'Horse whisperers' - are they ethical?

I had one, did a distance reading - it wasn’t overly expensive so I thought I’d give it a whirl, I’d heard friends use this person with believable results so in for a Penny and all that.

Now, I bred my horse, he has never left my care, never been ridden by anyone else, I backed him, I have done everything with him.
The utter bull that I was reading when she sent me what he had to say, I was on the train at the time and I was laughing out loud.

He is a big coloured lump, warmblood - not a hint of Irish in him although clearly he looks like he is, to my knowledge has never even heard an Irish accent (I say this as when I pointed out the above she told me someone with an Irish accent had spoken to him!) nevermind been to or was bred or backed in Ireland!
He had also never jumped before, yet there was a whole paragraph about how he likes to jump and XC is his fave, never been XC, I don’t hack so not even that!
There was literally not a single believable element to it.

When I sent my reply, she gave me my money back and apologised for getting it so wrong.
 
asmp said:
Someone I know is about to use one and I’ll be interested to know what she says. It’s a last resort really as insurance money is all used up and there is no real idea of what is wrong with horse.
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Has she had imaging done on the neck, C6 C7 , there's a specific imaging protocol for ECVM, would be better use of her money. I have a horse which has the vets stumped, passed flexion, neuro tests, full bone scan, so much imaging done it should glow in the dark, eventually turns out it has ECVM...
 
fairyclare said:
I had one, did a distance reading - it wasn’t overly expensive so I thought I’d give it a whirl, I’d heard friends use this person with believable results so in for a Penny and all that.

Now, I bred my horse, he has never left my care, never been ridden by anyone else, I backed him, I have done everything with him.
The utter bull that I was reading when she sent me what he had to say, I was on the train at the time and I was laughing out loud.

He is a big coloured lump, warmblood - not a hint of Irish in him although clearly he looks like he is, to my knowledge has never even heard an Irish accent (I say this as when I pointed out the above she told me someone with an Irish accent had spoken to him!) nevermind been to or was bred or backed in Ireland!
He had also never jumped before, yet there was a whole paragraph about how he likes to jump and XC is his fave, never been XC, I don’t hack so not even that!
There was literally not a single believable element to it.

When I sent my reply, she gave me my money back and apologised for getting it so wrong.
Click to expand...
I had a distance reading done on my old horse, who was in her late teens at the time, and I'd owned her from seven. Her previous owner, who's a friend, had bought her from the breeder as a two year old. In other words, her whole history was known.

AC said she'd had a foal. She definitely had not.

AC said she loved doing XC (do they say that about every horse). She's never evented.

AC said she once had a relationship with a young boy and really missed him. Eh? Previous owner does not have kids, and how many young boys have you seen at livery yards? Yeah.

AC said the horse in the stable next door, a grey Connemara, reminded her of her mother (a bay TB).

Knowing my horse could not function in a herd, I asked the AC how she felt about other horses. She said, "She likes some horses and not others. She has some friends but others she wants to stay away from." The sort of thing you could say about every horse, except for that one, who disliked all horses.

I've always had a perverse desire to do an experiment where I ask more than one AC about a horse (one with a known history, i.e. mine) and see how accurate they are and also how consistent their answers are with one another. It would be entertaining.
 
Palindrome said:
I saw a talk a few years back about it and apparently the man who invented chiropractic claimed to be able to cure the common cold by manipulating one's spine. Some of the practitioners also "crack" the neck as routine manipulation but this runs the risk (very low but there is still one) to leave the person paralyzed. If the person didn't have a neck problem, then it is taking unnecessary risks.

en.wikipedia.org

Chiropractic - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
There is also a section "Pseudoscience versus spinal manipulation therapy" on the Wikipedia page.
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I was talking about acupuncture. I don’t know much about chiropractors.
 
Irish-Only said:
If you are talking about a certain scottish lady then she is absolutely shocking. I was on desperate measures, had spent thousands and three specialists couldn't get to the root of the problem. The conversation with her (and allegedly my mare) was verging on the ridiculous.
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Is this lady a Reiki person doing it from a distance?
 
Many years ago I had trigeminal neuralgia, unbearable pain. I had exhausted all the medical routes, it was suggested that the only other thing they could do would be to cut the nerve which could result in facial paralysis. I was so desperate that I was considering it when a friend suggested acupuncture. After one treatment it was 80% better and after the second it had completely gone and so far thankfully has not returned.
I have a close friend who practises shamanism and can absolutely communicate with animals. She has worked with our horses and animals many times and can feel where in their bodies the pain is situated. I could give many examples of how she has helped with diagnosis, healing and trauma.
Just my experience.
 
Gloi said:
I had several sessions of acupuncture as a last resort on my bad back. It did nothing.
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I've had it for back pain and it did help (but so did deep tissue work, both by an professional and by myself using a tennis ball). I've seen various theories about why it works for some and not others. One of which is that it can work similarly to deep tissue massage. In that if your back pain is caused by scar tissue, tight areas, muscle spasms etc and the needles penetrate these areas and help release these, it will give relief. If they miss the areas or back pain is caused by other issues, then you might not get relief. This is also possibly why studies give mixed results about the effectiveness. Not everyone's pain is caused by the same issue and so it's a bit hit and miss whether people get a positive outcome.
 
quackwatch.org

Chiropractic's Dirty Secret: Neck Manipulation and Strokes | Quackwatch

Stroke from chiropractic neck manipulation occurs when an artery to the brain ruptures or becomes blocked by a clot as a result of being stretched. The injury often results from extreme rotation in which the practitioner's hands are placed on the patient's head in order to rotate the c ...
quackwatch.org quackwatch.org
Don't let chiropractors near your neck.
 
ycbm said:
Acupuncture because it works only as a placebo, though placebos can be mighty powerful. It has been investigated with proper blind trials.

Dowsing because the dowsers are actually reading geological features and/or are operating in areas which are riddled with water sources. Again, it can't be replicated in a controlled environment where the water could be turned on and off to test the dowser.

I don't know much about chiropractic. It does seem to have started off from dodgy roots but has "grown up" more recently and been shown to be effective with sub-acute lower back pain.
.
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My vet uses acupuncture very successfully. He describes Chinese hospitals that use acupuncture instead of drugs as anaesthetic. My former highly qualified (Professor) GP also practised acupuncture. I had it on my back muscles. It worked very well.
 
Gloi said:
I had several sessions of acupuncture as a last resort on my bad back. It did nothing.
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I had it on my back too and it didn’t do anything. But the stretches my physio gave me sorted me right out. Same physio had done the acupuncture. Maybe depends what was wrong, some people swear by it. Still can’t believe how well 4 different stretches worked though.
 
I think it's important to point out there is a difference between direct/dry needling and chinese traditional acupuncture. Electro acupuncture is a bit wild.

Chiros and necks, yes it's a risk albeit one mostly hears about it on twitter/similar spaces. At 35 neuro complications in a year in GB I'll take my chance for the benefit as for that bit of me in particular (there's a lot of problematic bits) my physio can't get the same result (or any physio prior to her). And life is genuinely difficult/unsafe if you can't turn your head to the right.
 
Interesting the dislike of chiropractic. I had a lot of success both with me and my horses. That was with the US chiropractor that used to come over on the Mark Rashid courses. I was so very fortunate when my horse jolted his neck fighting that he had a clinic close to me. It was a 2 hour walk in hand to get there and the same back.
I was so pleased that I took 2 others. That was a lot of walking (as I had no transport) but the results were well worth it.

I have had at least 2 incidents when the treatment from my GP was useless and chiros had to resolve my problem.
 
Caol Ila said:
I had a distance reading done on my old horse, who was in her late teens at the time, and I'd owned her from seven. Her previous owner, who's a friend, had bought her from the breeder as a two year old. In other words, her whole history was known.

AC said she'd had a foal. She definitely had not.

AC said she loved doing XC (do they say that about every horse). She's never evented.

AC said she once had a relationship with a young boy and really missed him. Eh? Previous owner does not have kids, and how many young boys have you seen at livery yards? Yeah.

AC said the horse in the stable next door, a grey Connemara, reminded her of her mother (a bay TB).

Knowing my horse could not function in a herd, I asked the AC how she felt about other horses. She said, "She likes some horses and not others. She has some friends but others she wants to stay away from." The sort of thing you could say about every horse, except for that one, who disliked all horses.

I've always had a perverse desire to do an experiment where I ask more than one AC about a horse (one with a known history, i.e. mine) and see how accurate they are and also how consistent their answers are with one another. It would be entertaining.
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If you want the name of the lady whe did mine let me know.

She was very good. She nevrr mentioned jumping or anything like that, it was thoughts and feelings and connections etc.
 
Slightlyconfused said:
If you want the name of the lady whe did mine let me know.

She was very good. She nevrr mentioned jumping or anything like that, it was thoughts and feelings and connections etc.
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Send me a PM. I am very curious. I know many people with uncanny stories but my own experience of n=1 was very meh.

Maybe I could write a thing about it. I have two horses and I know both their full histories.
 
Caol Ila said:
Send me a PM. I am very curious. I know many people with uncanny stories but my own experience of n=1 was very meh.

Maybe I could write a thing about it. I have two horses and I know both their full histories.
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Anyone tried the distance Reiki from Sarah Hope Brown who is in Scotland. Seen it on FB. Would be interested in hearing from anyone if this is a fake or for real.
 
I’ve used one once. She told me quite a few things I could relate to. Some of the the things about before I had him, I’ll never know if they are true but they were certainly logical.
 
Peglo said:
I had it on my back too and it didn’t do anything. But the stretches my physio gave me sorted me right out. Same physio had done the acupuncture. Maybe depends what was wrong, some people swear by it. Still can’t believe how well 4 different stretches worked though.
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ester said:
I think it's important to point out there is a difference between direct/dry needling and chinese traditional acupuncture. Electro acupuncture is a bit wild.
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Yep, Western practitioners (ie doctors, nurses) doing acupuncture is indeed a long way from Chinese acupuncture.

I tend to osteos rather than chiros but from my experience with humans and horses there can be effective and safe ones in both camps. When your back is completely locked up there's nothing like a good osteo to get it working again.
 
When you say horse whisperer I think you mean can communicate telepathically? I can only tell you about my horse that out of desperation I had a session with. She I’m sad to say didn't have the gift but I don’t think she was a con, I think she thought she did and she was so nice lol. My horse had a chronic turning to acute condition that’s she’s now been pts for but funnily enough she didn’t pick up on it. Told me the one rein was stiffer etc etc etc.
 
Ah, this thread is very timely for me - my yard is very much going the way of animal communicators and alternative therapies and it's so bad that I think I'm going to have to leave the yard.

Example: a local person's horse diagnosed by a vet with ataxia (7 year old, it can't stand properly in the field or stable, it's bad). YO has taken the horse on two months' trial as she thinks she's going to be able to "cure" it (owner was going to PTS): she's had the magic animal communicator out, the magic osteo and an ex-vet who does essentially shamanism - and in the meantime I asked her if she was giving him something for the (clearly excruciating) pain - she said it's too expensive! I am livid and told her it was abuse and maltreatment, all about her own saviour complex, and the horse should be put to sleep.

This is not the only example of the way things are going with people at the yard, just the most heart-breaking one.

ETA: I am not against complementary treatments as long as they are used judiciously and as that: "a complement" to proper veterinary medicine.
 
JGC said:
Ah, this thread is very timely for me - my yard is very much going the way of animal communicators and alternative therapies and it's so bad that I think I'm going to have to leave the yard.

Example: a local person's horse diagnosed by a vet with ataxia (7 year old, it can't stand properly in the field or stable, it's bad). YO has taken the horse on two months' trial as she thinks she's going to be able to "cure" it (owner was going to PTS): she's had the magic animal communicator out, the magic osteo and an ex-vet who does essentially shamanism - and in the meantime I asked her if she was giving him something for the (clearly excruciating) pain - she said it's too expensive! I am livid and told her it was abuse and maltreatment, all about her own saviour complex, and the horse should be put to sleep.

This is not the only example of the way things are going with people at the yard, just the most heart-breaking one.

ETA: I am not against complementary treatments as long as they are used judiciously and as that: "a complement" to proper veterinary medicine.
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This really resonates with me as I get very frustrated by people at my own yard, too. It's the sort of place where a lame horse will see the chrio/animal communicator/physio but the vet is too expensive!

There is a particular physio who frequents the yard and treats unsound horses, giving her own medical diagnosis which has proven to be way-off the actual problem. E.g. she thought one horse had problems with it's hip, when a vet looked it was actually suspensory/SI problems. She keeps taking the horse owners' money when she should be telling them to get a vet...
 
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