Goodness where to start, so much has happened this week…On Monday Jasper & Dexter had their first consultation with Dena Schwartz who Migs & I had meet at the shuttleworth-What’s the alternative show.

Dena works mainly with nature’s powerful plant medicine in the form of essential oils, herbs and extracts, offering the opportunity of self-medication and self-selection to the horses.

Together with plant medicine she also uses the benefits of massage, healing, nutrition, magnetics and kinesiology to ensure a genuinely holistic approach, specific to your animal’s individual needs. The horses intuitively guide their treatment sessions, it is amazing how clearly they can express their needs and preferences.

We had been looking for additional help with Jasper as our initial success with oils, treating his sarcoids, seemed to have hit a bit of a plateau, the people we were using were to far away to come in person to see Jasper & Dexter & Jasper had lost all interest in the oils they had sent, so we were no longer able to medicate him. So when we met Dena it seemed like the answer we’d been looking for.

Dena arrived and bless her was a bit shocked by the severity of Jasper’s sarcoids, unfortunately we were so used to them I forgot to give her the extra warning I give most people…

Jasper then proceeded to be no help at all, our biggest problems with the oils seemed to be that he wouldn’t accept any base oils, which pretty much made it impossible to offer oils for medication, so then we tried some herbs, well fortunately Dena has the patience of a saint. We started with Barley Grass, which was eagerly received, licking with the underside of the tongue, which allows quicker absorption into the body.

Then things went downhill & Jasper refused nearly everything offered, but not before he had blown into the bowl & scattered most of the samples across the yard. This is why it is so important to let your horse select what he needs rather then simply mixing into his feed where he has no control, after almost an hour & a half we finally tried Alfalfa & finally had another success with something Jasper seemed to like & this led to him trying dandelion as well. I think my relief was palpable!!

Dena then suggested I might consider trying a magnetic rug on Jasper as she had used this successfully 2 years before with another horse who had had sarcoids, I was willing to try anything & as Dena had one she could lend me, we quickly popped it on. It was a mesh style rug with a total of 64 magnets over the shoulders, hind quarters & along the spine. Dena warned me Jasper might nip when I tried to take it off. Jasper never nips so I just smiled politely!

Dena went on to treat Dex & after 2 hours we thought it was probably enough time for Jasper with the rug on as he wasn’t used to it (their time wearing it needs to be built up gradually). I was completely shocked by his reaction he laid his ears back as I approached the belly straps & moved away from me, when I tried the chest straps he tried to nip me, I was completely amazed I’d never ever witnessed this behaviour, he clearly wanted more of what ever the rug was giving him, so we let him keep it on for another hour.

Finally I got him out of the rug & turned him out in the field, well he towed me to the field, jogging & snaking his head all the way (just like he used to when he was led round the paddock before a race) & then when I turned him loose he went about bucking & rearing, striking out & galloping round in circles with his tail in the air, evidently feeling very well… This was behaviour completely out of the norm for Jasper, he hadn’t done anything like this since his old racing days when he’d been eating lots of oats & been incredibly fit… I had to wonder if there was something to this magnetic rug business!!

Dena eventually left me with some dandelion leaf, cleavers herb, alfalfa, devils claw, nettle leaf, burdock root, chickweed hart, barley grass & a very strong peppermint oil, oh & the magnetic rug to continue using.

Over the next few days Jasper decided that the herbs weren’t the nasty muck he had imagined & proceeded to eat various combinations when he was offered. He was also wearing his rug between 5 and 8 hours, this sometimes caused him to chew & lick at the sarcoids he could reach, again a new behaviour we’d never witnessed in Jasper before.

Today after just 3 days we had our first success a piece of sarcoid from the patch on his front leg dropped off… I couldn’t believe it after all these years have we finally found something thats going to work…