If you strive to achieve a close bond with your horse the chances are that your horse will be the healthier for it. Horses need love and attention just as much as we do, and this companionship will have a positive impact on your horses health! If you take good care of him, you can develop a long lasting bond with your horse, which in turn leads to excellent horse health, close companionship and a happy horse that should live a long life.
Treat Your Horse like He’s Family.
A well-cared for horse is treated as a family member would be – given a good diet and plenty of exercise, is well-groomed, and given attention and love. Whether you have horses for show, sport or leisure, having horses is a wonderful experience because they are beautiful loving animals. Having a horse is a rewarding experience for the both owners and those in charge of caring for them.
Caring For Your Horse – The Right Way.
The amount of horse care or maintenance required will vary depending on the horse’s breed. They may be easy-going and loving animals, but like any other pet animal, there are certain essentials you will need to provide to ensure their health and happiness. Some of the most important things to include if you want to have a healthy, happy horse are listed below.
- Horses are large animals that require constant care and upkeep.
- Horses are very sociable animals that need love and lots of attention.
- Horses need daily visits and companionship, and you’ll need to love and care for them like any other family member.
- A horse needs an activity to engage in every day which will stave away boredom.
- You must provide horses with a nice sized stall for them to live and sleep in.
- You must provide a healthy horse diet.
- You must provide the horse with lots of water daily.
- Annual vaccinations will be necessary.
- Routine health check-ups including worming and dental care.
- Foot care (hoof maintenance).
- Training (obedience).
- Horses must have a large area in which to exercise that will have to be cleaned often.
Horses will often act out if they do not get sufficient attention. Sometimes they even try to break out of their stall in search of adventure. Small changes in their general behaviour should alert you to an issue before it gets this serious, though!. They may start to do things that you trained them not to do just because they are trying to capture your attention, a bit like kids really!
Owning a horse – more so than just about any other pet – is a huge commitment, so you need to be prepared for this. Horse care can be very expensive, particularly if your horse has an accident or develops an unexpected illness and needs veterinary treatment. This is just one of many reasons for which you will need to ensure you have good horse insurance.
Exercise is Essential for a Healthy Horse.
Horses love to have fun just like you and me. Perform regular exercises to keep your horse healthy and happy. You should not exercise your horse all day. Horses should rest too. Another important factor to remember is horses can get bored very quickly, so it is important to create different types of work or exercise for horses. You need try to change of similar activities or work frequently so the horses remain interested all the time.
Some Good Exercises to Help Your Horse Maintain Health and Strength.
- Riding in circles/Bending exercises: using circles in a figure of eight movement. You should perform these circle eight movements on both reins (left and right) to maintain even suppleness and balance on both reins.
- Lateral work: this is a bit like gym for horses. First you need to do groundwork exercises with your horse. Once accomplished, you will notice how the horse will improve and maintain flexibility, obedience, and strength of the hind limbs.
- Pacing: The purpose of pacing is to improve the horses pace. Focus on training your horse to increase or decrease their speed in a mannerly fashion. An example is walking to trotting.
- Training and control techniques; including endurance, jumping and dressage. Dressage training focuses on improving lateral work and pacing techniques. Endurance riding, as the name would suggest, focuses on improving the stamina of a horse.
You can have horse exercising sessions anywhere as long as you have enough space. Make sure the horse is exercised in an area where he cannot escape. Also make sure the area is safe, so that neither you or the horse gets hurt. You can buy horse insurance to cover you if you are riding someone else’s horse; so be safe rather than sorry, as accidents can and do happen even to the most cautious of riders.
Horse exercise works well when executed in an area where the horse can concentrate. Areas that work well are either an indoor or outdoor arena, or a specific area in a field or on a farm.
Riders as well as Horses will Benefit from Horse Exercises.
Horse exercises are beneficial to the rider of the horse as well as the horse because it encourages the rider to develop a balanced and secure position on the horse. The rider’s skills can improve dramatically over a short period. The goal for a horse rider is to develop good “contact”. “Contact” is the feeling of togetherness through your hands to the horse’s mouth and through your upper body to the horses back. Your level of “contact” is determined by how well your horse has been trained and how much the horse has retained. A well-trained horse will have the ability to work through the back and hindquarters. You will know when you have established a good contact when you feel the reins soften as your horse arches it’s neck in front of you and rises it’s back under you, you will also notice that your horse will use its hindquarters to thrust itself forward, rather than pulling onward from the forehand.
When good contact has been achieved, you can then begin to work together to improve the health and happiness of your horse by performing exercises with your new best friend.
While exercise is key to a happy horse, other things can occur which may effect the health of your horse. If only it were true that a happy horse will always be a healthy horse. Sadly there are plenty of ailments and illnesses from which horses can suffer, which is why it is important to also have good horse insurance to cover the cost of unexpected vet’s fees.