Well firstly I’m back & Your Natural Horse will be getting my full attention again.

The last year has been a bit of a roller coster ride, with many ups but also quite a few downs, with both extremes has come the opportunity for much learning, all of which I will over the next few months try & condense into an intelligible form to share with you.

Sadly a month ago , I said a final goodbye to my dear, dear friend & teacher Jasper. Words can’t express the heartbreak at saying goodbye or the gratitude I have for him for everything he has taught me during our years together.

Little Bear has had a tough year over-coming EMS & Laminitis, a steep learning curve for me.

I have embarked on a lot of training over the past 12 months including completing Reiki one and two and an animal reiki qualification. Studying Australian Bush flower essences, so I am a qualified practitioner, Kinesiology & Numerology. Natural first aid courses, crystal & vibrational healing. I have been reading & studying extensively & have many books to recommend. Although unable to take Bear this year I fitted in some days to watch Ken Faulkner’s advanced clinic & was great to see the improvements of horses & riders a year on & from my own new perspective to take away even more lessons.

If that doesn’t seem like enough I have also raised £5000 for the fabulous Children’s medical Research Charity SPARKs, by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro & then 8 weeks later completing the Paris Marathon, with a fire-walk thrown in for good measure.

So thank you for baring with me & I hope over the next few months to have lots to share with you.

With Love

Fiona & Little Bear

This might be quite controversial, but firstly I want to say I’m not suggesting you stop vaccinating, all I want is to raise an opinion that you can take forward to your vet & have an informed discussion with them regarding the continued care & treatment of your own horses & what is appropriate.

I’ve recently had an interesting conversation with a new Vet who has challenged the fact that Jasper has been receiving his annual Flu vaccine & by-annual Flu-Tet vaccine.

This has never been raised by any Vets previously, Jasper has been vaccinated by 3 different vets over the course of the last 8 years, during which time his sarcoids have been getting progressively worse despite various veterinary treatments (performed by the same vets vaccinating him).

The new Vets rational was plain in its simplicity, on the vaccine’s data sheet (information that is provided by the drug companies with all medications) it clearly states vaccines should only be given to “healthy” horses. He went on to say that it was completely impossible for Jasper with his sarcoids to be described as “healthy” & so he was not a suitable candidate to be receiving vaccination at this time in his condition.

To be honest I found this pretty shocking that no vet had at any point even mentioned this previously, despite the fact that he had been vaccinated just 3 months previously.

For me its pretty clear within a couple of weeks of receiving a vaccination the sarcoids get much, much worse. Those already present, are aggravated & grow aggressively, new ones even appear at new sites not previously affected.

If I didn’t have photographic records it would be impossible to show this. Once could be written off as coincidence but twice seems that a pattern is forming in relation to the interaction between the vaccination, his immune system & the sarcoids.

I’ve thought about this more since & compared it to if I go to the Doctor’s to have a vaccine myself (I travel a lot so I’ve had extensive experience, to the extent sometimes I feel like a human pin cushion), the first question you’re asked is if you are ill, have been ill recently, do you have any existing medical conditions, if the answer is yes these are all considered & invariably a vaccination will NOT be given at that stage. Surely this should be the same with animals?

However a close friend to Jasper & I pointed out that I acted under qualified veterinary guidance & so cannot really take the blame completely on my own shoulders.

Knowing how I’ve felt in this situation, it is with this in mind that I wanted to put this information out there for all of you, so that you can have an informed discussion with your own vets regarding the suitability of you horse for vaccinations.

It is our duty as owners to ask these questions & have informed discussion with our vets so that all of us can work together in our horses best interests.

With Love

• Amazing Crystal essences experience http://is.gd/dq5hX #

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After my fantastic experience with crystal essences yesterday, as promised instructions on how to make your own crystal essences.

Making Crystal essences:

Crystal essences work on the idea that crystals have powerful vibrations & it is easy to transfer these vibrations to water. The resulting essence can then be taken internally or applied to the skin.

How to:

Use Mother Tincture to make a dosage bottle:

I’ve just got Judy Hall’s The Crystal Bible which is a great guide to the 200 most common crystals, so well worth getting your self a copy if you are interested in learning more about crystals & using them for yourself & your animals.

Until Next time

With Love

Fiona & Jasper xx

• Crystal Healing http://is.gd/d9Jgg #
• Horse Trust Research- Breakthrough for future equine sarcoid treatment http://is.gd/d9Hqu #
• test http://is.gd/d8MHP #

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I had a really interesting weekend, I attended Caroline Thomas’ Animal Crystal Healing training.

This was something almost completely new for me, but I was really facinated by the whole experience & amazed at the potential.

Crystals are obviously naturally occuring in the earth and they are believed to have a charge & emit their own energy vibration. Putting it very simplistically they emit a healing energy that resonates with humans, animals & plants to produce healing & protective qualities.

Crystal therapy allows the therapist to use crystals to help balance the body’s energy fields & address both physical & emotional problems associated with these imbalances. It has been used through many cultures since ancient times to balance, heal & harmonize the body. It is a true holistic, non-invasive therapy that works incredibly well in association with Reiki.

On the day we learnt the importance of cleansing the crystals before you work with them, this can be done simply by holding under running water (sea water is the best but not always available). After cleansing the crystals need charging, this can also be done by simply leaving them in the sun or moon light for a couple of hours. Now the crystals are ready to go.

We also had to prepare ourselves to work with the crystals & be receptive to their energy & allow our intuition to be activated, removing yourself from everyday stress & strain first. It doesn’t have to go as far as meditation, but just sitting somewhere quite with some relaxing music & concentrating on your breathing is a good place to start.

One of my favourite parts was working with a pendulum. This is a smallish crystal on a chain, you hold the end of the chain between you thumb & index finger & then you ask it to show you YES, & then Show you NO. For me YES is the crystal spinning clockwise & No is spinning anti-clockwise. This was the first time I had used a pendulum & Caroline was quite impressed with how much my pendulum moved (it was swinging gayly in a big circle) but it can be quite a small movement & it might not even be round in a circle, its different for everyone, just as long as you see a difference between yes & no thats what matters.

Now you can ask your pendulum anything, aslong as it has a yes/no answer, whether its is this Chakra in balance, will this crystal help, or are my lost keys in the house? Its up to you.

We learnt how to make crystal essences, which can be used in a similar manner to Bach flower essences. How to make a crystal grid & do crystal healing at a distance using a photograph of an animal & then how to do crystal massage on the animal itself.

I felt very inspired to try these techniques out & I used a photograph to do some healing at home on Jasper on Monday, all his Chakras were out of balance & his heart & solar plexus needed the crystals in place for the longest (over 2 hours) I kept going back to check with the pendulum. But then Monday night he lost a piece of sarcoid from his front leg… Coincidence or proof, you decide…But I’ll certainly be using crystals again!!

Until next time

With Love

Fiona & Jasper

P.S If you want more information on Caroline Thomas visit her website:

Emotional Healing 4 Animals

• Offered Olli some of Jasper's herbs he wanted loads of marigolds & garlic (no risk of vampires near him tonight!!) #
• Jasper had a great session with his oils yesterday, not been so keen the last week but back into it seriously now, Basil & Lemon strongest #
• Jasper is sad, No more cow parsley in the hedgerows, moving on to other hedgerow herbs including cleavers #
• Let Olli try Jasper's magnetic rug & he seemed to really enjoy the sensation, standing quietly & relaxed #
• Had a great chat with the horse trust about the research they have funded into sarcoids, article on my blog to follow #
• Jasper's sarcoids are really changing now, loosing bits left right & centre #
• First time riding in a rope halter, bit scary at first(going against the norm), but amazing responsiveness you can achieve with the horses #
• Following on from the clinic I have as much to change & learn as Olli, such a different approach to riding, but can't deny the results #
• Had an amazing time at the Ken Faulkner clinic with Olli, seriously inspiring stuff… #

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Hi I thought I’d share some new sarcoid developments with you.

This week I had an interesting meeting & conversation with one of the girls from the Horse Trust, UK.

The Horse Trust have recently funded some research done by Glasgow university into Equine Sarcoids & it is potentially one of the biggest breakthroughs in hopefully treating & combating this disease, although sadly it is only in the early stages & the team are in need of more funding to take this from the in vitro stage to actually testing & developing to see if they can replicate the results in vivo, by developing a way of targeting the sarcoid cells in horses.

“The research, which was led by Professor Lubna Nasir of the University of Glasgow, found that by inhibiting the activity of a particular viral protein within sarcoid cells, the amount of viral DNA in the cells reduced. This led to a reduction in the growth of the sarcoid cells and caused the cell to die by Programmed cell-death (PCD). The researchers believe that PCD occurs because the sarcoid cells become reliant on the virus.”

“One of the challenges with gene silencing is administering it within clinical setting – as you need to get molecules into every cell. As sarcoids are on the surface of a horse, we think administration should be relatively easy – potentially by injecting or applying a cream to the sarcoid,” said Professor Nasir. “If we are able to successfully develop this technique it would be a non-toxic and easy to administer treatment for horses affected by this distressing condition.”

You can read the horse trust full write up of the research on their website

http://www.horsetrust.org.uk/Breakthrough-in-Equine-Sarcoid-Treatment-as-Researchers-Succeed-in-Killing-Sarcoid-Cells-using-Gene-Silencing-Technology/

Sadly I don’t think this will be available in the near future, but hopefully it might provide hope for treating sarcoids in the future. I’ll let you know if I hear of any more developments.

With Love

Fiona & Jasper

Just been watching the BBC’s spring watch with Chris & Kate & found this clip really interesting, that wild birds are using aromatic herbs in their nests, this particular clip on the Pensthorp bluetits shows them bringing fresh mint leaves into the nest site. Chris has looked into this behaviour & found a study done by some french scientists,  Mennerat and colleagues from France’s National Centre of Scientific Research, based in Montpellier, and the University of Toulouse.

They found that aromatic plants, including lavender (Lavandula stoechas), apple mint (Mentha suaveolens), the curry plant (Helichrysum itlaicum) andAchillea ligustica significantly change the composition of bacterial communities living on blue tit nestlings.

“They reduce the number of different bacterial species, and the total number of bacteria, especially on chicks that are most vulnerable because they are both highly infested by blow fly larvae and carry great amounts of bacteria on their skin,” says Mennarat.

“But blue tit chicks living in nests adorned with aromatic plants grew faster and had a higher proportion of red blood cells, which is known to be a strong indicator of a chick’s future chances of survival after fledging.”

“Much remains to be explained, however.”

You can read the BBC report of this on the bbc news website at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8199000/8199726.stm

Given how much work I have been doing with Jasper regarding self-selecting herb medications, it was really interesting to see other species using herbs in this beneficial way.

Would be great to hear what you think or if you have any evidence of other wild species using herbs.

With Love

Fiona & Jasper