We’re in San Antonio for the annual convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, i.e., all horse vets in the country. Our horse trainer, Nichole Zupan, joined me for the trip. As someone who has trained a born-blind horse for riding — our two-year old Nikki — Nichole is uniquely positoned to help tell people what blind horses are capable of doing. Nichole and I came down this weekend to staff our exhibit display, hand out our brochure on blind horses ("Blind Horses: Top 5 Tips and Top 5 Myths") and promote our BlindHorses.org Web site.
The convention started today, and I took the photo of Nichole at our exhibit booth this morning. We had a lot of folks stop by and visit with us today … vets from New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Michigan, Virginia, Florida, and plenty of other states I can’t even remember now that it’s 9:45 p.m. as I write this! We also had veterinary students from schools like Cornell come by to talk. There are about 4,000 vets attending the convention, so we have a lot of opportunity!
We’re here because we’ve learned we need to reach out to the equine vet community to let them know that blind horses CAN have a wonderful quality of life … and to give these vets useful, practical information they can also share with their clients. Too many vets still assume that a blind horse is only going to be miserable, or dangerous, or can’t go out on pasture — there are a lot of myths about these wonderful animals — and as a result, they often tell the owners of newly blind horses that they should just put the animal down. It’s sad that many vets still think blindness means a death sentence for a horse, and we want to help them understand that it doesn’t have to be that way at all.
Nichole and I will be here through Tuesday, returning to Montana on Wednesday. Alayne is back at the ranch, keeping everything running smoothly!
(Click on photo for larger image.)
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