lazy” or “hormonal.”  As I look back and have suffered through the “what if’s” I have come to believe I did everything I could with the knowledge I had at the time and implemented the interventions available.  We will miss Lily, but her experience may hopefully help many horses.

Our Winter Riding Schedule is now in place.  Lesson days are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday/Sunday from about 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Boarders are free to use the arena before and after lessons and all day Monday’s and Friday’s.  There are also many open riding times during lesson days – check with Robyn for times.

We will post vacation schedules and holiday closures on the barn bulletin board.  As always – we are open to boarders 7 days a week – 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.