Owl Equestrian

You can massage a horse? Of course!

A fellow “student of the horse” I met in an Equine Anatomy course in the fall of 2016 is a Certified Equine Massage Therapist. Upon learning this, naturally, my curiosity was piqued! I want to learn all that I can about these magnificent creatures and couldn’t think of a more hands-on and therapeutic way to […]

by Natalie Ethier

Introducing Owl Equestrian

L’écurie equine is now Owl Equestrian! Why the change? While I quite like the alliteration (écurie/equine), wordplay (écurie sounds like curious), and meaning behind the original name (L’écurie is French for horse stable and I have French Canadian heritage), the direct English translation of L’écurie equine is the equine stable, which I feel may have […]

by Natalie Ethier

Fostering a Good Quality of Life

My 7th Equine Guelph course, Global Perspectives in Equine Welfare, has recently come to an end. It was a bit different from previous courses in that the discussions were more philosophical, which was a nice contrast to the science-based focus of other courses. It was fascinating to debate ethics and learn about equine welfare issues […]

by Natalie Ethier

Controversial Techniques: Tail Alterations

This week in Global Perspectives in Equine Welfare we were tasked with researching legislation on controversial practices, a number of which have been covered in previous courses. As per my usual approach, I decided to choose something I had relatively little knowledge about, the tail alteration known as nicking or cutting. I found myself feeling squeamish while researching […]

by Natalie Ethier

Controversial Techniques: Rollkur

I would be hard-pressed to say which of the controversial equitation techniques I find most appalling, there are many. However, I decided to look at rollkur for an assignment for one of the Equine Behaviour courses I’ve taken. It’s a topic that came up again recently in Global Perspectives in Equine Welfare because of the inherent contradictions of […]