by Joe Camp
www.imagineahorse.com This is Allen Pogue and Suzanne De Laurentis’s site. Allen’s work has unfortunately cast him as a trick trainer, but it’s so much more than that. We’ve just recently discovered Allen and are dumbfounded by how his horses treat him and try for him. His work with young horses is so logical and powerful that you should study it even if you never intend to own a horse. Allen says, “With my young horses, by the time they are three years old they are so mentally mature that saddling and a short ride is absolutely undramatic.” He has taken Dr. Robert M. Miller’s book Imprint Training of the Newborn Foal to a new and exponential level.
www.johnlyons.com John Lyons’s work is terrific, and he is very well respected. But his system is entirely different from the preceding three (which demonstrates that there are many ways to communicate with horses, and once you have a good foundation, you can pretty much develop the type of communication best suited to you and your horse). To follow John’s system, you have to begin at his beginning and stick with it. If you try dropping into the middle, it’s like trying to understand Greek.
http://users.elknet.net/circlewind/buster.htm We stumbled onto Buster McLaury at the Texas trail ride mentioned earlier. Very much a natural horseman, he gave a wonderful demonstration. Buster’s website chronicles his writings in various horse publications and contains his clinic schedule. He apparently has no DVD programs at the moment, but if he’s in your area, we recommend a look-see.
www.charleswilhelm.com I have read one of Charles Wilhelm’s books, Building Your Dream Horse, and would like to read more and see some of his DVDs. He’s very, very much a natural horseman, expressing a lot of care and love for the horses he works with. He offers multiday workshops at his place, but doesn’t seem to have a structured DVD program that starts at the very beginning and goes as far as you want to go, which is what we felt we needed when we began. Still, I recommend his material. It might suit you fine.
www.robertmmiller.com Dr. Robert M. Miller is an equine veterinarian and a world-renowned speaker and author on horse behavior and natural horsemanship. I think his name comes up more often in these circles than anyone else’s. His first book, Imprint Training of the Newborn Foal, is now a bible of the horse world. He’s not really a trainer, per se, but a phenomenal resource on horse behavior. He will show you the route to “the bond.” You must visit his website.
TAKING YOUR HORSE BAREFOOT
Taking your horses barefoot involves more than just pulling shoes. The new breed of natural-hoof-care practitioners have studied and rely completely on what they call the wild horse trim, which replicates the trim that horses give to themselves in the wild through natural wear. The more the domesticated horse is out and about, moving constantly, the less trimming he or she will need. The more stall-bound the horse, the more trimming will be needed in order to keep the hooves healthy and in shape. Every horse is a candidate to live as nature intended. The object is to maintain their hooves as if they were in the wild, and that requires some study. Not a lot, but definitely some. I now consider myself capable of keeping my horses’ hooves in shape. I don’t do their regular trim, but I do perform interim touch-ups. The myth that domesticated horses must wear shoes has been proven to be pure hogwash. The fact that shoes degenerate the health of the hoof and the entire horse has not only been proven but is also recognized by even those who nail shoes on horses. Successful high-performance barefootedness with the wild horse trim can be accomplished for virtually every horse on the planet, and the process has even been proven to be a healing procedure for horses with laminitis and founder. On this subject, I beg you not to wait. Dive into the material below and give your horse a longer, healthier, happier life.
www.hoofrehab.com This is Pete Ramey’s website. If you read only one book on this entire subject, read Pete’s Making Natural Hoof Care Work for You. Or better yet, get his new DVD series, which is fourteen-plus hours of terrific research, trimming, and information. He is my hero! He has had so much experience with making horses better. He cares so much about every horse that he helps. And all of this comes out in his writing and DVD series. If you’ve ever doubted the fact that horses do not need metal shoes and are in fact better off without them, please go to Pete’s website. He will convince you otherwise. Then use his teachings to guide your horses’ venture into barefootedness. He is never afraid or embarrassed to change his opinion on something as he learns more from his experiences. Marci Lambert, our natural trimmer, and Pete are very much in sync, and our horses are all barefoot and all terrific. Pete’s writings have also appeared in Horse & Rider and are on his website, along with his clinic schedule, which takes him all over the United States and Europe. Recently he has taken all of Clinton Anderson’s horses barefoot.
www.star-ridge.com This is Jaime Jackson’s website. Jaime is more or less the father of natural hoof care in the United States. He has studied and photographed the hooves of more than a thousand wild horses, hooves that are amazingly similar, no matter the variances in geography and climate. Rock solid, concave, beveled on the edges, and as healthy as can be. His book Horse Owners Guide to Natural Hoof Care is the “bible” and should be read. If you truly want to learn all you can learn about this subject, read both Jaime’s book and Pete’s, beginning with Jaime’s. Pete even lists Jaime’s book as a prerequisite to his. That said, this book also goes deeply into Jaime’s research of the wild horse hoof and why this trim can work for any horse. For me, this was all fascinating material. Jaime also has trimming tools, a how-to video, and various other related items on his site.
THE FOLLOWING ARE other websites that contain good information regarding the barefoot subject.
www.TheHorsesHoof.com This website and magazine of Yvonne and James Welz is devoted entirely to barefoot horses around the world and is surely the single largest resource for owners, trimmers, case histories, and virtually everything you would ever want to know about barefoot horses. With years and years of barefoot experience, Yvonne is an amazing resource. She can compare intelligently this method versus that and help you to understand all there is to know. And James is a super barefoot trimmer.
www.Barefoothorse.com
www.wholehorsetrim.com This is the website of Eddie Drabek, another one of my heroes. Eddie is a wonderful trimmer in Houston, Texas, and an articulate and inspirational educator and spokesman for getting metal shoes off horses. Read everything he has written, including the pieces on all the horses whose lives he has saved by taking them barefoot.
www.aanhcp.org This is the website for the American Association of Natural Hoof Care Practitioners.
NATURAL BOARDING
Once your horses are barefoot, please begin to figure out how to keep them out around the clock, day and night, moving constantly, or at least having that option. It’s really not as difficult as you might imagine, even if you only have access to a small piece of property. Every step your horse takes makes his hooves and his body healthier, his immune system better. And it really is not that difficult or expensive to figure it out. Much cheaper than barns and stalls.
Paddock Paradise: A Guide to Natural Horse Boarding This book by Jaime Jackson begins with a study of horses in the wild, then describes many plans for getting your horses out 24/7, in replication of the wild. The designs are all very specific, but by reading the entire book, you begin to deduce what’s really important and what’s not so important, and why. We didn’t follow any of his plans, but we have one pasture that’s probably an acre and a half and two much smaller ones (the photos are on our website, www.soulofahorse.com). All of them function very well when combined with random food placement. They keep our horses on the move, as they would be in the wild. The big one is very inexpensively electrically fenced. Paddock Paradise is available, as are all of Jaime’s books, at www.star-ridge.com.
MEDICAL INFORMATION RELATING TO NATURAL HORSE CARE
Whereas medical information from various sources is mixed into all of the resource information above, we’ve found this to
be an all-in-one source that that speaks to optimum horse health for the high-performance horse and lameness rehabilitation.
A Lifetime of Soundness: The Keys to Optimal Horse Health, Lameness Rehabilitation and the High-Performance Barefoot Horse This book was written by Dr. Hiltrud Strasser, a doctor of veterinary medicine. It covers nutrition, natural boarding versus conventional boarding, blankets and leg wraps, barefoot versus shoes, posture when eating and riding, and much more. The introduction begins: “Most of the common health problems and lamenesses afflicting domestic horses are a direct result of man-made violations of their natural lifestyle, and can be prevented or cured through a removal of the cause and a return to a natural lifestyle.” This terrific resource and reference book is available at www.TheHorsesHoof.com.
www.shady-acres.com/susan/ The website of Susan Evans Garlinghouse, DVM, MSc Equine Nutrition, and self-proclaimed research geek, has a lot of good stuff about nutrition, especially alfalfa and why it should only be served up in small doses.
AND NEW RESOURCES are regularly updated on Kathleen’s and my www.soulofahorse.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe is the creator of the canine superstar Benji and the writer, producer, and director of all five Benji theatrical films and various television programs. He has authored several books, including Benji & Me, Benji Off the Leash, For the Love of Benji, Oh Heavenly Dog, The Benji Method Dog Training Book, and various children’s books. Joe spends a great deal of time speaking around the country on behalf of kids, homeless pets, and, recently, proper care for horses. He lives with his wife, Kathleen, and three stepchildren, five dogs (including Benji), two cats, and seven horses (including Cash) in Valley Center, California. For more about Joe, visit www.Benji.com or www.soulofahorse.com.
FOR KATHLEEN
WITHOUT HER LOVE THIS JOURNEY WOULD NOT HAVE EXISTED
Photos in chapters 1, 3, 9, 11, 16, 21, and 27 copyright © Pete and Ivy Ramey
Photos in chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, and 31 copyright © Joe and Kathleen Camp
Photos in chapters 5 and 17 copyright © Laurra Maddock
Photos in chapters 14, 19, and 25 copyright © Ginger Kathrens
Copyright © 2008 by Joe Camp
Foreword copyright © 2008 by Monty Roberts
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Harmony Books is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Join-Up® is a registered trademark of Monty and Pat Roberts, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Camp, Joe.
The soul of a horse: life lessons from the herd / by Joe Camp.
1. Horses. 2. Human-animal relationships. I. Title.
SF285.C24 2008
636.1—dc22 2007043820
eISBN: 978-0-307-44949-8
v3.0
