I drove down to Weatherford, Texas, today to bring a few of our horses to Equine Sports Medicine & Surgery.
About an hour south of the ranch are Oklahoma's "Arbuckle Mountains" (which are more like a few small hills). Today the yellow flowers up on top of the Arbuckles were beautiful!
Once there, I got to learn about the many benefits of performing acupuncture on horses. One of our mares, Echos Incredible Cat, pictured below, has had the needles inserted at specific points and hooked up to the wires you can see in the picture to stimulate her nerves. Echos Incredible Cat was receiving acupuncture today to help her with a condition known scientifically as anhidrosis, which means that she does not sweat normally. Anhidrosis is not genetic, and it remains a mystery why this condition affects some horses, while others in identical circumstances are not affected at all. Luckily, Echos Incredible Cat has responded well to this form of acupuncture to treat this condition previously, and will likely continue to do so.
According to TheHorse.com, "The basic principle for both man and horse is that heat produces sweat, which evaporates from the skin, resulting in a lowering of body temperature. The horse is the only mammal, other than man, to cool itself in this manner." This system of cooling the body works well for a normal horse, but completely fails for an anhidrotic horse. "A typical anhidrotic horse will pant vigorously when hot, and its body temperature will rise to 103 or 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and, in some cases, as high as 105 degrees. Despite the rise in temperature, the horse's skin will, generally speaking, remain dry. When body temperature reaches 105 degrees or more, there is danger of heat stroke or other thermal injury." Anhidrosis can affect horses anywhere, but it is most commonly found in the states that border the Gulf Coast. Roughly 20-30% of the horses in hot, humid areas suffer from anhidrosis to some degree.
Echos Incredible Cat is the first horse I've seen with this condition, and getting to learn about it today was fascinating!
