Last year, my friend Jacky and I took a bit of a journey down to Kent in order to spend the day with Victoria Dorman of Natural Animal Therapies on an introductory Zoopharacognosy (ZooPharm for short) course. We didn't quite know what to expect, and I’ll admit that we had an ulterior motive, namely, a desire to see Graveney Equine Livery’s beautiful track system. We thought that even if the Zoopharm course wasn’t worth the trip, seeing the track system would be.
I was pleasantly surprised. The Zoopharm course was just as excellent as the track system. Which, by the way, is very beautiful. And inspirational. And which sent me home feeling very reassured about the value of what we are creating here at Heart to Hand our own horses.
Victoria Dorman turned out to be an absolutely lovely lady with an incredible knowledge of plants and how they work. The day started with some information about Zoopharmacognosy, what it is and how animals have instinctive knowledge about which plants and herbs they might need at a specific time. We then went for a walk around Graveney’s track system, looking at plants along the way. Most of these plants are the same plants we see every day here in the UK; plants that we tend to dismiss as ‘weeds’. Victoria pointed out incredible benefits of each plant, causing me to look at them with new eyes. I was also excited to find that I could identify most of the plants, and that I already knew about many of their benefits. But there were some surprises. For example, did you know that you can eat nettle seeds? And that they are extremely good for you?
I was already feeding a lot of these plants to my horses, and I had seen the horses enjoy them. I had also planted many of these plants – weeds! - quite deliberately in places where they could be accessed by my horses, encouraging foraging behaviour on the track. As a mum of five children I knew the importance of a balanced diet. It always made sense that the same would be true for horses. Just eating grass or hay would surely not give them everything they needed. As a result, I had always spent money on vitamin and mineral supplements and other feed additions, usually because one or another advert had successfully convinced me of the need. Victoria pointed out that many of the supplements that we feed to horses are freely available in weeds, the everyday ‘nuisance’ plants that we find all around us. She reassured me that allowing my horses access to these plants, far from risking harm, would actually benefit them enormously.
The last part of the day was truly fascinating. A horse was offered a facilitated Zoopharm session by Victoria. First, she laid a variety of fresh herbs and plants she had collected in a large circle in an indoor area. The horse was brought in and let free to examine the plants. It was very interesting to watch how she went from plant to plant, sniffing, ignoring some, sampling others, occasionally eating the lot before moving on to the next plant. Victoria stood with a clipboard in her hand, noting which plants the horse chose. Once the horse had selected what she wanted from the fresh plants and clearly was no longer interested in them, Victoria got out her collection of dried herbs and plants. We were amused to hear that the containers she uses are actually tennis ball containers. Her husband loves to pay tennis, which means that she has a regular supply of these very useful containers that are the perfect size. Placing a couple of bowls on the ground, Victoria put a small amount of the contents of one of her containers in each, and stood back to observe what the horse would do. She repeated this process throughout the session, offer the horse something from one of her containers, which she would dispense into one of the bowls. This was a bit more complex than it seems, as Victoria used her vast knowledge to choose what to offer next in response to the horse’s selections. The horse always had a choice between two or more items. It was interesting to observe how some things were dismissed; some things were nibbled at; some were eaten without a whole lot of enthusiasm, but some were gobbled with a clear request for more. Once this section of the session was complete Victoria got out her essential oils. Holding one bottle in each hand so as to give the horse a choice, she offered these to her to smell. Once again, it was noteworthy how clearly the horse communicated which ones were of interest to her and which ones were not.
After the session, Victoria looked at her clipboard, where she had noted everything at the horse had selected. She asked the owner whether the horse had had any trouble with her digestive system. The owner said yes, the horse had had a problem with ulcers. Victoria commented that the horse had, thoughout the session, chosen things that have a recognised value in helping the digestive system and/or protecting the stomach. She went on toe explain that observing which plants were selected by a horse could help an owner identify a potential problem. It demonstrated, rather clearly, that horses do know how to treat themselves.
It was a wonderful and informative day. Back home, I went around my own garden, collecting a huge wheelbarrow full of ‘weeds’ and put them out on the track. It was fascinating to watch my horses behave in much the same way as the horse in the Zoopharm session had behaved, going from plant to plant, investigating, sniffing, nibbling, and occasionally eating the lot.
This experience was enough to convince me of the value of Zoopharm. An idea was born, namely, to ask Victoria if she would be interested in designing an online course with me for horse owners. I find that many people really worry about what their horses might find to eat outside their stables. I understand the concern about horses ingesting something harmful, having had an incident like that with Jock, my Highland pony, who nearly died after eating a pile of mouldy hay and garden offcuts that I had thoughtlessly left in the corner of his paddock. But there is so much that is good to eat. Victoria's input made me feel that it would be so useful for horse owners to understand what they could give their horses access to. And the wonderful thing about a facilitated Zoopharm session is that you get to be part of the process, as you are the one offering what the horse is ingesting. To my delight, Victoria was interested in designing a course with me. So then the real work of making a dream reality began. First we decided on a basic plan for the course. We decided that it would incorporate four modules. I got busy developing the course structure, while Victoria wrote the content. In July she came up to Norfolk for the weekend, and we spent a lot of time filming her working with my horses. We were delighted with the sessions and we were blithely confident that we had more than enough material for the course. But when I looked at the video footage I realised that the sound quality was completely inadequate. It had been a very windy weekend, and in addition, there had been an air show at Old Buckenham Airfield, which is nearby. There was so much background noise, making it really hard to hear what Victoria was saying. Disaster! What to do? Victoria lives down in Sussex, which is actually quite a long way from here. We discussed our options over the phone. Possibly Victoria could do a voiceover for the videos? We investigated this idea, but soon concluded that it wouldn't work. We could see her mouth moving in the videos, so it would look very peculiar not to be able to hear what she was saying. Victoria agreed to come back again for yet another session of filming. Weekend 2 was planned for September. Meanwhile, I invested in a decent microphone!
This time the filming was very successful, as you will see if you sign up to the course. The horses thoroughly enjoyed being movie stars, the more so because there were so many good things to eat. Of course filming is not the only time consuming part. Editing the footage takes a long time too. Then came the challenge of putting it all together. By now we were getting excited. We could see the course taking shape. And we were very pleased with it. But typically, these things take longer than expected. Although we had hoped to launch the course by the end of the year we were not successful in meeting that deadline. So we set a new deadline. For the 14th of February. Valentine's Day. Thinking that this would be a good time to offer people this lovely way of showing their horses how much they love them. This deadline has been successfully met. And so we are delighted to present to you (drumroll…) the H2H Online Introductory Zoopharmocognosy course.
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