Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
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It really helps us get this work done.
As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
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So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
Welcome back.
Alright.
Many of us in the equine assisted world are somewhat not lost, but are
not confused necessarily, but let's say spoke for choice in many of the
options that are available to us in terms of our horse's wellbeing and these
equine partners that we rely upon to give wellbeing to the monkeys, to the
humans that are coming through our door.
No matter whether we're doing our work mounted or unmounted or with direct
contact or within direct contact.
We all know that equine wellbeing is paramount, but it can be let's say
increasingly difficult to discern what certain bottom lines are.
And if you are someone who's come to the horse, the horse late in
life it can be even more difficult.
And there's a lot of conflicting philosophies out there as
always in the horse world.
So how does one bring it down to certain denominations of fitness soundness,
mental and physical emotional wellbeing?
And how does one combine the really solid old school horsemanship, which,
you know, has existed for thousands of years and created, you know.
Very, very healthy horses and newer ideas, more holistic
ideas, which are equally valid.
And how does one bring those together rather than see
them as two separate camps?
Now I'm very lucky today to have Dr.
Janet Vaus, even though she spells her name V-E-R-H-U-S.
It's spelt as if it was an a Va Hus because it's a Norwegian name.
But she's not Norwegian.
She's,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it is spelled with an A
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it is spelled with an a.
Oops.
The, I stand corrected.
I had it written as with an E.
Alright, so forget everything I just said.
It's Va Huss spelled with an A, it's a Norwegian, but she's not Norwegian.
It's a Norwegian origin name.
And Janet has spent decades in veterinary practice but has also been in influenced
by the likes of heavily influenced by the likes of Linda Ellington Jones.
She'll be very familiar as a sort of patron saint really, of what we do.
And also a dear friend of Mark Rashid and Chrissy McDonald, who are
definitely people who have, many of us know, have advanced, you know, the
fields of equine wellbeing a lot in the past 15, 10, or 15 years or so.
And it's, it's rare that we get someone who really can give us a
roadmap through the traditional and the holistic the experimental,
the new, the old, and really.
Give us some guidance in this.
So listen up guys, because there's gonna be tons and tons and tons of really
good practical information in here.
Don't miss out.
So Janet, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you came
to be the sort of vet you are?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So I love the mountains.
So when I graduated from vet school in Iowa, I went moved west to,
to Utah where women veterinarians were a rarity back then.
What year was that?
Do you
Rupert Isaacson: remember?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It was in, huh?
82.
What year was
Rupert Isaacson: that?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
1983.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Yeah,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
actually I first went there in 82.
So I was the third female vet in the state and the second one was my classmate
that got there two weeks before me.
Rupert Isaacson: So you like a challenge?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes, and I went to the south end of the state.
So, seven years later I moved to Montana and I was still the only woman south
of Provo, which is 300 some miles.
Okay.
So I practiced after a year I practiced in my own clinic solo.
'cause I had met my husband in Utah.
And so I stayed and opened my own practice for six years.
Which was, was rough being in a rural area and being a small, petite woman.
But we moved to Montana and I call that my childbearing years.
So I had two kids.
Mm.
And then his job moved us to Colorado.
So we've been here for over 30 years now.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And just tell us quickly what your husband does.
'cause I think that also gives a bit of context to your
life there in the mountains.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
My husband's a civil engineer and he worked for the Forest Service.
So that at least brought us to really pretty areas.
Hmm.
And and it was, you know, we live up in the mountains now in Salida and it's
been great 'cause I can be at a trail with my horse in about 15 minutes.
Mm-hmm.
So it's, it's a nice area.
It, so I ended up working as relief for a few years and then
I joined an older rancher vet.
And you know, I, I love the old school and, and I was so impressed with how loyal
the clients were and how, how loving, you know, the community was to him.
And eventually he was well in his eighties when he retired and I.
Bought it out the practice and built a new clinic.
So I had my own practice for about 20 years.
And through this time as you said, when I was in Montana,
I met Linda Tillington Jones.
And I guess the backstory, when I was in Utah, I got into endurance writing.
So Dr.
Kerry Ridgeway and Linda Tillington Jones were big in endurance at that time.
Everyone pretty well knows Linda and Dr.
Ridgeway was a chiropractor, an equine chiropractor early on was
very active in the endurance.
Ended up developing an acupuncture technique to release fascia.
So they, they were my heroes, my icons.
And in 92, my daughter was five weeks old and I loaded her up with my horse
and went and met Linda Tillington Jones.
And you know, basically changed my trajectory with horses.
And and so then I've, you know, worked with her ever since, well, with about
a 10 year hiatus of raising kids and and have got to know her really well.
And so over the years, my dream was to work with these two people.
And I would say they influenced me very early on.
Rupert Isaacson: Let me ask you a couple of questions.
Obviously, I'm Linda's a one of our dearest friends and, you know, has
generously, generously supported all we've done with Horse Boy Method and our other
programs, basically since the get go.
And as you know, she's one of these people who gives of herself massively,
and we've had her on the show.
So for those listeners who don't yet know much about Linda Tillington Jones,
you really, really need to, and please go listen to that, to that podcast.
There's actually two of them, one on this show, one on my other
podcast live free, ride free.
But just right now, for those listeners who are less familiar with her, can
you give me sort of in your own words what you, what drew you to Linda?
Because I think this is gonna help people to understand where you stand as a vet
and what, what do you feel her work does?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Well, what drew me, I mean, she was just a front runner in, in ways
to work with horses that probably, you know, resonated with me.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And and the interesting thing as I've moved through my career and learning
more and more modalities, I've learned the scientific justification or proof
of so much of what she's taught.
And I guess for my science brain, I'm not into evidence-based medicine
so much, but I really appreciate seeing the science back, the things
that she's taught for so many years.
Rupert Isaacson: What, can you be a bit more specific?
What science have you seen that that backs what she does?
Again, this is helpful for re for our listeners, I think.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
Let me think of, well, the most recent I did a posture rehab course,
which was pretty mind blowing, where it combines basically everything
I know into posture and how that's affects the wellbeing of the horse.
And Linda so much emphasizes, you know, relaxing where the head's at getting
them to relax in the neck bringing their head down having them feel safe.
And all that strengthens their back, brings their back and the
belly lifts bringing their back up opening up the, the withers.
So with kissing spines, you know, you have to open up the, the withers and,
and it's just, it's the reason, part of the reason that things change so fast
is because when their posture is better, they're in a more sympathetic state.
So it just becomes this circular thing of the horse feeling safe,
being relaxed, being in good posture and then able to function in a,
you know, whatever they need to do.
So, it's, it's just been kind of a little mind blowing, but, you know,
I never doubted what Linda taught.
It's just nice to see it
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Validated.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think we'll return to her a couple of times in the course of this.
One of the other things which listeners you may not be aware of Linda pioneered
something called T Touch which she actually learned from it had come down to
her from effectively Russian gypsies as a way of calming horses and making horses
feel good in challenging circumstances.
And she tells that story herself on the podcast.
I, I don't want to steal her thunder, but it's very interesting
how these lineages come down.
If you think about what Russian gypsies are or were, those, were
the people of the step who of course were the first force tribes.
So of course knowledge coming from there would be useful.
But it's so easy to lose.
The thread of where the actual horse tradition comes from.
You know, we, we all who ride horses ride horses that basically go back as a genetic
throwback as far as we can see, to a tribe called the Cinta who were living somewhere
in that region of western Russia.
Or at the beginning of the Bronze age, end of the neolithic time.
So between four and 5,000 years ago.
And pretty much every horse that we ride was Sele.
It goes back to horses that were selectively bred for the
higher weather and trainability by this tribe in this area.
So, you know, we are all benefiting from, from these lines that come through.
And it can get confusing because it can think, oh, this is a Linda
Tallon Jones thing, and Linda herself would say, no, no, no.
It happens to have my name.
But actually it's a much older tradition and one can see how these traditions,
of course, are so practical, you know, horses were needed for survival.
There's no woowoo in it, even though it seems that there is,
because if there were only woowoo, it simply wouldn't have survived.
The people would not have passed it down because we monkeys
are more practical than that.
We tend to get rid of things that don't work.
So again, it's, I like what you say about that science now vindicates what
Linda and before her, these Russian step people, we're teaching because it just is
gonna make it more available to people.
Tell me a little bit about Kelly Ridgeway and I'm not, I'm less familiar.
What was her work, why did it attract you and how has it influenced what you do now?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Dr.
Carey, it was man he, he did some endurance and then he was a chiropractor
and started studying the fascial trains.
And, and I studied with him.
I mean, he was pretty amazing at what he did.
He was good friends with Linda as well.
And his, his goal, which he didn't succeed before he passed, was to find
the one point that would release all the fascia, but he was pretty close.
You know, that just a few distal points, and you can make a huge
change in the fascial planes.
He was, he, he said in the class that when he'd started doing this, he found that he
only had to adjust one or two vertebrae.
So as I'm not a chiropractor, that wouldn't mean much coming
from me, but for someone who had.
Done chiropractic so many years and one of the first acupuncturists,
veterinary acupuncturists.
That was a profound statement that I always remember about every time
I work, you know, I just look for the points I need to help the horse
release and adjust themselves.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what are those points and why should we be
concerned about fascia with horses?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, I guess it's whatever doctrine you wanna believe, but I've always kind of
thought that if you can relieve the soft tissue, that's what pulls things away.
And and so if you don't work on the soft tissue first, it doesn't make sense to me.
Which, like I said, I'm not a chiropractor, so somebody may
need to educate me, but to adjust the bones without making the soft
tissue not pull it back out of place doesn't make sense to me.
And these points are there's a lot of 'em that are about an inch above the
ting, points above the coronary band.
And it was pretty interesting 'cause once I worked with him, you
know, once you see something, now I, now I can find these points.
Never knew they existed.
But it, it's, I'm always surprised and, there are some YouTube
videos he made before that.
I know there's one, there's a shoulder point that's in the
pectorals and it will le release the shoulder and the neck on that side.
There's a GV point, a point up in the hip behind the lumbosacral junction
that will release the whole hind end.
And those two points right there, you've helped release two thirds of the horse.
Rupert Isaacson: And when you, when you release them, how do you do it?
Are you doing it through Accu?
Are you doing it through pressure?
How, how are you doing it?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You can do it all that.
I'm a acupuncturist, so I'm a purist.
I like sticking needles in.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I sometimes use a laser pointer on the horses that don't like that.
He also developed a technique and through an acupuncture exam to to
diagnose ulcers in horses and, okay.
His wi his widow has an online course to do that, and I, I teach that a lot
because you don't have to scope them.
I find it pretty accurate.
And if I diagnose a horse with withers or with ulcers, then we can
also tell how our therapy's working.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you give us a, a bit of an a 1, 2 3 of
how you would do that diagnosis?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
There's a, there's a series of points and I take a needle cap, which you can
take, you know, something fairly firm and I stroke like up over the shoulder.
I always think of a, a racing saddle.
So you go around the back partway up in the girth area, you know, lots
of girthy horses would have ulcers.
You can also stroke behind the last two ribs and you've got liver 14 and
another point their stomach 35 down on the midline or just off the midline.
That point can be dangerous.
I've had a horse that I thought about checking that point and it's cow kicked.
I, I didn't even get within a foot of that point.
And that horse is like, you're not going there.
And then there's a point up on the hip that depression behind the
hip bone up above the hip bone.
It, there's, there's diagrams to show.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But it, it's, and if it's on both sides, you tend to make what tells you
Rupert Isaacson: when you are, when you are on those
points that Okay, it's ulcers.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
So then those points are specific for ulcers.
And so I'll always check a horse.
At the beginning to find out, because as Mark Rasht has said, horses can't
separate physical from emotional.
So a lot of horses that are floated hot or hard to handle just have ulcers.
And if we address those, and those horses don't usually like needles.
So I'll use my laser pointer.
Okay.
And once I treat those points, they'll calm down and I can do whatever I want.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what I'd like to know though, is when you go to
that point with your needle or with your laser pointer, what in that
point tells you, okay, it's ulcers?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Well, it's the series of points that I check.
Is it a reaction
Rupert Isaacson: in the horse?
Is it the feeding tissue?
Yes.
The horse will react.
Okay.
They'll be tender.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Okay.
They'll be so with an acupuncture exam you check reactive points.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And then that will tell you help you pinpoint where the pain is, which is,
it's really sad that in traditional veterinary medicine, they don't
teach this information because it opened up a whole different world
for me on diagnostics with my hands.
I I, you digressing to dogs.
I had a dog come in that was not doing well.
Pretty vague.
Nothing.
He was real acute.
So.
I was trying to decide if I should do blood work or treat
it symptomatically and its liver points on its back were very tender.
So I did blood work and the dog ended up in early liver failure and, you
know, I would've totally missed it.
So those are the kind of things that I'd like to teach the owners because you can
tell a lot about the horse and how you're
Rupert Isaacson: doing.
So you, you can teach owners to go over various points in their horse.
Yes.
See what the reactions are, and then if they get certain reactions,
what would then be the thing to do?
So let's say they go over these ulcer points and they
find the horses tender there.
Okay.
Maybe the horse has ulcers, then what's the next stage?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I like to use laser pointer.
And, and I There are specific points then on the body that
you can, acupuncture or laser.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And those will help relieve the ulcers.
Rupert Isaacson: Even, even as a non-qualified practitioner, as a horse
owner, you could learn to do this.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You just you know, by law veterinarians put the needles in, but you can use a
laser pointer, you can use a pressure.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
You can use your, your fingers or your thumb or touch.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Acupressure is, is a lay person's.
Rupert Isaacson: Technique.
So the reason I'm very encouraged by this is if one thinks about where you
went in, which was endurance, you know, endurance of course, that the emphasis
on fitness and soundness is enormous.
And because you're not going in there for like a short round like you would
in show jumping or even a modern day dressage, you, you, any, any holes
in the fitness or the soundness are gonna knock you out and the horse
out of the game similar to eventing.
But it, it, it, again, it's very practical, no-nonsense sort
of basis from which to build.
It's very similar to the background I grew up with, which was hunting,
eventing, team chasing, point to pointing where again, the fitness
and the soundness was everything.
You either could or you couldn't do it depending on how fit or how sound your
horse was, there was no in-between really.
So we were all had stuff about muscle building, soundness and fitness
drilled into us from quite young.
And it wasn't until I got, I, I, I jumped a little bit
semi-professionally in America when I, earlier on when I was there.
And I was shocked at how unfit and unsound horses were sometimes, for sure
not everywhere, but sometimes, I realize, oh, I see that that stuff isn't really
taught outside of like the fox hunting or endurance or eventing worlds where
people know because that's the culture.
And within equine assisted work, a lot of people are not
coming out of those cultures.
So how would they know?
So the fact that you're coming from that is very encouraging to me because
again, we are getting, in our field mostly donated horses and donated horses
often come with injury, old injuries, their thoroughbreds off the track.
You know, they're gonna come with ulcers, possibly.
They're going to come with bone stuff, they're gonna come with tendon stuff.
And if they're sport horses, they're gonna come with back stuff, or western horses,
they're gonna come with back stuff.
Among the other things that they could have.
So I, I like the fact that you're starting from that basis of what's
going on with your spine, what's going on in your stomach and your gut.
Let's look at this first, because this is the part of the body which
is most in contact with the human.
In fact, apart from the head and the, and the nose.
It's where you sit.
It's what carries you.
It's where your legs are wrapped and so on.
So even before we think about the legs and the brain.
And of course it's affecting the brain.
So, okay, so you, you come in through endurance.
You, you, you encounter Linda TTouch, you encounter Carrie you begin to learn
the acupressure, the acupuncture but you're still running a regular practice.
What happens next?
What, how do you take this?
These which at the time are seen as very woowoo.
Now they're more mainstream, but at the time, back in the eighties, we know that
people would absolutely roll their eyes and poo poo at the word Accu acupuncture.
They were not acupuncture schools, you know, in every city like there are now.
Insurance was not covering acupuncture like it does now.
You know?
You are right there at the pioneer, and as you say, you're a petite woman
running a practice in the mountain west with a lot of people who are going to
be looking at that, the skepticism.
Talk to us about those years and how you built your practice and,
and where it went from there.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I think the thing that, in hindsight I realized a couple things was that
one, I, I started my own practice fairly early out, so I thought if I
didn't know how to treat something, it was because I just didn't know.
So I needed to find out.
So I would, you know, we didn't have internet, but I would call.
Colleagues, I would, you know, read books.
I would find ways to figure it out.
And, and, and most of my career I practiced solo, which I realized in
talking to Mark Rashid, he made a comment about he grew up working with horses
without a lot of outside influence.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I, it dawned on me, I grew up as a veterinarian without a lot of
outside influence, so I could bring to the table whatever I wanted to.
And so I was kind of, you know, I grew up with the Dr.
Doolittle books.
I wanted to talk to the animals.
I wanted to, you know, be able to see what they needed.
And one time when I was working with Linda, she said,
you are not like normal vets.
I had no yardstick to measure that by.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I didn't know what she was talking about.
And it wasn't until my practice here grew and I hired other
veterinarians that I started understanding that I was different.
And I saw things different.
And I rely a lot on clinical experience and a lot less on evidence-based medicine.
And and so that's kind of what led me down that track and, at one point I got really
ill, and acupuncture had always fascinated me from the time I was in vet school and
it was just coming to the United States.
And so acupuncture basically saved my life.
And then I needed to know why it worked, 'cause of the way my brain works and
be able to offer it to my patients to,
to not give them the drugs I wouldn't take.
And, and I've been fortunate to have a strong intuition.
I used to call it the God who looks after stupid veterinarians, but an inner voice
that would kind of often wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me, oh,
that cat has the plague, or whatever.
So that I, I had a very strong intuitive hit that if I did
Western medicine, I would die.
It wasn't a fear, it was a knowing.
So I, of course, I went to acupuncture and within one treatment I wasn't
well, but I was significantly improved.
And so that really took me to acupuncture.
And everything has just one thing has led to another.
To most recently the posture rehab, which is a lot what Te Touch does,
what does the acupuncture does?
It's kind of bringing it all together.
You
Rupert Isaacson: said you wanted to, you needed to find out why acupuncture works.
Why does acupuncture work?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And then there again, it's through the fascia.
There are meridians, energetic meridians, and they've been proven throughout the
body and the Chinese, just iit, I don't know how they came up with it, but it's
a technique that's over 2000 years old.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And and by putting a needle into those meridians at certain points, and they've
dissected those, and that's where their nerve bundles, there are a lot
of things that cross at those points.
They, they have an anatomical significance and so that can affect
the whole meridian and Reba, the body has a unique ability to live on this
planet, and so that helps rebalance the body in its own innate wisdom.
Rupert Isaacson: When you are presented with horses that are that have
stories behind them, have a past, do you have a kind of a, because in our field
that's mostly what we're dealing with.
Do you have a kind of a 1, 2, 3 that you, you more or less always start with
you, you kind of go in there going, I'm probably gonna first start here
and then I'm gonna first start there.
Or maybe there's like patterns of horses that you've come to
recognize over the years that, you know, it could be this type, oh,
this is a pattern one type horse.
I'll start like this, this is a pattern two type horse.
I'll start like this.
And you can sort of see that simply by a quick glance and you
kind of know, okay, I'm probably gonna start with this approach.
I'll revise that approach.
If, you know, that doesn't tend to be turn out to be the case, but let
me start here through, from your experience, you walk into the, you,
you, you walk into a barn, you look around you, what do you see normally?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
When I go in with a new horse, I usually stop and I observe
what's, where's the head at?
What's the posture?
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Are they comfortable?
Not, and I will connect you know, and I sometimes I even say, I see you.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, I think it's important that they know who I am.
As important as I see who they are.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And, and I, you know, where did you,
Rupert Isaacson: did you, did you come up with that yourself?
I see you?
Or did someone teach you that?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I think just through the training.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
You
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
know, working with the different people like Linda, you, I've picked that up.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But I, you know, I have horses of my own and definitely they
have been my hardest teachers.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And, and so I've learned to slow down the one mayor I have, I, I
can't say I liked her very much, and we didn't get along because she
came when I was running a three vet practice and was highly stressed.
And she's half Mustang, so she's like, I don't wanna be with you.
And so I, I practiced loving her in my meditations.
And I started noticing when I would go out to the corral that
she met me in a different way.
And I think that's probably the biggest influence was I mean, I used to have
to meditate for an hour to be able to go out into the corral to Wow.
Groom her.
I mean, I
Rupert Isaacson: that bad.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And and so, yeah, and, and it was very fun the last time I had her at
one of mark's in Chrissy's clinics.
Was Mark repeatedly saying all through the 10 day, that horse really likes you.
That horse wants to be with you.
She feels safe with you.
And he didn't know all that with her.
But
Rupert Isaacson: up until that point, you, you feel that really she'd
just been responding to your stress, the stress that you were under.
She was a
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
mirror.
Yeah, totally.
And she's a big part of where I'm at now, but it's been some really hard lessons.
But
Rupert Isaacson: okay.
Just, just back then to you, you go into a barn, you observe, you
slow down, you observe, but you look, you, the first thing that
came out of your mouth was posture.
So talk to us about that.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, how they stand or how they want to stand, tells you a lot
of how they feel is their head up their feet camped underneath them.
Some people call that goat on a rock.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
They should have at least three legs straight up and down.
And, and so you, you know, if you just stop a minute and take
time to just notice, you don't, you don't make a judgment.
You just say, this is where they're at today.
And then I you know, I usually start with the ulcers points and, and work.
I may not do a lot.
I just want them to meet me and to trust me and see that I'm gonna help.
Rupert Isaacson: What percentage of horses that you come to do you think have ulcers?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Probably at least half.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And where do you think those ulcers mostly come from?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Management.
I mean, certainly like I, not to stereotype, but the off the track
thoroughbreds that have been turned into hunter jumpers to me are the, the ones
that I get maybe 'cause at the rescue or, or you know, they get passed down,
they've just not been listened to.
They've not been heard, and no one has slowed down to take the
time to connect, gain their trust, and then teach them to move on.
And we have a few of those at the ranch and it's just, it's wonderful to see
them blossom where they, you know, when they've slowed down, address the
ulcers, address the body mechanics.
It, it's fun to watch those horses bleed.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you, do you feel that most of those ulcers
are coming from stress or just from the wrong foods or both?
Or what's the main It's a combination.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
I think a lot of it's stress just because our husbandry doesn't
often doesn't meet the horses'.
Native requirements.
And if they have an injury or something that adds, and then the food you
know, we can go down a whole rabbit hole of the contaminated food and the
Rupert Isaacson: go down that rabbit hole a little bit.
Tell us a little bit about con what you mean by contaminated food.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Well, my biggest, I think the number one issue is is glycosate in, in grains.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Interesting.
Glycosate Roundup.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Roundup, yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Agent Orange.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
So it's sprayed on grains you know, corn, wheat, soy right before harvest to
desiccate it so they get bigger yields.
Rupert Isaacson: I see.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And that's putting it right into the food supply.
I mean, this is true for dogs, cats, people, horses.
Yeah.
Horses are a little better, and I think I'm lucky in Colorado because
the ranchers up here tend not to spray things on their fields.
And we're kind of at the top of the world.
Our water runs down and our contaminants run down to everybody else, but we don't,
Rupert Isaacson: are they not, are the farmers up there not spraying because
they feel a sense of responsibility for the people in the water table below them?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I would say it's probably more not necessary.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Because it's dry.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It's dry.
Okay.
And a lot, you know, some of the hay fields are are native
okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Grasses.
But then when you go buy your package, feed your senior, your
not to name names, and I, I go to the feed store, I read labels.
I mean, when I'm bored and don't wanna come home and clean
house or something, I will
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Read dog food labels, horse food labels.
And, you know, I recently had an older horse with not much teeth, and I was just
mortified at the, on the shelf diets for horses because it will, it will say, you
know, grain byproducts or it doesn't even tell you what's in it and not Well that,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
How do you know it's, they're not gonna say glyphosate probably, are they?
So how do you spell No,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
no.
And, and it's, there's no certification that says that they're glyco free.
Fake free.
And if it's non GMO, that doesn't mean anything because they spray
the glycosate before harvest.
It doesn't matter if it's GMO or non GMO.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
So how do you know if you're buying, how can you discern between a glyphosate
food and a non glyphosate food?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
They stay away from grains.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Is you think they all have
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it.
So I, I assume they all have it
Rupert Isaacson: and unless
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it's organic.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Now it's easy to say stay away from grains.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, yeah.
No, but
Rupert Isaacson: it's not easy to do.
If you say, okay, well I'd like to buy organic grains, but they're
significantly more expensive.
What would be plan B?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Humic acid will remove will denature.
Glycosate
Rupert Isaacson: what?
Acid again?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Humic acid.
H-U-M-I-C.
Rupert Isaacson: Humic.
What is humic acid?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I don't, I'm not a chemist.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, okay.
I'm gonna,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it's fascinate that, but it's
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, how do you, how do you buy it where you, you buy?
So there's a product
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, you can spray it on fields and it will denature roundup where it's been sprayed.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So, I think it's relatively low cost and obtainable.
Rupert Isaacson: How does one obtain it?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You can get ion, which is a brand that makes that for humans.
You know, I put my dogs on it.
I assume we all have it unless tested otherwise.
And interesting.
A, b, C plus.
Advanced biological concepts makes a horse mineral supplement that has that in it.
Rupert Isaacson: So you would mix a small amount of this with
any grain standard grain feed?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
As a supplement.
Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm just gonna read out what AI has given
me because I just Oh, good.
I just typed humic acid into my phone.
It says, humic acid is a naturally occurring organic substance found
in soil peats, oceans, and fresh waters derived from the decomposition
of plant and animal matter.
It's a dark brown substance with large men, large molecular weight, mostly
insoluble in water at high pH values.
Humic acid plays a crucial role in soil health, nutrient
availability, and plant growth.
How, how is it known that it's, it neutralizes glyphosate?
I do see here that it says humic acids can collate, IE
bind to and take outta the body.
Nutrients, especially iron, making them accessible to plants.
Is it a collating agent or, yeah, I
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
would think so.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
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How did you find out about it?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Oh, that, that was another rabbit hole.
Okay.
I do ozone therapy.
Huh
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I mean, I've known about it, but I went to the Ozone conference and there
was a two hour presentation on Glycosate.
Okay.
And that's where I really became convinced of the seriousness of it.
And the, and it gave me hope that there is a way if people will stop using
Roundup to get it out of our soil again.
And, and I think regenerative farming is doing that.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So interesting.
Would it also be there in alfalfa
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
if they spray it?
But probably not.
Because if they sprayed Roundup on alfalfa, it would
Rupert Isaacson: kill the alfalfa, not,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it would kill the alfalfa 'cause.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: So if someone's feeding up alpha pellets, for example.
So I think, I think the hay
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
is cleaner.
Rupert Isaacson: Uhhuh.
I
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
did see a study done on dog food where they measured the amount of
glycosate in it and it ranged from like 50 parts per million to over 800.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And there again, it was how much grains were in the food.
Okay.
Kind of told how bad it was.
Rupert Isaacson: And for those listeners who aren't familiar
with glyphosate and it's not great thing just type it into Google.
But, bayer, the German pharmaceutical company who recently, or in the last,
not so recently in the last 10 years, bought a roundup from, as a product
from, I forget which American company was staring down the barrel of a
gun with potential, you know, mass class action lawsuits about people
dying left and right from glyphosate.
Well, buyer are now staring down that very same barrel and I think have
just had to do a very big settlement.
I think, I think, I think I might even look it up now.
So don't underestimate glyphosate and the need to deal with it.
What, so do you think back to horses with ulcers, do you think the ulcers
are causing the, the, the, the glyphosates causing the, causing
the ulcers, or is the glyphosate causing other, other problems too?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I always think it certainly is causing other problems.
It's hard to think that it's not affecting the ulcers because it affects
the gut biome and the gut bacteria.
So especially we see a lot of hind gut ulcers in horses.
So it, it certainly isn't going to help the situation in Right.
I'm
Rupert Isaacson: just looking here, by the way buyer, it's a 611
million judgment against Roundup.
Make our buyer.
Upheld by the Missouri Appeals Court a day one day ago.
And of course what that does is it opens up the, it opens up the company
to lots and lots of other lawsuits too.
But this has been brewing for, for decades.
By the way, Bayer also brought us, you do you know, the other wonderful product?
Bayer brought us in the early 20th century.
You might know if you, it's just a, a fun little trivia fact,
right?
Rupert Isaacson: Heroin, they invented heroin.
Oh.
Rupert Isaacson: And they, I didn't know heroine as opposed to held in,
which is Yeah, it's German company held in, would be a heroine as we
think of a female hero, you know, in German they call it heroine because
it was supposed to be a non-addictive form of laden, you know, opiate.
So it's basically the fentanyl of its day.
And well, the rest is history, isn't it?
So well done.
Bio.
So yeah, we are not on team glyphosate.
Yeah.
But it's good that you draw our attention to this because I think
you know, we don't wanna shame people from running bonds on a budget.
And what one has to do is give people, you know, a more accessible roadmap to
how to find the better products, you know, so, or mitigate the less good products.
So the fact, for example, that you talked about the humic acid.
Supplement if someone has, is buying cheaper grains.
This is really useful for people, I think.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
And I think the hay pellets are kind of a great thing that have come out because
a lot of horses don't need the grains.
You can feed the hay pellets.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
They're gonna be a lot lower in glycosate and the horse.
It's more natural to what the horse has evolved to eat.
So I, I think the grain products have been way over pushed.
That most horses really don't need that.
Right.
Maybe the
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
higher performance.
I get that.
But I think they're, I think there's just better ways Mm.
To help them.
And if you maintain their weight,
Rupert Isaacson: it's alfalfa, pate's better choice than most grains.
If only for the fact that they're not gonna have the glyphosate contact
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
that and they're gonna be produced less a higher pH in the gut where it
needs to be, you know, balancing that because the grains, you know, affect
the gut biome as well and causing acid.
'cause they're acid type effect.
Huh?
Rupert Isaacson: Because they're more acidic.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
The way they, they encourage different bacteria in the, in the hind gut.
There's not supposed to be grains in the hind gut.
And so it, you know, it's just the way horses have evolved was not to eat grains.
And so we do, because we ask a lot performance wise, but a lot of
horses are not being asked to perform hard, but yet are fed those brains.
Right.
So it's kind of, being more aware of, of what they really need.
And
Rupert Isaacson: I'm, I think I'm gonna go, go, go to what Do
horses really, really need it?
I'm actually gonna ask you that question in a minute.
But talk to us a little bit about the hind gut.
What is the hind gut and why do we need, so
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
the hind gut is the horses have a very large, large intestine where it
ferments food like a cow has a rumen.
So it's the large intestine in the cecum.
Okay.
So it's part
Rupert Isaacson: of the large intestine.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes.
It's, it, the cecum is in there.
So it's all the large in, what's the seum,
Rupert Isaacson: tell us about the seum.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
The cecum is kind of a dead end pouch.
It's quite large.
It would be this equivalent of our app appendix.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Only it's huge in a horse.
And that's where the grasses and stuff get fermented.
Okay.
And that's what its intent is.
Okay.
So if you feed a high grain diet.
Okay.
Then it gets there in the hind gut and that tends to change the pH.
It's, it was not intended to ferment grains.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
And does that then cause inflammation?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes, for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And then, you know, that causes a cascade of mm-hmm.
Of things.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Very interesting.
These are really nice, clear answers for people.
And also I, you know, I love the fact that you're giving alternatives
and alternatives that are easy to find, not obscure supplements that,
you know, might cost a million bucks and you can't get at a feed store.
Okay.
So we want to look after the horse's hind gut.
We don't wanna ferment grains in there, if possible, because we don't
want to affect the pH balance there.
And we don't wanna cause inflammation, which as you say, can lead to what
we know inflammation can lead to.
Where you talked about the horse's basic requirements, the horse's basic needs.
What are a horse's basic requirements?
We might think it's patently obvious, but even if it is patently
obvious, tell us what they are.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Well, they're, they're herbivores, so they eat grasses alfalfa.
They can have it's higher protein.
If they need that they need salt and it's better to have, you know, natural salt
than that white iodine, salt, and minerals free, free choice is the ideal world.
But that's not always easy to do in management.
But they don't require a whole lot more in the wild, the herbivores.
They would eat the herbs that they need.
And I find that fun in treating horses.
Because of my Chinese medicine background, I use a lot of herbs
and that's getting more popular.
But I used, I love to watch them graze
and
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
see what plants they eat today
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And what plants they eat two weeks from today.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It, it, it, it just fascinates me because they have that
ability to know what they need.
Rupert Isaacson: It's we're doing this podcast in early June of 2025.
So you're up there in the mountain pastures.
What, what are the herbs that they're currently eating?
What were they eating two weeks ago and what are they eating now?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I haven't done this for a while, but I I, I find dandelion is one of 'em
that they will eat and this is liver.
We're just coming out of liver time of year.
Hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So, you know, if you go the circadian calendar you know,
you could pick herbs from that.
I don't always know what plants they're eating.
I just noticed that,
Rupert Isaacson: but tell us what you've noticed.
Yeah,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
so I would, I walk my gilding 'cause we don't have a lot of pastures.
So I'd walk in down the borough ditches and he would eat all the alfalfa plants
'cause we don't have that on our property.
And then a couple weeks later, he was kind of looking like maybe
he would colic or he was off.
Mm-hmm.
So I thought, well, something green would be good for his gut.
So I took him walking.
He would not touch the alfalfa plants.
He was going for the grasses.
He would only eat dandelions some of the time.
Not, not every, all the time.
Sometimes he would leave them.
I've, I've watched him in the mountains eat things that I don't think are edible.
Okay.
And, and they're fat on them.
You know, so it's, I I wish I was a better botanist that I could to
pick out those different plants.
Rupert Isaacson: It's very interesting.
My we had a superb vet growing up in Leicestershire, which
is similar to Virginia.
In the USA, it's fox hunting, jumping.
Sporty horsey area, but for, you know, the last three, 400 years or more and large
animal agriculture area, you know, beef, cattle, that sort of thing, and sheep.
And so we, a lot of the vets in the old days, there were horsemen and
our vet always used to say, yeah, you always want to call in Dr.
Green.
Don't call me, call Dr.
Green.
And what he meant was, turn your horses out on the most natural pastures
that you can, pastures that have not been treated pastures that have
not been fertilized pastures, that have not been planted with ryegrass.
And a lot of the stuff, which, particularly at the end of the
winter when they need their immune systems built up again.
And he says, Dr.
Green will take care of most of the stuff.
If Dr.
Green doesn't cure it, then call me.
And he was so right.
The, but not everyone has access to that kind of pasture.
Not every horse, of course, thrives on the type of rich limestone
pastures that, you know, are thoroughbreds and hunters thrived on.
That can be too much for some horses.
And as you know, a lot of pasture is non-native planted monoculture.
So knowing that.
What are the herbs?
If, if your pasture isn't herb herbaceous and the horses can't
just go find what they need what do,
if you were going to suggest to someone who is running a barn particularly with
senior horses that you know, as a lot of therapy bonds are, that need a bit
more support, what would be the sort of go-to hubs that you must, you might
say, Hey look, just be aware that you might wanna have these, these, these,
these and these kind of in your armory that you might go and buy in your
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
bulk.
I, I saw something recently that I thought was very clever, was a raised bed
where they raised, they grew some herbs.
Mm-hmm.
And they had a, a wire over it and the horses had limited access to it every day.
But they could pick which ones they wanted.
And, and that to me, I think I've
Rupert Isaacson: seen this.
Yeah, it's clever.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Is, is a short a short version.
I use a lot of slippery elm or marshmallow root licorice for ulcers.
They heal mucus membranes.
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
So,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
the, you know, going back to the ulcers, a lot of, there's a lot of
ulcer guard and I, I don't remember all the names, but the drugs don't.
They stop stomach acid, but horses produce acid all the time.
Unlike people because they're grazers, they their stomach just so if you,
Rupert Isaacson: so they need it.
Stop the acid production.
Right.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You get, you get a rebound effect.
So you get more acid production.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So the, the, it's great if you have a horse that's colicking due to
ulcers, but you need to do something to heal the mucus membranes.
And so those are the some common herbs I use.
You know, there's dandelion milk thistle to kind of help the liver because it's
stressed getting all those grains.
Rupert Isaacson: And are you buying those as dried herbs that
you're just putting a pinch?
You can, there's,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
there's some really good herbal companies that have come out in, at least I've been,
become aware of in the last few years.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
That, you know, you don't have to be an herbalist.
You can there's, there's just some good companies making those and you really need
to tailor it to what your horse needs.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, I can't give a blanket statement because they all come
from different constitutions.
Different,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, sure.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Even if they're in the same barn, they just are not, but being aware of
Rupert Isaacson: herbs and herbal supplements is a good place to start.
We can agree with that.
Yeah.
I membrane.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
And, and you know, balancing the, the gut biome, the, with
probiotics if they need it.
Be aware if you put 'em on antibiotics, you're gonna mess that up.
So what are you gonna do to fix it?
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, or, or things that we need to start being more aware of.
I, I find I don't use many drugs anymore in my practice.
Rupert Isaacson: What, so you're, you're using a combination
of things like acupuncture, acupressure, the use of the herbs.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered that is a, a bit of a
go-to that you use in your practice?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, my, my number one go-to is a low level laser.
And it's what?
Laser?
A low level laser.
Rupert Isaacson: A low level laser.
Now tell us what that is.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So there's kind of, lasers is a big term that incorporates LEDs and true lasers.
And then there's cold lasers, which don't heat like a surgical laser.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But those of us with this type call it low level because it does not heat the tissue.
It works at wavelengths of light that cells function at.
And and then I can, it's, the one I have is made by UIA and it's a class two
Rupert Isaacson: by who.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Aia, E-R-C-H-O-N-I-A,
Rupert Isaacson: aia.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I think Christy calls 'em my magic wands, but they,
Rupert Isaacson: that's Chrissy McDonald listeners who you that we
have a great po couple of podcasts with her and Mark Rashid, who you
need to know about their work as well.
Okay.
Just that an aside for sure.
Okay, so tell us again, low level lasers made by ocon.
They're your magic wands.
Why?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So they're, they're class two, which means class tubes, the classification of lasers.
Class fives are surgical lasers.
Okay.
A
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
lot of veterinarians have class fours, which are FDA clearance by the same
way under the co cover of a heat lamp.
Okay.
That
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
they heat the tissue, so they help with pain in inflammation with
the class twos, the light, you can program different frequencies.
So different frequencies can resonate with different kinds of cells.
Like a tuning fork would resonate with notes.
Right.
And so I use combination of frequencies and
Rupert Isaacson: how do you know which frequencies to, to use?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
A lot of them are based on rife frequencies.
Rupert Isaacson: On what?
Frequency?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So everything.
Huh?
Rupert Isaacson: On what frequencies?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Rife.
RIF.
Rupert Isaacson: What's a ri?
What's a rife frequency?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So there was a.
Rife machine that years ago Dr.
Rife started and he, he accumulated frequencies that of different things
like a nerve cell homeopathics everything vibrates at a frequency.
Mm-hmm.
And so those are just known frequencies for, you know, bacteria, whatever.
And do
Rupert Isaacson: you know what off the top of your head, what
some of those frequencies are?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Nine is nerves.
Rupert Isaacson: One more time.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Nine
Rupert Isaacson: is nerves.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
I think
42 is inflamma is swelling.
Edema.
I used to know 'em, but the newer mega have a memory.
These
Rupert Isaacson: mega, when you say nine, what are these?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Number nine,
Rupert Isaacson: but nine.
So the light
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
blinks at nine.
Nine milli.
Nine hertz.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So these are very, very slow vibrations, sort of.
They can
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
be, or, or the sympathetic for people is 213.
So with this laser I do they al
Rupert Isaacson: always add up to 3, 6 0 9?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
No, no.
I just, my memory does.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Only because, are you familiar with something called the Sulf Scale?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes,
Rupert Isaacson: a little bit.
For those listeners who are not it was banned or parts of it were banned
by the Catholic Church in the 16th century, but a lot of Gregorian Plain
song, a lot of early Christian music is actually in the Sulf Regi scale.
And there are certain frequencies that, that, that it's a scale of
notes that they're usually at higher frequencies of, and they almost
always add up to three, six, or nine.
In fact, I think they, they do, if they're on the Sulf Regi scale and different ones
seem to affect us emotionally in these different ways, and that, so much so that
the Catholic church got annoyed and said, these are connecting people with God.
We can't have that, so we're gonna ban some of this.
So
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
yeah, I do use those in my laser as well.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So the interesting, and, and as you
Rupert Isaacson: know, Nicola Tesla, by the way, was also the one who
famously said, if you want to know how the universe works, think in terms
of, you know, frequency and vibration, energy, frequency and vibration.
So, but I, I'm just interested that, that's why I asked if
you knew what some of them are.
And it, it does seem in fact that, yeah.
Okay, so, so.
I'm trying to marshal my scattered thoughts here.
A conia is, is the product line.
Who turned you on to those?
Why?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So this was part of the rabbit hole.
So I learned veterinary, veterinary, orthopedic manipulation.
And he mentioned in, in one of the classes, this laser, which I had used
back in 82, 83, we had lasered horses.
We were doing racetrack work and horses.
That boat attendant, if we lasered them, they could race the same season.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so I, that's impressive.
And you know, I moved on and busyness of life, I forgot about lasers and
tell my own horse, this is where our hardest lessons come from.
He was injured.
It wasn't a bad injury, but it would not heal.
And I took him to the university and mostly 'cause there comes a
point where you need, you need somebody else to be your vet.
So I took him there and they could find, you know, everything else checked out.
So I asked him to lay him down and debride his leg to clean it up for me
because he was, he came to me traumatized.
We hadn't really got through things when he had this injury.
So I wanted it done by somebody else.
And four days later, it was worse than when I took him.
So I brought him, he was home.
I doctored him myself and then it went south.
He was boarded and it, they called me and he was now three-legged.
He had this huge open wound on his right o blow and over his hawk.
And and so I took him to my clinic then and put him in a
stall and he was losing weight.
He was three-legged, not weightbearing.
So I took him to what I consider the best private clinic in Colorado.
They laid him down again, debrided it, put him in a cast to a stifle for a month.
I left him there because I live over two mountain passes and it was January and
when they took it off, they graciously offered skin grafts 'cause that's how
much it wasn't healed, which we did.
'Cause at this point it was, you know, just what's more money.
And a long story short, I did everything the best vets in the state could do for
seven months and could not heal his leg.
And I had a three to four inch diameter chronic wound, lots of scar tissue.
When I finally listened to my gut, which kept telling me that
a laser would help him, and took.
Took the first class with her coia on the laser for animals and bought it.
And I kid you not in two weeks his leg was healed and normal.
I mean, there was insignificant scab.
The scar tissue went away.
He was sound.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you recommend that barn owners should buy some stuff from the
ACON range and have it just in their barn?
I, I, I,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
they have to, I mean,
I use mine for all my animals and the, you know, the price tag is a
little steep, but so is healthcare and so is veterinary care, no
Rupert Isaacson: doubt.
Is there a model that you recommend?
Is this like the sort of standard that everyone should kind of probably have?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, they're their introductory level.
It, the, the least expensive.
It's about 10 grand.
Mm-hmm.
And it's just the red, and that's what I had to begin with.
That's what healed my horse.
It, it's a, it's a, it's a very good laser.
They then have one that is red and violet and the violet
is antibacterial, antifungal.
The red is somewhat so, but the violet a lot more.
And it can do other things with the nerves and.
You can use it as a preventative, like shine it in your
sinuses and throat and stuff.
Thymus to try not to catch the leading virus that's going around.
Then they came out recently with a violet and green.
So you get the antibacterial, the green is, seems to work better
with nerves and chronic pain.
So when I do it, I, I use them in combination so I can stimulate the
brainstem, the spinal cord, and the area of interest and your vision.
So I've kind of evolved these things at those
Rupert Isaacson: areas.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, they're, yeah, it's, and it's, it's lines of light.
Mm-hmm.
Which
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
my horse had explained to one of the many therapists I incorporated
to help find out how to heal him.
And and that's unique and patented with zirconia so I don't have to be right
on the horse because it is a true laser and I can cover a pretty big area.
When I first got it and when I had my clinic, kind of, my, I hate to say
it, my bread and butter was paralyzed dogs and between the acupuncture and
the laser and sometimes the dog would be so painful, all I could do is
laser him 'cause I couldn't touch him.
And they would walk within two or three days.
So it's okay.
It's really good for nerve problems I've found.
But I think that being able to reconnect the brain to the rest of the
body helps the body integrate that.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you recommend just lasering your horses on a week to week
basis, just to kind of as a, as you say, as a preventative, or do you do it in the,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
in the human world, they're using it for performance enhancement,
so definitely, and I'm, I'm hope to get a study going soon using it
for metabolic disease in horses.
Okay.
So
Rupert Isaacson: as a horse owner yourself, how often do you, you
know, with no crisis going on, how often do you lazy your horses?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I try to do body work on them if I haven't, if I'm gonna go ride.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I don't ride as often as I should, but you know, in my ideal world,
I would do it at least every week.
And I have this How long would you do it for?
What's that?
Rupert Isaacson: How long would you do it for?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It takes about 10, 15 minutes.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Not so, it's
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
not, it's not a big thing, but like, certainly.
As I was telling somebody the other day, when you have an injury,
you need the laser and you know, need to know how to use it now.
Okay.
So, so
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it's not something you're gonna buy unless you're like me and
you struggle for seven months.
Right.
When
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I could have paid for the laser upfront with not having that, all those vet bill.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
Okay, so tell me, and I, I've done
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
in course, in course of uveitis
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
The laser's safe enough to do eye problems.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Okay.
Wound management, you know, tendons back.
I What about, about skin
Rupert Isaacson: stuff, skin problems, what is the itch?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
And the violet is really good for that.
Rupert Isaacson: Just writing that down.
I've got a couple of horses that itch.
Yeah.
And you would do that just all over the epidermis area?
You just like, or you just go to the areas that they tend to itch.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So some of the studies show that in the blood are free floating mitochondria.
Mm-hmm.
And
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
the,
the lights, the three different colors stimulate the cytochrome
oxidase steps in the mitochondria to produce a TP or energy.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And they, they affect different steps.
And by doing that then they.
The mitochondria can do, provide the cell with more energy to do whatever the cell
needs to do, heal, function, whatever.
So there are free floating mitochondria in the blood.
So if you laser the blood, the cells will pick up those mitochondria that need them.
And so you can laser the right hind leg for an injury on the
left front and make a difference.
Say, granted, you're gonna have a better, I wanna say
Rupert Isaacson: itching its tail or itching its main or itching its face.
Are you, are you zapping that, that area or are you zapping any area for
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
that reason?
Well, I'll, I'll zap the most important areas.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Realizing I'm gonna help the minor areas as well, but I don't have to feel
like I have to laser the entire horse.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
That's also, I think
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
that it works by, the frequencies are like a light vibration.
Mm-hmm.
And that gets into the water or the horse's 80% water.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And it's transmitted like a sonar in a submarine in the ocean.
Okay.
And so there's, there's different ways that it can affect the cells
and do that kind of healing.
You can also also use laser, do lasers on
yourself.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes.
And I do, there's one technique you know, lasering your brain.
I've had five traumatic brain injuries.
I've invested a lot of money into my brain.
So I, two or three days a week I try to do every day.
But that doesn't happen.
I laser my brain.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And whatever things might have other things that need to go with it.
You can laser thyroid, you can laser heart.
Rupert Isaacson: So you use the same devices on yourself
that you use on the horse.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I do.
And in two years everyone in my family had an orthopedic surgery
and it got used on everybody.
My leg.
I fractured my tibia and I lasered a week before surgery.
And the surgeon went, the surgery went so well.
Instead of being in a cast, I could be in a boot and start using it right away.
And I kept lasering.
And laser can cut healing time in half.
So using the Linda Tillington Jones principle, I told myself every time
they told me six to eight weeks, I went, oh, you mean three weeks?
And at three weeks I got them to X-ray and they could not see
where I'd ever broke my leg.
Rupert Isaacson: That's so interesting.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so, you know, in a dog or a horse, if you can cut their healing time in half
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Before they can do more damage by being locked up or mm-hmm.
You can get 'em back into work sooner.
They haven't lost so much.
Mm-hmm.
There's
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
just so many other things with that.
And I, I've even, you know, used it for cellular memory of trauma.
I've been able to help horses that have trauma release that, and,
and I've had the misfortune of trying it out on myself for that when I had
one of my dogs killed by a horse and being the vet, I was the one trying
to save his life as I was freaking out that I couldn't save his life.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And and I was having a tough time there again in the dojo with Mark
and Chrissy Rashed, and something triggered me and I left, and Chrissy
said, have you done that on yourself?
And I, you know, had never thought of it.
And I did.
And it was so interesting that what I was experienced was trauma, not just grief.
And by taking out the trauma, then I could handle the grief.
Hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It was, it, it just, I, I never equated those as two different things, but,
so, you know, working in a rescue, I almost always start there with a horse
because I don't have to know what trauma they had to help them get rid of it.
And it's, yeah, it's, I, I can't really explain the mechanics or the science base.
Mm-hmm.
I'm just not.
Rupert Isaacson: But you're still working with the laser horse at this point,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
huh?
Rupert Isaacson: You're still working with the laser at this point?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, I use it, yeah.
Yeah.
And
Rupert Isaacson: can I ask you about another device you know the
Beemer blankets, B-E-M-E-R Uhhuh
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: By the Swiss company.
What's your take on those?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, I really, I have it.
Linda introduced me to that.
I, I really like it personally for, I use it for my horses because mm-hmm.
The two times when I wouldn't be without it is colic.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I've, I've seen it.
I've even seen my horse like grab for it off the fence when she was colicking and
then while she had the Beamer on, I did T touch and within 10 minutes she was fine.
Okay.
I also found that when I sedate a horse, if I beamer them, they
go deeper and I need less drugs.
And at which, you know, because it opens up the microcirculation.
The drug gets where it needs to be faster mm-hmm.
And more effectively.
And it puts 'em in a sympathetic state, which adrenaline is
like an antidote for drugs.
Yeah.
So I don't have to keep giving more and the, it's worth it.
But in my world, that's a, that's a homework issue.
I don't have, I often don't beamer the horses I'm working
on because I don't have the time
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
To do it.
And I don't need to do it.
The ranch where I work, they have two beamers.
If I'm running late, they'll throw a beamer on the, on my patient,
or if there's volunteers around, they'll throw one on after I'm done.
But
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
I'm, I have a couple and I'm a, I'm a great believer and Jet Linda
Pennington Jones turned me onto them.
And she said, Rupert, this will take away your jet lag.
See?
Know I'm often on planes and Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And it sort of did and I was like, oh.
And then we noticed the effect on our horses.
When you are back to what you said you, when you're riding, you will
laser your horse before or after?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Usually I do before.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
So I'm also thinking about therapy programs where the horses are
serving client after client.
You know, we have some centers that do what we do in Ireland
particularly, that have really heavy client loads that are funded.
Now at a state level or at least by charities that are
receiving state funding.
So they have to meet certain quotas.
And so we're always looking for ways to make it better and easier for the horses.
We do tons of lunging, we do tons of long reigning, we do tons of
in hand work for brain and body.
Yes.
But your thing about the laser is interesting to me because I could see
that being really useful if a horse is going to do several sessions in a day.
And when they have having the downtime in between luckily they all get
completely turned out on pasture at night no matter what the time of year.
So they're not confined to stall.
They, they go into stores in the day simply because you can't always go
to the field, catch a horse and clean it in the rain and the mud, you know?
But they're getting outta those stores all the time.
So they're really just in there to chill in between, eat hay and them,
boom, they're out in herd otherwise.
But I like the idea that you said of lasering them beforehand.
We would also want to beamer them, but as you say, the beaming sometimes takes
a bit of time, and in the course of a busy day, it's easy for that to get lost.
And we have to give.
The professionals tools they can actually use that aren't gonna just
stress them more because they haven't got time to use them, and now they feel
guilty because, you know what I mean?
It's, it's, that's, that's not, that's not helpful.
So I'm gonna turn them onto the aia range.
I'm really grateful that you've and I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna
give it a try with my horses too.
Horses.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Sure.
I can give you the contact.
Rupert Isaacson: That would be great.
That would be really great.
And maybe we'll share that with listeners too.
Okay.
Now you talked earlier about the basic requirements of a horse and you brought
it down to grass of salt minerals, but we know it's more than that too.
We know it's how they live.
If you had your perfect world,
how would every horse live?
And given that not everyone has the state of Montana or Colorado as their backyard,
right.
Rupert Isaacson: And then it would be quite useful to look at, okay, well if you
haven't got that, what are the strategies that we can do that would approximate
towards that in less ideal situations?
So what's the, what's the, the ideal?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
One thing I, I see a lot of is, I think horses, they're herd animals.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
That it's important if they can have contact and be with
another, and that, you know, gets.
Safety, the more expensive they are, can they be there?
But you know, I think for their wellbeing, yeah.
Probably one of the primary things is to be, have companionship
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Where they can actually physically touch.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yes, yes.
That's, now this can
Rupert Isaacson: be tricky if you've got stallions.
Obviously
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
some people have worked that out even with stallions.
Yeah.
I mean, so, it's changing the paradigm from early on.
I think it's, it's possible.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, and I think,
Rupert Isaacson: but, but most people do not have stallions, so.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And we can't, we don't live in a perfect world.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But you can, you know, exercise is really important.
Hmm.
That they get the miles one way or the other.
And like you said, I, I worked on a racetrack for a while and was just amazed
at how little exercise those horses got
Hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Compared to me as a youngster riding eight or nine hours a day.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Growing up hunting, I mean, a hunting day was
we back in those days, this is the eighties, early eighties, you'd
ride to the meet if it was within an hour of your, of where you lived.
if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast, I'm guessing you are, then
you've probably also always wondered a little bit about the old master system.
of dressage training.
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
well being of the horse and the rider.
Intrigued?
Like to know more?
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
Check out the free introduction course.
Take it from there.
So you've got that, and you'd ride at a steady walk or trot.
You arrive at the meet.
Stand around for 20 minutes, and then you're hunting for six hours,
which is not all hard action.
You know, there's stand roundy bits as well, but you're basically
on the move fast or slow.
And then you would ride home and sometimes the hunt would end like two or three hours
from home and we'd ride home, you know?
And even in the dark along the roads, because back then in the roads in England,
people kind of expected to meet livestock.
You couldn't do it anymore, you know, that you just get killed.
But back then it was, there were less cars and the rural traffic, you know,
was more horse friendly even at night.
And so you'd put all that together, I mean, at night, meaning it also gets
dark at like four o'clock in December, you know, so it's not exactly late.
And you've got like an eight hour day of movement, just
movement, movement, movement.
Not all hard demanding movement, but just movement.
And of course also exploration and being in a herd with all their
friends, you know, because hunting is usually done with group and so on.
So whatever you think about whether one should go fox hunting or not.
And I actually don't live hunt anymore and go out with the bloodhounds, which
we hunt actually one of our friends.
But we still have a lot of fun doing it.
You know, I've, I've never encountered such happy horses as horses that
regularly go hunting because they.
They, a lot of their needs are met just through the course of that
provided that fit, you know, and well, but as you say, that's just not how
most horses are moved these days.
And a lot of my clients, I have a, you know, another hat that I wear
as a dressage teacher and, you know, the vast majority of my clients, they
have a job, you know, so the horse is boarded and they get to that horse if
they're lucky, you know, an hour a day.
They might have other people that share that horse or sublease that
horse and can move it more in the day.
But basically that horse is standing around most of the time.
And a lot of the issues that I see in people as well as horses, I
think come down to chronic boredom.
And it's almost like we've become so inured to boredom and sedentary lives,
and now we lead sedentary lives.
So we go out to our horse as a sedentary person.
We now can't necessarily accept a whole big bunch of energy, like a big puppy
jumping up and down that's pleased to see us, but yet that horse has been standing
there, and now we are suddenly the party, you know, and the chance to move.
We, that's what we represent.
And then boom, that doesn't go so well because the monkey's not ready for it.
And the monkey's also too sedentary and perhaps not fit enough,
and it's a downward spiral.
So I like that you brought up movement.
What are some strategies that people could look at to make sure
their horses get enough movement?
For their bodies and for their brains.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Well, yeah.
You said brains.
So brains use a lot of glucose so you can get exhausted by using your brain.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so, you know, adding enrichment, I really like the surefoot pads
because they, what are those?
Our novel Wendy Murdoch came up with the Surefoot pads.
They affect the proprioception.
They just work on so many levels, and I often use them before treatment, but I
will also know that I need to work with my horse, but I don't have the energy.
So I'll go out with the surefoot pads and I always see it as a game that
the horse gets to make the rules.
So I don't go there with a structure.
And
Rupert Isaacson: the horse stands on them, right?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
They stand on 'em.
And you can, that's not a
Rupert Isaacson: lot of movement, right?
I mean that's, or they, they do a lot of movement concentrating,
so that's using up energy,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
but they're using their fine motor muscles.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
So they're
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
can, they can get sore if you let 'em stay on 'em too long.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so it's, it's,
Rupert Isaacson: I'm looking them up here.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It's fine motor movement.
It, it, it's proprioception.
You can mix, you can stack 'em, you can put 'em on different legs.
You can do one leg at a time.
And you just walk 'em between times.
They get, if they wanna step off, if you let 'em step off and go for a walk, okay.
And then you do it or you can do you know, t touch the labyrinth or
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, ground walking, all those things enhance riding.
And gives the horse a novel, a new way of
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Being so Right and
Rupert Isaacson: novel, novel movement, as we know, promotes a
protein in the brain for listeners.
Yeah.
BDNF and, and derive neurotrophic factor, which is neuroplasticity.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So you can, you know, you can set up those things to work with your
horse to keep 'em engaged and, and help 'em focus, which will bring down
that energy that they don't always have to just expend as a blast of,
Rupert Isaacson: but sometimes horses do need a blast.
I mean, they're like kids.
They do.
And
Rupert Isaacson: this is one of my issues with the way things have gone in the last
10 years, particularly in certain aspects of the equine assisted world where there's
a real emphasis on everything being quiet down, regulated, and not fireworks.
But I do know horses and I know that they like fireworks.
I turned my, you know, horses out this morning 'cause they live in an
open area, but after I fed them in the morning, I let turn them out to pasture.
They're not installed, but they're open area with free hay and all that,
but they still want to go to pasture.
And when they go to pass, they play and they're quite explosive in their play.
Just like kids.
And one of the strategies we came up with when we, for a while had to
board horses here in Germany, but they weren't getting out that much.
We were like, oh shit, what are we gonna do?
'cause they, these guys need a lot.
We came up with the idea of crazy time.
And it was something we did with kids anyway, always in the work that we do,
not with horses, that before we work, say with autistic children or kids
with a DD or whatever, we are never gonna say, concentrate on this thing.
You know, when the kid just walks, it's like, no, come on.
That's not what a kid wants to do.
They, they, they wanna play.
They wanna see the all the play equipment.
They wanna go nuts for a bit or not, or just engage with it in
the way that they wanna engage.
But there's always a certain population that want to go nuts with it.
And then when they've done that for a while, the endorphins
kick in and they're like, then they're like, okay, I'm available.
You know, what should we do?
And I'm always astonished that this is not how people approach horses, you know?
That if the horse wants to buck and play and ride, like, no, no, calm down.
Calm down.
Like.
Why, if that's not, if the, if where the horse is at, well, we
know why, because it causes us fear.
We obviously don't wanna get bucked off.
We don't wanna get hurt.
So what we did was, for us and for our clients, there was a big
indoor arena because it's Germany.
So we said, okay, that's what we've got.
And it's also icy outside and it's dark, so let's use that and have crazy times.
So we began to build obstacle courses that were, you know, like you said,
the Tonys and Jones labyrinths.
But where you could go, the horses could run around, and the horses
that like to jump, we'd build jumps.
And what we do is we'd change it every two minutes.
So we'd get them in there, usually in a group, at least
in a pair, occasionally solo.
But as you say, they, they really appreciate it if they
can do it with their mates.
And then they'd sort of, it got to the point where they'd go in
there, see what we built, and they, they would need no encouragement.
They'd just could start running at it and jumping it and making up their own fun.
And it got really interesting to see you could build them
jumps where there'd be choices.
You could jump here, you could jump here, you could not jump there and just
go over a pole, but there's a yoga ball in the way or whatever, or whatever.
And it was interesting how often they would choose to challenge themselves.
They'd go for that biggest bit and we weren't even asking them to
do it, you know, they were just.
Joyfully Ecstatically Express.
And we weren't even particularly saying to them, you need to jump now.
We are saying, here's the thing, we'll encourage you a little
bit, we'll interact with you.
See what you wanna do.
And what we found was that we'd, we'd sort of hit a magic key where then the horse
would turn and look at you after a while.
There would always be these little pauses in, in between.
But let's say you did 20 minutes of that, and the horse would
kind of go to go, okay, I'm good.
And they'd sort of just come, or they'd go to a corner and stand and kind of
look at you and say, okay, what now?
And you'd say, okay, you ready?
And they'd be like, yeah, yeah, I'm ready.
And then you could ask them to then engage with that 65-year-old
person who's just come from her job as a, a lawyer or accountant.
You know, she'd be sat there all day.
There's no way in hell she could sit on a horse that is full of that kind
of bouncy fun, but it wouldn't matter because the horse had had a chance
to express that with their friends.
And now they're like, okay, I'm, I'm here.
So.
Do you have Strat?
Similar strategies like that.
And obviously we made sure the horses were fit, that their tendons were good.
We wouldn't do that with horses that were not like that.
But I don't hear people talking about this kind of thing so much.
I, I hear much more people talking about, no, no, let's calm it all down.
Let's calm it all down.
But what if that's not where the horses at?
You know?
And horses get so bored, you know?
And they love to go nuts.
They're playful animals.
So can do what, how do, how does that affect your, your practice and your work?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I'm not a trainer, so Yeah.
But I love that idea.
And in, in a way, that's what I do with my horses.
Yeah.
They
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
get turnout time most mornings, and they run and, and act crazy.
And sometimes when I go to get 'em in, they, they're not ready.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so then I just marvel it.
And I think sometimes they just like to show off for me.
Mm-hmm.
And I go,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
wow.
Yeah.
Look at what you can do.
You know?
And, and appreciate their energy.
And I think we don't give horses voice.
That's, that's a good
Rupert Isaacson: word.
Appreciate.
Sorry.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
We don't, we don't, we just don't recognize their, giving them options.
And that's what struck me.
You're giving them options.
Mm-hmm.
You're, you're saying, Hey, what would you like to do?
How would you like to do?
And, and I think that can take a lot of different ways.
Mm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But and, and I, I also have a, a habit, I think it would Carolyn Renick is
a a trainer and I, I learned that a big thing is to sit with my horses.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I have a mounting block in their corral, and I often just sit with
them and become part of the herd.
Hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I think that connection with other horses, but if they can't with
someone, is important to recognize.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
I mean, horses are domestic animals, and it's interesting, you know, people
talk about the wild horse, but none of the horses that we ride are wild
in any, have, have been wild for thousands and thousands of years.
They're being selectively bred to seek out human interaction, what
people would call trainability.
You didn't breed from the horses that didn't like that, because why would
you if you were on the steps that's, you know, entirely impractical.
So back to those ach, to people, you know, thousands of years ago,
beginning to breed the, the horses that we now use today I think it's
often forgotten that horses actually want interaction with the monkey now.
But they, as you say, they do want options.
And in the.
Tribal sense you would live with your horses.
Right?
You, you live in a yacht.
Yeah.
Horses are around you.
You're never not with them.
Okay.
I don't wanna make people feel bad if they have to board a horse, but I like
your idea of, again, how do you recreate that to some degree with something
as simple as, as you say, taking a mounting block and just sitting with them
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
and, and you know, to, to spare people from too much guilt.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I had a gilding the one that was injured.
We had a connection and I often beat myself up that I couldn't provide him,
you know, with acres to run and things.
Mm-hmm.
And when I would try to board him somewhere where he could, he was
more comfortable being where I was.
Right.
In a less than ideal situation.
Yes.
Than he was out on 40 acres.
Rupert Isaacson: This is so interesting that you bring that up.
Okay.
Please.
Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.
Go on.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But that, that was something, it was hard for me to accept.
And, and so that's you know, he, he taught me a lot of things because
of our connection and because Wow.
He was here in my backyard.
And, and sitting with him was, was just life-changing experiences.
Having that connection.
I used to take him because at one point I couldn't ride him anymore, so I
would take him hiking in the mountains and people would give me a bad time.
'cause I had a young dog on a leash and my horses at Liberty in the mountains.
Ah.
And you know, walking a dog is pretty cool, but having a horse in the mountains
where they could go anywhere Yeah.
But they prefer to walk down the trail with you is, is an amazing experience.
Rupert Isaacson: No doubt.
Yeah.
And if you think about, you know, the Arab perms about having the
horse in your tent with you.
Yeah.
You know, I've, I was been, I've been in Mongolia, I've seen horse
culture like that at firsthand.
That yeah, we are supposed to, if we are horse people, we're supposed to
live tribally not keep them necessarily like you would in a cavalry barracks,
which is where we inherit the current stabling systems that we have.
That said, of course, those cavalry horses, what's forgotten is that they
would go and campaign and not just when there was a war on, but they would
go on constant maneuvers, you know, of military exercises all the time.
And of course then they were picketed, they were standing in
picket lines out there grazed, you know, with all their friends.
So they actually weren't spending as much time in a stable stall as
we think they were, those days of the old cavalry schools, actually.
And if you think about to the old, old days of urban horses, if they were
out there pulling a cart at a steady pace around the city for the day,
then they're gonna be pretty happy to stand even in a small place and chill.
And just kind of in the same way that I don't care the size of my
bedroom, you know, when I'm tired, I just want to kind of chill.
I only care about the size of my bedroom if I don't get outta my bedroom very much.
So I agree with you.
I think a lot of this has been forgotten.
And in the course of my work, you know, I, I see a lot of horses kept different
ways and I used to have more hard and fast opinions about it, but I've realized
that those opinions mean nothing.
'cause I've met, as you said, horses that are really happy, living in less
ideal situations, and horses that are chronically bored and often a bit
sour, living in more ideal situations.
And what it seems to come down to is the, is the quality of the
human interaction that they have and the quality of the interaction
with each other that they have.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
The last two winters we bought a place close to my grandkids.
So we have 25 acres in a barn and we live in the barn.
Mm-hmm.
And
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
it has been such an experience where the horses.
Can come into the barn if they want to, or they can out and to live that closely.
I have pictures.
In fact, my mule did open up the apartment door and go in at one point.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And, and I course should, the storms are so horrific that they
have to come into stalls at night.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And so they're literally out my front door across the aisle
and living there with them.
It, it's, I I go out to the arena then come into the
arena from the pasture nothmm
and
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
do my meditation or some distance work or something, and the horses join in
with me and, and we, we do that together.
Or they just come in and have coffee with my husband at
the picnic table in the barn.
Or it's, I it's such a cool experience to just be in, living
in the same building with them.
Rupert Isaacson: I so agree.
I so agree.
You know, often when we're with the kids, you know, we're sitting at a
picnic table and the horses just come and join us, you know, and yeah, they
also wanna see what we're eating.
But it's not just about that.
They, they wanna hang.
And then practically, there can be times when this is really good.
Like a couple of times they've broken out, you know, at night
and, it's no hassle to go get 'em.
You know, they, they wanna just go graze over there a little bit.
No problem.
You say, are you good?
If you, if you had your film, they're like, yeah, okay, fine.
Let's, let's go back in.
Whereas in previous years, you know, if my horses got out, that
might involve a bit of a drama.
And
it's taken until quite recently for me to understand what it is to give
the horse a chance to say no and how good that is for mental health.
But how to actually balance that because we tend to, you know how it is, we tend
to view things a little bit in extremes of, well, if you let the horse say no,
then they're gonna say no to everything.
And I've realized that rather, like with crazy times, it's not true.
So for example, in the work we do with autism, once, if I've got your
autistic kid or your autistic grand kid up there with me in the saddle,
I can't afford to have the horse say no in any way at that time.
Mm-hmm.
So what I realized was I needed to give them times to say no.
In other times, 'cause as you know, horses have that innate sense of fairness.
And so if I go out to catch a horse and it's just me, there's no other, and
the horse just kind of turns his butt walks away, I'm like, okay, I hear you.
If I then go out the next day and it's not for me, it's for one of
the kids or something like that, and I say, Hey, today I need you.
Then it's really interesting.
They're like, okay, fine.
Between like the crazy time and that, and then I can say
to them like, dude, come on.
You know, I, I'm looking after this.
You have agency and if you really said no in this situation, okay, fine, I'll
respect that too, but please be a mench.
You know, please help me out here.
And it's so interesting how they rise to that occasion, but I was
never brought up with that, you know, as I'm sure you weren't.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, no, and that's, it's, it's, they are so intelligent that just letting them
know why you're there and what you need.
And there's been times when you know, I really need you to do this.
I know you don't want to, but we really need to do this today.
Can make all the difference in the world at how they work.
Rupert Isaacson: It's, I, it's so interesting.
What's it, Linda says I asked her, what's, if you were to say to somebody,
what is the most important thing
int touch or in anything, just what's the most important thing?
She said, gratitude.
Just say Thank you to your horse and see what difference that makes.
She said, and she just threw that out as a challenge on the podcast.
She said, everyone just try it.
Whether you believe in it or not, won't matter.
The horse will appreciate it.
Just like people appreciate it and it, and it can be silent.
Just say it to your horse silently, but why not say it out loud?
You know, we
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
all like to be appreciated.
Rupert Isaacson: We certainly do.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And they're, they're certainly no different.
I think, you know, the horses have signed up in the long term with us.
Mm.
And I think that if we give them the voice, I think they have a lot of wisdom
to help us know where we're going forward.
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly, exactly.
Well, they've been carrying us for millennia, haven't they?
Yeah.
And if you think about what we've asked them to do, we've, we've created,
we've committed a lot of atrocities on horseback, you know, for sure.
Conquest.
And,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
and yet they desert us.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
They, they've kind of hung with us.
And it's so interesting too.
Like we could be the conquistadors going to the Americas and the horse
becomes an instrument of conquest, and then those same Native Americans
take the horse and say, okay, fine.
You know, and the horse goes, yeah, yeah, I'm here available.
And, but what we found with the work we do with autism is that the horse would
actually much rather show up for healing.
But they're so generous that if you ask them not to, they'll
kind of do their best for you.
But I don't think that does them any good.
You as, as, as, as a veterinary practitioner when you're getting
horses that have come in with stories.
Okay, now they have, they've taken hits to the body and that they've
got ulcers and so on and so on.
Maybe this is where we should go as we sort of go towards the conclusion.
And by the way, I would like this to be just the first of a couple of
conversations that we have because there's other things I'd like to get into with you
that I'm sure listeners would much more on, on the physical health side as well.
Let's say somebody's running a barn where they are routinely bringing, bringing in
donated horses is sort of where we began.
And you said, I look at the posture.
I'm gonna look for the ulcers and see what I need to do there.
Okay,
I'm gonna maybe invest in these acon a lasers.
Now let's just move to the spine and let's move to the legs.
Let's say there's kissing spine.
Let's say there's tendon damage, splints, hawk, arthritis, stifle issues.
It's the standard stuff.
Can you kind of go through the horse and say, okay, barn owner, kind of here's my
recommendation about how to approach this.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, you know, that's where I think Tea Touch is good to learn.
Mm-hmm.
But it's, you know, it's so important that they have a good farrier
and the feet are trimmed right.
And the teeth are good.
All that affects the horse's balance and symmetry.
And, and if they don't have those two key things, we can't do a lot.
We can only go so far.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And it's interesting 'cause in my early training I was taught
to start at the feet and work up.
I now start at the spine and work down.
Because you've got to, the, the leg problems come from not using their body
appropriately and being out of balance.
And I find often those issues, if not too severe, can go away by getting
them to use their body appropriately.
And so that's kind of where I, I start is, is, you know, working on the fascia
and I, when I started kind of going down this big rabbit hole, have been amazed at
what we called confirmation is posture.
I worked with Dr.
Rachel Bini Hart.
We would sometimes meet up at the ranch, and our work was very synergistic.
She's a chiropractor, okay.
And and one day I, I mean, I saw an andalusian that had huge shoulders,
super high head and no hip.
And when we finished, she looked like a quarter horse.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I mean, I, I didn't, I thought that was her confirmation.
And I told Rachel, I said, I don't see these kind of changes
when I'm working by myself.
I, I truly respect you.
And she said, oh, me neither.
Okay.
So combining our modalities, and I like that both of what we do didn't
overcook the horse by combining them,
but
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
the horse was able to to be in its body in a better way.
And that, I think is the foundation of, I mean, if they're feeling better, the
ulcers will get better, the movement will get better, the legs will get better.
And that's where you have to train your eye.
And, and so I, I took this posture rehab 'cause I'm like, well,
that was posture we're doing.
And I, and I realized then with this deep dive, you know, how important.
It all is.
And that's the holistic approach to me is how are they housed?
Do they get to move?
Are their feet right?
Are their teeth right?
Are they moving in a relaxed manner with their head down, like
in, in t touch encourages that.
The surefoot pads encourage that.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Movement encourages it.
Husbandry is your barn, is your stall flat?
Is it been used for 20 years?
And there's holes so the horse cannot stand in a balanced way in that stall
or
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
loafing shed.
All those things start to come into play and, and you just have to go walk out
to your barn and see different eyes.
How are they standing?
And how can we help that?
And, and you know, and it's not a perfect world.
And then there's things we can do, you know, is a saddle
fit is do we need to shim it?
'cause there's asymmetry.
But if that symmetry gets better, so it's, you know, it's,
it's not a one and done thing.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Interesting.
So yeah, we have a whole nother thing to talk about.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, we do.
And I'd like to get into that.
You know, when we discovered classical in hand work.
Yeah, it
Rupert Isaacson: was just such a game changer.
You, you'd have horses coming in with kissing spine, you'd have horses coming in
with, you know, stifles that effectively weren't there anymore and stuff.
And just by going through these patterns, rather like a martial
arts pattern or a, you know, a yoga pattern sort of, you know, it would
completely, completely transform the horse, as you say, provided certain
other things have been taken care of.
And that absolute no hopers, you know, would come in and just completely
transform over time through this type of movement, which again, just comes down the
ages provided it's not done forcefully.
So it, it's so interesting how you've also pinpoint movement and as you say, all
the stuff that say Linda Ellington Jones teaches, which is often modified forms of
that and the labyrinth work and the way she wraps the horse's bodies and gets them
to activate certain parts of the nervous system as they're work, as they're moving.
And this sort of thing.
What I feel is often missing, but I'd like to, we'll go into this in the
next one is it can obviously be very stressful for people who are running
programs to think, oh shit, well when am I gonna do all this stuff?
'cause I haven't got time because, you know, I just got loads of clients coming
in and I must serve these clients.
And also this is what pays, you know.
My wage and the pay bill and so on.
So what we, we've evolved is a way of making sure that every
client session includes this very kind of movement weather mounted
or unmounted and always both.
And if it is gonna be a mounted session, it's always gonna include these unmounted
exercises as part of the therapy session so that there's no chance of kids ever
just being like, led around in circles.
But it took us a while to evolve to that, you know, and to say, okay,
well one can actually address that time conflict and that stress that
so many bar owners and that guilt of, God, I'm not conditioning my horses.
You know, because people are coming at it with good intentions.
And to learn how to do it at the same time.
So what I'm also intrigued by is, you know, and perhaps we should talk about
this too on the next one, is how to begin to teach not just barn owners,
but also their clients, how to do the very things that you are talking about
here, the acupressure, the posture stuff, how to use the lasers, you know, how
to recognize what is a good farrier, what is a good dentist, you know?
'cause people don't know, you know, and they only know if someone tells them.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
That's why I'm doing a class in July.
Okay, so how do we find out about your class?
So a three day
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
class, and it's, you know, I'm not, I'm gonna introduce those different things
because you don't have to do it all.
Some of it will resonate.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But you should be aware, and just like when my horse was
injured, I was aware of the laser.
Granted it took me seven months to listen to myself, but
mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You know, if, you know, these things are out there and, and not to bash colleagues,
but when you go into a vet or with a trainer, you need to know what is okay.
Mm.
'cause you'll be presented with things that may not be, and I don't know
many horses that are born that have a steroid deficiency in their joints.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm mm mm.
And
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
need constant, you know, and Oh,
Rupert Isaacson: so agree.
I so agree.
And,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
and the, you know, that goes down another rabbit hole, but injecting
the joint when it's because they're not using their shoulder.
Right, right.
Or, or, you know.
So, that's my purpose of the class is to tell us
Rupert Isaacson: about the class then.
Where is it?
When is it
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It's at Happy Dog Ranch in Sedalia, Colorado.
July 21st.
22nd.
23rd.
It's three day.
Okay.
The amazing thing with the ranch is they have rooms to rent.
So what I love is when there's clinics, there is the networking and the bonding.
So Happy Dog Ranch is a place that
Rupert Isaacson: people should be aware of.
No.
Like Chris.
What's
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
that?
Rupert Isaacson: Chrissy and mark Rashid work out of there.
Yeah.
Just tell us a little bit about Happy Dog Ranch.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
It's, they, they were pushed out of Littleton, but it's an old sport
horse barn, so it's a gorgeous indoor arena, gorgeous outdoor.
They, they are sanctuary when they take in a horse, they don't try to flip
it in and adopt it back out because they, part of their philosophy is these
horses have come there for a reason, and the ones we can rehab, they'll rent
out to people who come from Europe or East Coast that don't have a horse.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And for like Mark and Chrissy's class, or there's experiential learning.
So they, all the clinics they attract are things that help the horse and
human bond, I think is a, is a way.
You know, they're, I've all, like my, I've, I've been aware of Happy Dog
Rupert Isaacson: Ranch for a while and I I need to go check it out.
You know, everything like you
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
do.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I'll be glad to show you around.
But now they have 120 acres and the horses get to live out on
pasture most of the year in herds.
Mm-hmm.
And, but the, you know, the workshop, what I love is how, you know, a chiropractor
comes from Vermont and, i've met different work Linda telling Jones has been there.
You know, all these different modalities.
Mm-hmm.
I met them when I was learning cranial sacral therapy.
We were working on their horses.
So the horses get lots of body work Okay.
Through the massage class or cranial sacral.
Rupert Isaacson: So they're feeling pretty good.
Yes.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
So, you know, so they give back.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And, and I, I think a classic, I went there because I read
the dial qui and I knew that my gilding worked with me like that.
So I wanted to go horses.
I didn't know.
Okay.
Which took me to Sharon Brion in at Happy Dog, and my first lesson was
to move a horse in the round pin.
But being a veterinarian, I had to do, I had to do it from my heart and not
from my head, and I could not do it.
I got that horse to go maybe a quarter of a circle.
Okay.
And, and I, you know, I, I didn't take up their time because I could
see this was not gonna happen.
So fast forward 15 years later, I was in Linda's or Sharon's class because it
was there and we were supposed to go out in the rant, out in the gilding herd.
And she wasn't gonna let me in to do this exercise because she thought
they'd all come up and ask for help.
And this is where the horses know.
But I did get to go in and we had to connect with the horses from our heart.
And so I connected.
I mean, they knew the exercise.
No one came up to ask for help, but at one point I was surrounded by
three horses, like surrounded with horse heart energy, and, and I'm just
marveling that 15 years ago I couldn't even connect with one horse heart.
And, and it was, it was just the neatest feeling.
And, and the next day I was surrounded by Mark and Chrissy's three horses as well.
So, it's it's place where magic
Rupert Isaacson: happens.
Well, people will be listening to this podcast at any time in
the next, you know, 10 years.
Right?
So they may not make your July, 2025 clinic.
But if they, I presume you're gonna be running them.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I hope to continue and ex probably expand.
Rupert Isaacson: So this is where, you know, how do people get in touch with you?
How can they book up to do these clinics?
And also how can people consult with you perhaps online and, you know,
get the benefit of your wisdom?
How do people contact you?
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Probably the best way is j Varus DBM at gmail or@yahoo.com.
Rupert Isaacson: J bar, V-A-R-H-U-S.
And after that.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
DVM Dog Veterinary medicine dvm@atyahooyahoo.com.
Rupert Isaacson: So I'm gonna read that back for listeners.
Contact Janet on J-V-A-R-H-U-S
dvm@yahoo.com,
J bar dbm@yahoo.com.
Do you have a website as well where people can find out about your courses?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
I, I don't when I left my practice site, I'm technically retired,
but that hasn't gone real well.
Rupert Isaacson: Why would one do that?
Yeah.
One could be talking something to do something else, but Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
No, but you know what?
I went into veterinary medicine because I knew, I didn't know enough to make
a living, raising, breeding, training horses, but I could learn to be a vet.
And, you know, about 15 years, 15, 20 years ago, the horses
started calling me back.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And I, I credit them for saving my life in childhood, and now
I get to give back to them.
Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And it, it's beautiful.
It's my passion and what I've always wanted to do, so.
Rupert Isaacson: So can, so people can, can contact you there to
come and partake in your courses, looking at equine wellbeing at,
at every level, at this, at Happy.
They can
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
also get ahold of at Happy, happy info@happydog.org.
And
Rupert Isaacson: do ha And does Happy Dog Ranch also post presumably when
you're gonna be there, I should imagine?
Yes.
Yeah.
So Happy Dog Ranch also has its own website.
I'm sure I'm gonna
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Go look at it in a minute.
But type in Happy Dog Ranch listeners and you're gonna find Janet, mark, and
Chrissy and other wonderful people there.
And can people also consult with you online?
Like could they zoom like this and say, okay, I've got this issue, you know?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
Because of the veterinary constraints, I often do nutrition consulting.
Okay.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But a lot of what I do is not drug based.
Yep.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
So it can fall in the scope of of just consulting and not out of not
practicing veterinary medicine.
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
But I do a lot of online consulting or
Rupert Isaacson: because we've people in the UK or, you know,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
yeah.
And I've actually done some distance work with people in Europe.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, good.
And Asia, you know, there's, there's a lot of need.
Yeah.
And
Rupert Isaacson: you know, particularly we, we work in Asia
quite a lot and again, people are trying to do the right thing, but.
They're often being told something that may or may not be so useful,
you know, then they see that their horses are going downhill.
This often happens, and they can really benefit, I think,
from this kind of knowledge.
So I might turn some of the people that we have over there onto you and say,
look, this lady's a great resource.
She'll help you look at it from a, there's the work.
I'll help if I can point of view.
Say that again?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah, that's, I'll help if I can.
Rupert Isaacson: Great.
Okay.
So listeners, yeah.
Contact her do the right thing.
Pay her.
But, but contact her and, and ask for her help because there's, there's a,
there's a lifetime of, of wisdom here.
And the reason that we connected, by the way, is because Mark and Chrissy Rasheed
said, look, you have to talk to Janet.
She's like, the bear, talk to her.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, mark and Chrissy told me to do it.
I'm gonna do it.
So we immediately kind of reached out.
And so I'm, I'm so glad this happened, but I do feel we've only scratched
the surface in the time we've had.
So could we agree that we'll do a part two and possibly a part three and go
into other aspects like the movement, you know, like how can we perhaps avoid
injecting joints and things like this?
I, I, I think this is the stuff that people really do need practically.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Yeah.
Sure.
And I, I mean, I think financially it's a less least cost.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Often.
And with a better outcome.
Rupert Isaacson: I so agree.
I so agree.
So
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
yeah, no, and that's, that's just my, like the laser.
I just want to get the word out that there are options.
Rupert Isaacson: Great.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
And, and on so many levels, there's, there are options and, and people
are looking for that, I think, more than they were 10 years ago.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
Well, I think we, we've all tried the other way and for sure.
Yeah.
And when you bump against the limitations, you must look for
other things, otherwise, yeah.
You'll just keep bumping your nose.
Yeah.
So Janet, thank you so much for coming on.
Thanks for giving up so much of your time.
Thank you.
It's been an honor.
I've learned a ton and I've taken a bunch of notes here and
stuff I'm gonna follow up on.
Well,
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
considering I had no idea what we were gonna talk about,
has we gone by really fast?
Rupert Isaacson: It has.
So can we book another time to go down the rabbit hall again?
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
You bet, you bet.
I love that.
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
I'll be in touch.
Okay.
And I look forward to meeting you in person.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you.
All right.
Till the next time.
Dr. Janet Varhus DVM:
Take care.
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
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