To Give and To Get: A Last-Minute Laugh for Christmas

And now for something completely silly!

If my last gift suggestion--a $60 hoof pick--didn't fit your Christmas budget, fear not. Here's the next one, and it's 100% free! As long as you have a few minutes free to noodle around on your computer, of course.

All you need is a digital photo (low resolution, no larger than 2 MB) of yourself, your family members, your co-workers, you clients, your horses--whatever you pick. It can be one photo or a half dozen.

Decide if you are feeling in an upbeat "elf" mood or a grumpy "scrooge" mood.

Go to http://www.elfyourself.com/ or http://www.scroogeyourself.com/ and just follow the directions--upload your photo(s) (one by one), reduce or enlarge the face, rotate the face, frame the face and then enter some email addresses, or your own, to see what you've just done.

Quite a few people have sent me themselves as elves, no one has sent a scrooge yet! The elves all look really different and the horses, dogs, and cats that some people (you know who you are)elved worked out great, too! At first I thought this was really dumb but I couldn't help laughing!

Hint: you should end up with a silly chorus line, if you uploaded a group of photos, or a solo singing and dancing elf, who looks a lot like you, if you only uploaded one photo.

Go ahead, make someone laugh--even if it's only yourself! This little trick is sponsored by officemax.com, who report: More than 65 million ElfYourself.com visitors have created more than 41 million elves to date since the site launched in mid-November. On average, 35 elves are being created per second!

And when you've mastered that, you can move up to http://www.reindeerarmwrestling.com!

Close Call: Gloucester Burns

It's Sunday night now, and this has been a lost weekend. On Friday night, a fire broke out two blocks from Hoofcare and Lameness World Headquarters. An apartment house and the local synogogue were lost, and one gentle sole died, despite valiant rescue efforts to get him out.

It was a raging inferno, eight alarms, with almost every town north and east of Boston responding.

Down here on the harbor, big chunks of debris flew through the air, carried like fireworks sparks by a stiff wind. They landed in evergreen trees, glistened in flower boxes, sizzled in an open dumpster. Most of them skittered across the snow and into the ocean. Luckily, we had a snowstorm on Thursday, so the roof was covered in snow.

The fire was still burning today, even though it snowed all night last night. The whole town, and this building, are veiled with smoke. The sky's a strange color. We all have sore throats.

It was a fire that could have easily destroyed the town, and this office with it. Thanks to the hard work of professional firefighters who went to work and did what they know how to do, and thanks to a mild evening with just a normal wind, a worse disaster was averted.

This fire, like so many, was caused by human error and carelessness, compounded by the vulnerability of an old building. Tragedies never have to happen, but they do.

Equine Practitioner Leads a Double Life as an Event Groom

At the US Eventing Association Annual Convention in Colorado last week, the Christine E. Stafford Eventing Groom of the Year Award went to Jeff Beshear, who gallantly grooms for his wife, Emily Mastervich Beshear of Brickland Farm of Somerset, Virginia.

Jeff, who is a native of Lexington, Kentucky, probably does a lot more than just groom the horses. If his name rings a bell, it is because he is a partner in the Old Dominion Equine Associates in Keswick, near Charlottesville, Virginia. He completed his veterinary studies in 2000 at the Ohio State University; his specialized interests include sport horse lameness with an emphasis on diagnostic imaging, and also equine reproduction. He is an avid foxhunter and shares his wife's passion for eventing.

Congratulations to Jeff! Now, can you show me how you do that little pattern thingy on the rump for the trot-up? After you've injected his hocks, of course. I can't think of a handier or more cost-effective groom than a lameness-specialist vet! But can he braid?

Also, at the USEA convention, Horse of the Year honors went to Theodore O'Connor, the twelve-year-old, 14.2-hand Thoroughbred/Arab/Shetland gelding (Witty Boy—Chelsea's Melody) owned by The Theodore O'Connor Syndicate, LLC. With three-time Olympian Karen O'Connor in the irons, the talented pony tallied several wins this year, including individual and team gold medal at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janiero. They also won The Fork CIC3* in April and were third at the Rolex Kentucky CCI4*.

Advanced Equine Biomechanics: If Horses Did Gait Analysis on Themselves...

JUST FOR FUN: Enjoy some late night antics in the biomechanics lab by a wannabe freestyle horse trying out some new moves! Turn up the volume and click on the triangle/arrow "play" icon.

The original animation was by Eddy Boxerman, a computer sci masters candidate at the University of British Columbia, now living in Montreal. Some unknown Aussie put it to music.

This might not work on a dial-up connection, sorry! Follow the link to Eddy's page for some normal gallop frames for comparison; they are .mpg files and might play on your system if the youtube one doesn't...but there's no music.

To Give and To Get: Every Dressage Rider's Favorite Present!

What's next on our gift guide? There is always someone on your list who is one of those people who has two of everything. If he or she has an interest in dressage, baroque breeds, or European history , Dover Saddlery has just the thing: something he or she doesn't have yet (probably).

Yes, it's over the top, but the finely crafted Spanish Riding School hoof pick comes in a beautiful box and makes a super gift for someone who is equally over the top. The cost? About $70. Hopefully it will go in the trophy case and never touch a hoof! It would look great mounted on a plaque for an award, too, the next time you sponsor a class at a horse show!
Click here to go directly to the SRS hoof pick page at Dover Saddlery's web site. Their line of products from the Spanish Riding School includes the softest boar-bristle brushes I've ever felt, a perfectly-balanced and almost weightless dressage whip, and other beautifully packaged dressage accessories. All you need to add is a music box to play a Viennese waltz...

Shivers in Draft Breeds and Warmbloods: No Link to PSSM Found

Double-click on the illustration to enlarge it in a new window. This is a great and simple guide to hind leg action caused by various conditions.

The year-end report from the Morris Animal Foundation reached me today, and I will be passing along a couple of nuggets from MAF-funded research that I think might be of interest to blog readers.

This one, in particular piqued my curiosity. Anyone who works around big horses will soon run into a shiverer and there has long been speculation that, since many also suffer from equine polysaccharide storage myopathy (PPSM), many thought that some link must exist between the two.

A shiverer is a horse with a gait and stance problem characterized by compulsive hyperflexing and trembling of the hind leg. Farriers are often the first to identify a shiverer, which becomes a chronic condition and sometimes causes lameness.

Here's the technical description:
Shivers is a devastating disorder in draft and warmblood horses whereby horses develop muscle tremors and hyperflexion beyond normal limits of the rear limbs during shoeing, after standing still or when backing up. Many affected horses also show concurrent tail tremors. In some horses, Shivers never progresses, while in others it leads to weakness, muscle atrophy and an inability to get up that may require euthanasia.

The investigators examined whether Shivers is caused by another painful muscle disorder, equine polysaccharide storage myopathy (PPSM), or whether PPSM and Shivers are common but separate disorders that can coexist in the same horse.

“Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy and Shivers in Draft and Warmblood Horses” was funded by MAF and conducted at the University of Minnesota, under the direction of Stephanie J. Valberg, DVM, PhD. Research was completed in March 2007

Dr. Valberg's report: "There is a high prevalence of both PSSM and Shivers within the Belgian draft horse population.

"Researchers discovered that 36 percent of Belgians in the study suffered from PSSM and the same disease was found in warmblood horses.

"The most common signs of the disease were unexplained lameness, reluctance to engage the hindquarters and muscle stiffness during exercise.

"The team also identified Shivers in 20 percent of Belgian draft horses. This disease causes horses to have trouble backing up because their hind legs become fixed in an elevated, flexed position.

"Researchers learned that contrary to what was previously thought, Shivers is not caused by PSSM."

There's no mention in the report of how many, if any, horses in the study suffered from both PSSM and shivers.

To learn more: Hoofcare and Lameness published a detailed article on PSSM and how it manifests as hind-end lameness in horses in our issue #75. Our author Beth Valentine DVM PhD of Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine is a specialist in PSSM and an early investigator of the disease. She carefully differentiated how draft horses display hind end lameness, explaining the hind leg motion of shivers, stringhalt, patellar problems, and PSSM in an attempt to get more horses treatment for PSSM, which can often be helped with simple dietary changes.

The new MAF-funded research motivated me to dig out the old Hoofcare and Lameness article; it is still an excellent paper and makes me wonder about all the horses that people describe to me as shiverers.