Hello Everyone,

Sunday’s rituals for me is to watch NASCAR, NFL Football, or WNBA depending on the time of year, but most importantly for myself, to take time to focus on gratitude.  I do this by being in my garden, cooking for family, friends, working on the farm, fishing, and daily ritual of meditation.   This past Sunday I went to a sound bath for the hope of tranquil peace and relaxation.  It is questionable of either happening but it gave focus to this blog entry.   As I was laying there on the uncomfortable hard floor I felt and focused on the hard floor, the cause, and the effect, my aching lower back that did not ache before contact with the hard ground.  Thoughts of putting something soft down next time came to mind as previous visits on the hard ground did not matter.  Yeah those thoughts, the reality of one’s body hurting, and one’s mind are the demise of peaceful tranquility.  So when the hard floor and my aching back was not my minds focus, the realization of why the equine veterinary profession is perplexed at times solving equine lameness issues, especially multi-limb lameness, is due to the concepst of  “INTERCONNECTEDNESS”.

Let’s look at some definitions:

Interconnectedness is the state of being mutually joined, linked, or related to one another. It describes a condition where different elements—whether people, systems, or concepts—depend on each other, meaning an action or change in one part directly affects the others.

1. Ecology & Science

In the natural world, it refers to the complex web of relationships sustaining life, such as food webs, nutrient cycles, and ecosystems. It highlights that no species or environmental factor exists in isolation.

2. Sociology & Economics

On a global scale, it refers to how individuals, cultures, and economies interact and rely on one another. This is evident in modern global trade, international relations, and the rapid spread of information across digital networks.

3. Philosophy & Spirituality

Across various belief systems and ecological frameworks, it is the fundamental idea that all living and non-living things in the universe share a deep, underlying connection. It emphasizes wholeness and mutual reliance.

Interconnectedness of body refers to the physiological, anatomical, and neurological ways that individual organs, tissues, and systems continuously communicate and collaborate with each other. This interdependent relationship is essential for maintaining homeostasis, which is the stable internal environment required for survival.

Interconnectedness means that all things are connected.  Albert Einstein statement about energy still holds true today that all “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”  This is true for Interconnectedness.  This means that everything in the horses body is connected, as is the same in our bodies.   It is understanding the Interconnectedness of Cause and Effect.  

There is no understanding of this concept in the sport horse world as everyone wants “ONE THING” to solve their lameness issues.  Everyone wants one diagnosis, “one thing” to say:  “There it is folks!  This is the ONE THING causing your horse to be lame.”  I wish it were so simple.  If it was so simple THE concepts that I have brought awareness to the equine world would not be relevant.  You would not be reading this blog to learn as I would be retired fishing, gardening and traveling.

One fact that I do know and see regularly in practice is young horses that are started WAY too young and pushed WAY too hard:  CAUSE.  This sets their entire life up for failure, chronic pain and lameness:  EFFECT.  This blog will not discuss this issue, however, I see young horses that are severely injured or injured beyond repair as two, three, and four year olds created and accepted by the sport horse industry and the equine veterinary profession as normal as the amount of money involved is mind blowing.   The race horse industry has proven that horses are a commodity, like replacing your toothbrush every 6 months.

Back to the topic of this blog, as the sport horse industry is an abyss of interconnected dysfunction

Question:  Where did this “one thing” concept come from?

Answer #1:  The equine veterinary profession.

Answer #2:  Owners and Trainers wanting a “quick fix.”

Here are examples of five cases I have seen recently from trainers.  After each case there is a question for you to contemplate as you continue to read.  Answers will be at the end of the blog.  Remember, think “Interconnectedness of Cause and Effect.”

Case #1:

Diagnosed problem:  A tiny little (literally) spur in lower hock joint (TMT ).

Complaint by Trainer:  The horses haunches are fixed to the right and lead change is a problem especially from right to left.

Solution:  Hocks injected, all joints of both hocks.

Complaint by Trainer:  The horses haunches are still fixed to the right and the lead change from right to left is now an even bigger problem.

Question:  What region of the horses body is causing the horses haunches to be fixed to the right?

Case #2:

Diagnosed problem:  Lesion (mild) in the LH proximal suspensory ligament.  Radiographs normal.

Complaint by Trainer:  The horse could not canter on its right lead.

Solution:  The horse was given 2 months stall rest plus 3 treatments of shockwave.   Then 2 months walker.   Repeat ultrasounds every 2 months.  “Cleared” with healed ultrasound at 6 months.  Slow return back to work.

Complaint by Trainer:   The horse still cannot canter on its right lead.

Question:  What area of the horses body is responsible for movement when a  horse canters?   And please do not think “SI”.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and more wrong!  The “SI” DOES NOT MOVE!  Thank the equine veterinary profession for you thinking that if you did.  It is their own lack of anatomical knowledge of how a horse works that is illogical.   Sad part is that people defend their illogical logic.  That is crazy to me.

Case: #3

Diagnosed problem:  Navicular changes on the LF.   Not present on PPE a year ago. AND neck CT that was normal.

Complaint by Trainer:   Hanging on the right rein.

Solution:  A $450.00 a month  “navicular” shoeing recommendation from the veterinarian to the farrier.  Coffin joints, LF navicular bursa and “SI’s” were injected.

Complaint by Trainer:  The horse is STILL lame after 3 months and unable to show without show-blocking BOTH front feet!

Question:  What front foot do you think is bigger on this horse?  Where is the weight bearing on this horse?  RF or LF?

Case: #4

Diagnosed problem:  Kissing spine lesions in the lumbar spine L3-L4-L5 on radiographs.

Complaint by Trainer:  Tripping in the front end under saddle.

Solution:  Kissing spine surgery done.   Rehabilitation done by a veterinary rehabilitation facility (same as diagnosing veterinarian) for 6 months.

Complaint by Trainer:  Now dealing with a bolting, bucking and still tripping (worse) in front.

Question:  Why is the horse still tripping in front?  Why is the horse now bolting and bucking?

Case: #5

Diagnosed problem:  Deep digital flexor tear at its attachment and navicular bursa edema seen on MRI of the horses LF foot.  Complaint by Trainer:  Severe girthiness (“striker shark”) and will not go forward.  I love the acronym as it is 100% true of the behavior.   Literally the horse would strike at you with its front legs and try to bite full mouth open.  Do you think that the OBVIOUS signs of pain were present in this horse for this veterinarian to see?

Solution:  Four months stall rest plus special shoeing and a whole year off.   Trainer slowly brought the horse back into work.   The horse looks great on lunge line.   Not lame.   HOWEVER, when you tack up the horse, it is still  a “striker shark”.   Guess what happened/happens when the trainer rides the horse?   You guessed correct, it still WILL NOT GO FORWARD!

Question:  What caused the LF DDF tear and navicular bursa edema?  Does the nickname “striker shark” have anything to do with this problem?

All the time.  All the money.   These are all cases with lesions diagnosed with ultrasound, radiographs, CT, and MRI that I have seen  recently!

Back to my painful moments of laying on the hard ground attempting to be peaceful and mindless of thoughts.  I realized laying there that the concepts in awareness of interconnectedness is a mindset.   One’s thoughts, judgements, biases and ability to change is dependent on each individual persons willingness to want to grow, do the work for that growth, and to have the curiosity to continue to grow in knowledge and in the daily practices of that gained knowledge one researched for the growth.  It does not matter if this growth is in your job, personal relationships or for yourself.

My thoughts of my aching back, the hard ground, my poor decisions of not having soft blankets under me, eventually somehow wondered to when I decided to become a veterinarian.    Ahhhh, one’s mind is one’s enemy of achieving “peace of mind” at times with too many thoughts.   So during this painful fight for comfort and meditation I remembered back to when I was in real turmoil in my life.  It was 1998.   A long term relationship had ended because of me (at that time I would not admit that fact), I moved to Minnesota to run away from myself, and was still working as a journeyman lineman.

I went to a bookstore called Amazon Bookstore (this is before Amazon as we know it) in Loring Park after eating brunch with some friends at Barbette’s Cafe in Minneapolis after a long night to early morning of dancing and partying.   I had two weeks of vacation coming up and I wanted to bring a book with me to read.  My vacation was my dog Dino and myself.   All alone together for two weeks in the wilderness of the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota.  The Boundary Waters is a protected wilderness where the only means of transportation is by canoe and portaging everything to get anywhere you want to go.  No cell phones at that time, no traffic except for bears and moose plus small wildlife, while living in a tent on hard ground, which was ok with me then.  “Leave No Trace” is still the motto where everything you packed in, you packed out.

Suffering the mosquitoes and black flies “buzz” and bites along with the grunt work of portaging everything from one lake to another left my physical body exhausted but I could not run away from my minds thoughts.  I learned during this time that no matter where you go, there you are, as you cannot run away from yourself.  I had to deal with my shit or be stuck with my shit.   The Boundary Waters was my mental and physical retreat for years to get away from the centrifuge of life and my restlessness within myself.

Ok back to the Amazon Bookstore.  I bought one book called the “Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle.  It was hardback and as I read the description of the book all I thought was this:  “You have gotten yourself into this mess called “your life”.  You’re unhappy with who you are, what you have done, or not done, and the tools you have used to “fix” yourself definitely are the wrong tools, definitely not working at all, or are completely broken.  So find a new tool or something.   This book may be crazy-town, but what do you have to lose besides your own mind?”

The book prologue stated:

 “The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle teaches that true peace, joy, and enlightenment are found only by living fully in the present moment. The book asserts that identifying with our mental chatter and dwelling on the past or future is the root of all human suffering.

Well, I definitely did not know what true peace, joy, or even what the word enlightenment meant, but I sure in the heck was suffering from the mental chatter of my own dysfunctional mind.   At that time, I correlate it to who I am today as a veterinarian, trying to read a book by veterinarian Hillary Clayton.  One sentence at a time.  Rereading that sentence again and again.  Realizing I had absolutely no understanding of anything I just read.  Shutting the book.  Putting the book back into the backpack or bookshelf.   Lugged the backpack with the hardback book for two weeks through the wilderness wondering WHY in the world did I buy and bring this stupid hardback book?

However, day after day I forced myself to read one page a day, maybe to find out WTF enlightenment was, I simply did not know?   But during that time I listened to the loons, watched the wilderness and started to stop all the “chatter” in my head as some of the words on the pages seeped into my hard mindset and skull.   It took me over a year to finish the book.  The books true purpose is not the point, and at times mute to me even today,  as achieving “enlightenment” is still a vast abyss of unread pages, like the pages of Hillary Clayton books on my bookshelf.

That book led me to make the leap of faith to become a veterinarian.  It was that trip, that wilderness, that suffering, the daily force reading of the “crazy” book I read at times out loud to my dog Dino, hoping that maybe he could help in clarification of its meaning and words, and my failed attempted practices recommended in the book.  I looked at Dino, my dog,  time and time again to guide me?  Crazy?  Maybe.   It is then, talking out loud, literally reading to my dog in the middle of the wilderness on Frost Lake in the Boundary Waters, that led me to make the decision of becoming a veterinarian.  Of doing “something with my life” that I could possibly enjoy and love.  The true fact is, my biggest resistance to becoming a veterinarian after I made that decision was that I did not think I was smart enough.   I graduated from college with a 2.15 GPA.  My GPA would have been a 1.5, however,  I was an athlete and was able to “get into an easy A class” to get my GPA up.  Smart, I am not, for things and topics that I have no interest in.

I am also telling you, you do not have to read Eckhardt’s book, or to even understand it.   This is part of my life story, and what I needed at that time, which has brought me to where I am today, as a veterinarian.  Thank Dino for listening, as his great wisdom of no words but IF he and all dogs could speak, they would tell humans:  “The answers to ourselves are within ourselves”.   I put that in quotations because I know that he did say that to me, as he rolled his eyes or avoided looking at me, when I was reading to him in the middle of the wilderness.  And I know the next time you look into your dogs eyes, you will be think of Dino’s quote and wonder if your dog is trying to tell you the same thing.

The books true purpose for me, which I have not thought about or touched for decades until today, came to mind as I was lying on the hard uncomfortable ground, again, contemplating my aching back, my bad decisions via comfort, and finding possibly “enlightenment”?    The only “enlightenment” that occurred was Eckhart’s book came to mind with its principles of interconnectedness.   Twenty-eight years later, that one word “Interconnectedness” was worth the books price of purchase, lugging it through the wilderness, reading it to my dog out loud hoping he would give me understanding of its meaning, so that I can use it today in this blog, for bringing awareness for change to sport horses.    Yes I know….”bat-shit-crazy-town” but true story.

The book also gave me answers to why I was an athlete, adrenaline junky, and journeyman lineman.   I love the extreme moments of ultra unthinking focus where life is purely about being present in the now.   Hang off the side of a rock cliff wondering if your hand is going to hold will bring all your thoughts to one thing, NOT falling!   All athletes, adrenaline junkies and jobs that entail micro-focus is living second by second with no mental “chatter” of past or future.  It is about right now, as I am typing these words right now, that you are reading, right now.  This moment is all that matters and how I live most days of my life.  Drives my wife and friends crazy as I can maintain focus for long hours into the night, or morning, as their bodies structure of routine for bedtime and rising is relevant to their ability to work the next day functionally but not mine.   My first philosophy is,  I can catch up on sleep when I am dead.  My second philosophy is, please do not waste my time as I enjoy my time now, with myself and those I love and care about.   This micro, in the now focus, is who I am.  If something is on my radar, it is on my radar, and I am focused on it.  If it is not on my radar, you guessed it, not my focus.  If you want my focus, you have to be on my radar again and again.

By removing or lobotomizing my “chatter-brain” before I became a veterinarian, I do what any athlete, blue-collar worker or mechanic does.  Read the play book or watch the film for the team or player you will be defending or read the manual for whatever machine, engine or electrical or process schematic is needed for information.   Use that information to figure out and troubleshoot what is wrong.  Information Technology people work backwards to find problems in code or algorithms.   How has the equine veterinary profession not figured out these simple and complex problem-solution patterns of prediction and cause-effect?  The major problem is, the equine veterinary profession does not know how a horse works?   Why or how is it possible that they do not know?  Probably because there is no manual.  How can you fix something if you do not know how it works?

This is not criticism, simply pattern recognition of an equine veterinary system with old patterns and systems that are completely obsolete and need to be updated with a download, then rebooted so the system can be interconnected new with old.  Happens all the time with our iPhones, Android phones and computers.  Easy-Peasy ah?   I wish!  It is no wonder the five cases mentioned earlier, with the veterinarians using the play books, schematics and tools and methods they were taught to use did not resolve the initial complaint of lameness.  As in the cases in this blog, the INITIAL complaint was the trainers past and still current problem!

Sounds like my life before Eckhart’s book and my dog Dino.  Wrong tools trying to solve my inner dysfunctional mind, while in the wilderness reading to and looking at a non-word communicating species, my dog Dino, for personal advice and clarification of a “crazy” book I bought and lugged around the wilderness for two weeks, as the book is still sitting on a bookshelf in my life, twenty eight years.  Yup…pure bat-shit-crazy-town.

The picture below is of Dino and I on Frost Lake in 1998.    I took it with my Canon ELPH with film.  It is in my office.  I look at it every day as a reminder that I made the right decision to become a veterinarian as the horses have taken the place of Dino as my greatest teachers and mentors.  Thank you to Dino and all the horses I have had the privilege to know and treat thus far in my career.

Also, as I looked at the picture I just took.  If you zoom in, yes I do have 546 unanswered texts that I have not looked at.  Does not bother me one bit as my focus is only on this moment.  Get my point about being on my radar.

Answers to the cases with Cause and Effect.

Case #1:  The lumbar spine and pelvis:  Cause.  Haunches to right:  Effect.

Case #2:  Lumbosacral joint and Lumbosacral-intertranverse joints:  Cause.  LH Proximal SUS weight compensation:  Effect.

Case #3:  LF larger as the horse is landing harder and has more weight on its left side:  Cause.  Trainer is “hanging” on the right rein because the horses neck is to the left:  Effect.

Case #4:  The horse is overloading its front end as the same reason in Case #2 region is not working:  Cause.  Effect is the neck is/was extremely painful due to compensation and will have to be treated though the focus has to be currently on the resolution of the “behavioral issues” post surgery.  The bolting and bucking is due to destabilization of the spine created by doing kissing spine surgery:  Cause.   The epaxial muscles (back muscles) were contracted bringing the dorsal spinous processes together because just like in Case #2 this region and the muscle responsible for this region to work is injured.

Case #5: Left scapular region bulged, right side flat due to poor equipment fit:  REAL CAUSE.  The girthiness and “striker-shark” behavior was/is due to severe pain in the shoulder girdle region as the horse would land (audible) hard on the LF with decreased cranial phase or protraction of the RF:   EFFECT.

Hope that this helps you start to understand that it is not ONE thing.  The body is completely interconnected and an injury to a region or area has effects to the entire body especially if not recognized and treated when it occurs or is not noticed in the acute phase of injury.  Compensatory patterns need to be better understood and recognized as they become more muddled with time.

Be the voice.  Be the advocate.  Always put The Horse First.

Please share this blog with your horse friends so more AWARENESS is brought to the sport horse world.

AJD