This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Janet,
Thanks for being a good enough sport to share your experience and the things you learned from it. You made some excellent points in your "Running W" post (i.e. buying too many horses, wrong saddle, wrong harness, etc.) Can I sum them all up with one thought? Don't buy anything you have little knowledge about before consulting an impartial expert. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine since as a veterinarian I commonly see people who have been sold a horse that is not really fitting for them. I'm not necessarily saying you got the wrong horses, but perhaps if you had spoken with a trainer who warned you how long it was really going to take and how expensive it might end up being, you would have purchased fewer horses. (It probably would have had to have been a trainer that was not a candidate for training your horses, to get an impartial opinion). Also, perhaps that trainer would have suggested that you, being inexperienced at driving, purchase experienced Fjords rather than green. Further, that trainer could have suggested exactly what you should look for in a harness and a cart, and could have tried a number of different saddles on your horses in an effort to find a kind that worked best. I hope everyone sees what I'm getting at. As a breeder I think I can get away with saying this. If you know nothing or next to nothing about horses, you are really taking a risk believing what the seller tells you about that animal. As a veterinarian again, the list of things people tell me the seller told them to explain away a limp or a bump, etc, is endless. For instance, he just got kicked yesterday, he's just a little tenderfooted from walking on the rocks, his eye runs like that all the time - I think it's allergies. All these sound very plausible, don't they. How can someone who knows virtually nothing about horses have any idea whether it's a minor problem that really did just happen like the seller says, or whether it's a serious problem that's been going on for a long time? Well, there is a way. Get an impartial, expert opinion. Arrange a veterinary prepurchase exam. If you are buying a used car and you don't know anything about cars, don't you have somebody look at it who knows something about them? If you are buying a harness and cart and know nothing about them, doesn't it make sense to take somebody with you who does? Unless you know the seller very well, you have no idea if they're being honest with you or they're just telling you what they think you want to hear. And in their defense, they may not even know what you really need, if you don't know yourself. So they just sell you a cart that they think is a good cart. And since I'm probably getting myself in hot water with anyone who's ever sold a horse or a cart, etc, let me really do it right. Don't ask your friend and the tack store owner; Ask someone who really has experience in the area. I honestly believe that the veterinarian is the third person who gets called when a person has a non-emergency problem with a horse. First they ask their friend/neighbor if they've ever seen anything like that. Then they ask the feed or tack store owner. Finally, several days later, when the horse still isn't any better, they call the vet. Now I'm not knocking friends and feed and tack store owners, but I am knocking their advice. As sincere as it is, very often it is not the best advice. For instance, how many of you have heard that you need to let the air get to a wound after it's been bandaged for a while so it can dry out and heal? That is absolutely, 100% wrong. Almost without exception, wounds heal better under a bandage. A moist environment is better for healing, and the bandage helps keep the wound clean, and decreases the amount of proud flesh that forms. Or how about using various ointments, sprays, and powders on wounds? In our area, the local favorites are Wonder Dust and some kind of Purple Spray. If I, as a horse owner in North Carolina, called a friend and asked what I should put on a wound, most likely that's what I would hear. Usually the names sound good - especially Wonder Dust. Sounds like it could heal anything, doesn't it? What the wonder really is, though, is that wounds ever heal with that stuff on them! It eats away healing tissue rather than promoting healing. And the purple spray is harsh and makes a big mess! Most wounds heal best if they can be cleaned well and then bandaged either with a very mild antiseptic ointment, or nothing at all on the wound. Anyhow, hope this will remind us all to seek the advice of someone who has experience before we buy something (and not from the person who's trying to sell you the "whatever" - they have too much at stake to be completely impartial and look out for YOUR best interests). Brian Jacobsen, DVM Norwegian Fjordhest Ranch Salisbury, North Carolina
