would you use Gumbits to alleviate teeth grinding in your horse?

As usual, I've been on my morning meander through the internet, catching up on various blogs, doing the clicking that leads me from one thing to another thing to yet another, and enjoying all the information that unfolds as I click and read.

Today I was quickly caught up in a post about the use of Gumbits, a small "treat" that is apparently being used to deal with the grinding of teeth in horses.

It caught my eye because Keil Bay has occasionally ground his teeth under saddle. His previous trainer both told me about it and demonstrated it when I first looked at him. He didn't grind during any of my trial rides, and as it turned out, he has ground them with me three times since he came to live with me, 6 years ago. All three of those times were when I was riding in a lesson, following the instructions of a trainer. My sense was that when pushed hard to do an exercise (not the same one), he resorted to the grinding.

He also did the grinding fairly regularly when ridden by my trainer.

My response to the grinding was to ride him in such a way that did not lead to tooth grinding. That led me to go against the recommendations of my trainer at the time: instead of entering the arena with contact and warming him up doing walk, rising trot, and canter, I came in and rode him on the buckle using walk, sitting trot, and then a big fun canter. Instead of insisting that we drill movements over and over, I began to leave the back arena gate open and take little "mini-hacks" in between our arena work. By accident, I discovered that he loved to pop over baby jumps, and so we used that as a way to insert some fun into the arena work as well.

As it turned out, my doing these things not only led us away from the grinding of teeth, but led to the most beautiful, light, relaxed, classically correct rides I've ever had on any horse. And for Keil Bay, it led to a trust that I would not ride him straight into resistance and then rely on his kindness and general safeness to wrestle him through a movement, but would do everything I could to ride him into relaxation, and only then would we try some of the more difficult movements.

But still, even given all that, even given the fact that he has not ground his teeth in at least two years, I wondered this morning if I'd had the Gumbits to use when we were dealing with this, would I have tried them?

This is what the company says about the product:

GumBits was conceived and developed by two Atlanta women in a quest to aid in the daily training of their dressage horses. By promoting the salivation process, they eliminated the teeth grinding which often can occur during the intense training of high performance sport horses. 

Not only does GumBits encourage chewing activity, trigger salivation, and eliminate teeth grinding, horses love the sweet taste. GumBits are made of all natural FDA approved ingredients and is safe and palatable. 

I tuned in to the line:  eliminated the teeth grinding which often can occur during the intense training of high performance sport horses.


What is it about the intense training of sport horses, in particular dressage horses, that leads so often to teeth grinding?  Apparently the Gumbits are being used to address the grinding of teeth, to create "foam" at shows, and to make the training sessions more pleasant.

My take on teeth grinding is that it is a symptom of something. Dental issues, tmj issues, ulcer issues, pain/discomfort issues, or perhaps the only way a horse can "resist" a style or session of riding that is physically or psychologically (or both) uncomfortable.

Does using Gumbits therefore mask a symptom we need to be paying attention to? What does it say about the show scene if creating foam via a treat in the horse's mouth is used as a way to make it appear the horse is "on the bit?"  (don't get me started about the whole "on the bit" thing)

I can easily imagine Keil Bay loving a sweet treat. And maybe it would cause him to salivate and forget all about whatever it is that pushes him to grind when being ridden a very specific way. But if I give him the treats, am I simply masking a bigger, deeper issue?

Where is the line between creating a dressage "facade" and actually doing the slow, kind, layered work of training that leads to a relaxed, happy, balanced horse that both looks AND feels good doing his job?

Certainly, to a large degree, the answer to this question depends on one's riding goals, as well as one's philosophy about what constitutes solid horsemanship. While I know what my own answer is, I concede that there is no one right answer - we are all where we are on our paths, and so each person's answer might be different.

The critical thing is that we each think through scenarios like this regularly, to examine our goals, to look at, step-by-step, the pros and cons of what we do in our work with horses.

Often we do things simply because it's what the majority of riders and trainers do. And we use the justification that, hey, it works.

I maintain that by questioning things, and most importantly, by listening to our horses, and letting our horses be our trainers, we end up with a much greater depth of knowledge, and even more, a much greater connection to the animal carrying us around on his/her back.

I would love to know what readers think about this.

me and my kindle

I'm inside with a cold watching my husband roll the hay barrow down the hill. The sun is out today, and although it is 30 degrees with winds blowing in (up to 35 mph by the afternoon) the geldings were out playing this morning and we decided to give them some hay out in the sun, on top of the snow, and give them a few hours out of their blankets so they can run and roll and get some sunshine all over their bodies.

My son had this cold last week, then husband got it, and daughter. Finally, on Christmas day, after most everything I needed to do had been done, it kicked in for me.

Fortunately my Christmas gift was a Kindle, which I've been eagerly awaiting. I've had the free Kindle for Mac software on my desktop for months, and although it's great for doing research or checking formatting issues, it's not all that much fun to slide my desk chair into place and settle in for a good read.

I tried putting the software on my old Mac laptop, but it's just too old to support this new technology.

And I spent a long weekend with an iPad a few months back, buying and reading most of Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom, enough to know that reading a book on an electronic device was vastly more appealing than I ever thought it could be.

Since Christmas morning when I opened the Kindle and powered it up, I have carried it around the house with me, charmed by its lovely habit of putting a new image onto the screen each time I put it to sleep. It's like a mini-magical Etch-a-Sketch, and who knew that putting a device to sleep would be so much fun?

I finished Freedom, bought Emma Donaghue's Room, am nearly done with that, bought Caroline Leavitt's Pictures of You for next read, and have downloaded samples from about 10 different books I've been wanting to browse.

The Kindle is light in the hand, easy on the eye, and the ability to shop for a new book and have it in my hand in less than a minute is like some kind of childhood fantasy come to life.

I thought I would be sad about the lack of color, but to be honest, as someone who adores black and white photography and pen/ink sketches, the black and white images on the Kindle are so charming I really don't care about the color.

That's not to say I won't be first in line when Amazon puts out their color version.

Love, love, love it - more than I can say.

snow day!

No need to take any photos - the blog itself is exactly what it looks like here right now. We woke up to 5 inches and it is still snowing - gorgeous landscape but of course we know what it means to horse folk: extra mucking, a week of mush and mud, and sometimes, a few grumpy equines.

Inside the house I am grateful for the two LL Bean Waterhog door mats I finally got - should have gone ahead and gotten 2 more for the laundry room!

Corgis are bringing in balls of snow on their bellies every time they go in and out. Mystic is outside in bliss - he is one snow-loving feline.

And the power is off and on, so I'm going to go ahead and hit send before it catches me.

Will close with one of my favorite poems from childhood - which reminds me what I wanted so much way back then, and now have, and thus I can end on a grateful note:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

merry christmas!

I still love Thelwell's ponies after all these years! Here's to a very happy holiday weekend for all. We may get snow for Christmas tomorrow - and then in a week highs in the 60s!  Crazy weather but it keeps us on our toes.

Best holiday wishes and a happy 2011 to come.

winter solstice 2010

Without doing anything special, I began celebrating this year's winter solstice yesterday just after sunset. I was at the barn, preparing stalls for horses and donkeys, and as the geldings came in to gather beneath their shelter off the back of our barn, I let them through so they could join Salina and the donkey boys in the big barnyard.

As I did that I noticed the big yellow moon rising behind the back field, as though she knew she would be eclipsed later in the evening and needed to shine especially bright as she ascended.

This is why it takes me so long to do chores. I end up stopping: to watch floating horses, laughing donkeys, felicitous felines, luscious light, and fancy full moons.

Cody let me know that he was ready for a clean stall with a full manger when he began to try getting into the hay tent from the side. As strong as they are, I quickly imagined him ripping the entire tent in half, so trotted out with a lead line and asked him to come on in. His stall was ready. He went in gladly.

After a few minutes, Keil Bay sauntered in, assuming his, too, was ready. And it was, so I opened his stall door and waved him in.

Salina came in, followed by the donkeys. Their side was ready too, but Salina was too busy guarding the barn door so the painted pony couldn't come in to notice. The painted pony was so enjoying the barnyard he didn't really care that his stall wasn't ready yet.

Since the wheelbarrow was full and I knew my husband would be home at any second, I decided to wait and let him dump the last load so I could get started on grooming.

Every few minutes I walked out to the barnyard to look up and see how high the moon was and how she had changed from yellow to an almost uncanny blue/white.

Keil Bay was fairly well covered in dried mud so it took awhile to groom him. Cody was thankfully not so dirty, and Salina and the pony were miraculously very clean. The donkeys had no mud - it would never occur to them to roll on wet ground - they save the rolling after rain and snow for the barn aisle, where they are sure to get some good dust worked into their very furry coats.

They did have some hay tucked into their fur, and they love the feel of the brushing, so I gave them each a good turn.

Although it wasn't yet the longest night, I felt as though it was, and decided there is no better way to spend an evening than just the way I'd spent it.

A well-used (in terms of manure and urine) stall transforms to a fluffy, clean one with fresh hay and water via the fairly meticulous application of hay fork and muck rake.

Dirty (and happy) equines come clean with a little elbow grease.

The checking of water troughs and the night-time rituals of bringing rinsed feed tubs in to the feed room, where they are lined up in order, the removal of hoses that are laid out down the hill so they don't freeze up overnight, and the pause to listen to horses munching when I turn out the lights.

All guided by the magic of barn time and marked by the rise of a very special moon.

Although we will celebrate today's solstice proper with intention and some special rituals, it was last night's impromptu celebration that marks, for me, the shift toward longer days and light.

Happiest of solstices to everyone!