As horse owners and competitors, we want to give our equine athletes every opportunity to feel and perform their best. Keeping up to date with the latest news in horse health and medicine is an important part of that, and it’s why Medivet Equine is bringing you the latest in horse health news each week.
Following the medical model of “do no harm”, MediVet Equine develops scientifically based therapeutics enabling the horse to call on its own healing ability, thus achieving its full performance potential. MediVet Equine provides effective, all natural, drug free products and lab services designed to optimize the overall health of performance horses. They specialize in regenerative treatments that help the body heal itself to get stronger naturally. Boyd Martin has several of his top competitive mounts on MediVet ACS, and has had terrific results!
This Week in Horse Health News …
Horses may be able to smell your fear … and your happiness too. Human body odors contain chemical signals which are important in species-specific communication. When another human is exposed to a “fearful” chemosignal produced by another human, they will have a fearful emotional response themselves. Researchers wanted to find out if animals who have evolved alongside humans, like dogs and horses, produced the same emotional responses to human chemosignals. It looks liked dogs definitely did, and it looked like horses may have too! [HorseTalk]
Antibiotic resistance is a real thing to be concerned about, but as we know horses are really good at getting into trouble and getting themselves scratched up. What can we use to treat a horse’s wounds without contributing to antibiotic resistance? Fortunately, there are a host of options that your veterinarian can take into account when treating your horses. There’s also good news in that some of the most common treatments that horse owners reach for, like silver dressings and triple antibiotic ointment, haven’t seen much resistance develop over the past few decades. [The Horse]
Bute appears to be a risk factor in breakdowns on the track. The reasons why are as you’d expect: if a horse is racing or working out on bute it’s likely masking pre-exisitng injuries or pain which are then worsened by further hard exercise. Thanks to results from a recently published study which quantifies this risk, epidemiologist Tim Parkin, who has studied the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database for 10 years, will be calling for policies to be put in place that require a horse’s system to be completely clear of the drug before it races. Currently a race-day presence of bute up to 2.0 micrograms per milliliter in blood is allowed at tracks in all states except California. California already has a zero-tolerance policy for bute before races and workouts and Parkin is calling for other states to adopt this policy as well. [BloodHorse]
