PetLvr.com - [The Blog]

When you buy a dog or cat, where to keep your new pet is probably one of the last things on your mind. However, for anyone who is considering buying a horse, housing is one of the biggest concerns. After all, you can’t exactly give your horse a pet bed in the kitchen!

Of course, the ideal stabling situation for your new horse is a deluxe horse barn in the back yard, complete with a box stall, standard stall, tack room and feed room. However, few horse owners are actually able to provide this type of housing. Most backyard horse shelters are converted sheds or even simple lean-tos.

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HorseLvr.com (RSS)

The creation of HorseLvr.com was to keep all of the specific horse breed information in one centralized blog.

Here is a summary of the entries made in the month of August 2007.

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You may be able to ride a horse without a saddle, although it isn’t the safest idea, but few people can control their horses without a bridle. The bridle is designed to connect the bit in a horse’s mouth with the reins in the rider’s hands. This enables the rider to signal his horse to stop or turn.

Since a bridle is such an important part of your horse’s tack, you should be sure that you buy one that is the right style and size for your horse. Luckily, since bridles are almost fully adjustable, few horses have problems with a bridle being too small or too large, so you won’t have to worry about taking measurements unless you have a draft horse or a pony.

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If you want your horse to go where you want to go when you are riding him, then you will need to use one essential piece of equipment, the bit. The bit is basically a metal bar that sits in the horse’s mouth and hooks to the two sidepieces of a bridle. When you tug gently on the reins, the bit applies pressure to the horse’s mouth, so he knows that you want to stop or turn. Of course, there are two distinct bit styles, one for Western riders and one for English riders. Within these styles, there are also different bits, since sometimes a certain bit does not work as well as another one.

No matter which type of bit you decide to buy, you will need to be sure that it fits your horse’s mouth properly. You will need to measure the width of your horse’s mouth at the spot where the bit rests and add a half inch to this measurement to get the proper fit.

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You’ve finally decided that you want a horse of your own, so now you can simply go out and buy one, right? Well, a horse isn’t exactly as simple to own as a cute little kitten or a goldfish. Before you buy a horse, you will need to find a place to keep it. In addition, you should be aware of how much money you will need to spend to maintain your horse.

Horses need to be shoed, they need to receive vaccinations and they eat quite a lot. You will need to spend quite a lot on bedding, grooming supplies and tack as well. However, the most important thing you will need to do is to be sure you know how to buy a good horse.

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Horseback riding is a fun and relaxing activity for both adults and children. However, horses are large, powerful animals and are easily startled. Before you or your children go horseback riding, you should know how to behave around a horse.

One of the first things anyone interested in horses should know is that horses can’t see everything easily. Their peripheral vision is not the best and someone walking up quietly behind them can really startle them. This is one reason that no one should ever approach a horse from behind. You should also be careful about walking up to your horse from the side to begin grooming or saddling him. Instead, walk up to your horse from the front and let him see any tack or grooming equipment you are carrying before you step to his side.

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Riding a horse looks so simple that you shouldn’t need formal lessons, right? Actually, while it may be easy to fall off a horse, staying on is a bit trickier. Staying on and looking good is even harder. Few people can manage all of the intricacies of horseback riding without lessons.

One of the worst things you can do if you want to show horses is to try to teach yourself to ride. Without even realizing it, you may be sitting on your horse the wrong way, holding the reins wrong or using poor posture. By the time you decide to take formal lessons, these behaviors may be so ingrained that you won’t be able to learn the correct way to ride a horse without taking many hours of remedial training. Even worse, you may have an experience that puts you off horseback riding forever, such as being knocked off a runaway horse by a low hanging tree branch or having a horse buck you off, just because you don’t know what to do when different situations occur.

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Many new horse owners are completely unaware that horses need to be vaccinated regularly, just as other pets do. However, since a horse is so large, providing these animals with preventative health care may be even more important than it is for dogs or cats. After all, you can’t exactly tuck a sick horse into a corner of the bedroom at night to keep an eye on him. When horses are sick, their owners often end up bunking on a nearby hay bale.

Luckily, there are plenty of measures already in place to help you keep your horse as healthy as possible. You should begin by having your veterinarian give your healthy horse a health exam. This allows him to easily spot minor changes in your horse’s physical appearance and blood work during future exams that may be caused by illness or disease.

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By Candice Sabrina

If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. Or so the old saying goes. However, wishes were horses but not horse supplies as well, then the beggars in question would not be riding.

To begin with, anyone who wishes to ride a horse, will need horse supplies in the form of tack. Even the roughest rider who enjoys bareback riding will require a bridle, and most of us would prefer to have a saddle between us and the horse’s spine.

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By Ron Petracek

You are what you eat, and this goes for horses as well. Keeping your horse in optimal shape means knowing what to feed, how much to feed, and when to feed. To keep your horse at his healthiest and ensure that his nutritional needs are being met, follow these simple rules.

1.)Weigh your horse. You can’t feed your horse correctly unless you know his weight. But before you bring him into your bathroom and attempt to load him on your scale, you should know that there is an easier, more sensible method. To estimate your horse’s weight, measure his heart girth with a horse weight tape.

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