You Could Be Hurting Your Animals’ Feelings!
Posted by James French | Filed under Health & Fitness
Animal Communication can help pet owners in a number of ways. It will help you to understand and pick up vital information regarding your animals’ health and happiness. Having the ability to feel an animal form their perspective allows us to move from placing our own thoughts and judgements on our animals. Making animal communication a must have tool if you truly care for animals.
It is very easy for us humans to place negative feelings on to our animals. I am sure that you will agree with me that it is a horrible feeling when some one makes false judgements about us. So why is it any different when we do the same to our animals!
For example the other day I saw how a dog had been labelled as a bully with other dogs. This strong judgement had been made because the owner had observed that when her dog was around younger or gentle dogs, she would look very friendly but when she got close would snap at them and show aggressive signs.
Her behaviour was completely different to nervous or protective dogs where she would leave them well alone.
Using animal communication it became very clear that her dog was desperate to be sociable with other dogs. The reason for the aggression was that she was afraid of the intimacy. Now it became clear why she was approaching the younger and gentle dogs. She was also very sensitive to other dogs feelings and this is why she did not want anything to do with nervous or protective dogs.
This feeling of wanting to be close, changed as soon as her nose got to close to another dogs. Replaced with this feeling of intense shyness and protection.
With this new insight and information it allowed us to create a whole new approach in helping her dog. We focused on keeping her relaxed and very slowly closed the gap between her and other dogs, giving her the time to overcome her shyness. Because she was so desperate to be close to other dogs this made the process easy as everyone was after a common goal.
Understanding our animals from this feeling language gives us the power to really help them. If you are still in a place where you keep asking yourself why they are doing this or that. Then you have not found this connection and understanding that your animal is looking for!
Animal communication builds a trusting relationship. It is exactly the same for humans, when we find someone who understands us then it is easy to listen to them and trust them, as we can feel that they are there to help us. Because animal communication is so natural, it is very easy for anyone to learn the skills in a relatively short period of time!
James French one of the international pioneering animal communicator. The founder of Animal Communication Training The UK’s most established and recognised animal communication teaching programs, helping students from beginners to professional independent animal communicators. Reikicare
Tags: animals, cat, dog, dog training, Health & Fitness, horse
Understanding and Treating Horse Cribbing
Posted by Duber Stewart | Filed under Home & Family
Cribbing is one of the various bad habits which horses can develop. It appears to develop as a result of boredom, in particular when a horse is confined to a stall for most of the day and has never been observed in horses which live in a natural environment (e.g. pasture based). With cribbing, the horse grabs an object (e.g. fence rail or feeding trough) with its front teeth, then arches its neck while pulling on the item, then sucks in air. Although the reason for this activity has not been proven, it is believed that the horse does it because it results in the release of brain chemicals (such as endorphins) which are pleasurable. The terms ‘crib biting’ and ‘wind sucking’ are also used.
This habit is sometimes mistaken for wood chewing. Both activities involve biting on wood and causing damage to it. However, they are really different habits. With wood chewing, the horse simply nibbles on wood, typically to occupy itself and to meet its natural desire to chew. With cribbing, the horse does not chew on the wood but simply grabs it so that it can stretch its neck so that it can suck in air. Examination of the damaged wood will show the difference as in one case it will be nibbled away whereas in the other it will show signs of being firmly bitten and then pulled.
Cribbing should be treated as soon as possible to minimize damage to your horse’s health. Untreated, it will result in the horse wearing down and damaging its teeth, leading to dental issues. It will also result in the neck muscles growing and thickening in an abnormal way (which is an issue for show horses in particular). It is also associated with various illnesses, such as colic, but there has been insufficient research to understand the nature of the association (e.g. does cribbing cause colic, or are both cribbing and colic both promoted by excessive periods confined to stalls).
Fortunately, it is possible to treat cribbing. Since cribbing is mainly due to boredom and lack of mental stimulation, one needs to provide the horse with interest and activity. Giving the horse as much pasture time as possible is very successful in reducing the amount of cribbing. Feeding should also be more interesting, with pasture feeding (eating grass) the optimum solution. If this is not possible, it should be moved to foods such as hay which have long chewing times rather than grain or muesli (which have short eating times and thus little stimulation). Many small feeds per day are better than one or two large feeds. Anything else which provides variety and stimulation, such as exercise and grooming, is also beneficial.
Unfortunately, once the habit of cribbing has been established, removing the cause will only reduce the frequency but not completely remove the cause. One also needs to stop the behavior as well. This can be very difficult as the horse can crib not only on wood, but on any item which in can hold tightly with its teeth and pull on. There are a variety of techniques to address this but no one technique works with all horses, so you may need to try different techniques until you find one that works with your horse.
One of the most common approaches is a ‘cribbing strap’, also known as a ‘cribbing collar’, which is a strap that fits around the neck with a mental plate on the underside to make it uncomfortable for the horse to swell its neck to suck air. Another device is the use of a muzzle, which allows the horse to eat but prevents it from grasping items with its teeth. One can also put a live (under current) fencing wire along fence rails to prevent the horse from grabbing the rails, or paint the rails with an unpleasant tasting paint (a number of veterinary approved products are available). In some cases, certain medications (in particular, anti-depressants) are helpful. Finally, if all else fails, there is a surgical solution.
Successful treatment of cribbing requires that one both improve its conditions (more activity, less boredom) and that one physically discourage cribbing using one or more of the above techniques. Either method on its own is likely to have only limited success.
This article on Horses Cribbing was written by Duber Stewart, the owner of Horses For Sale
Tags: Home & Family, horse, horse behavior, horse behaviours, horse care, horse crib biting, horse cribbing, horse wind sucking, horses, pets
