The Horse's Advocate Podcast Geoff Tucker, DVM

I start this podcast by describing Memorial Day in America, then tie this idea into what is happening in the equine veterinary profession. I only dwell on this briefly because there are more upbeat things to discuss, such as the Klotho protein.
The Klotho protein was discovered from an experimental failure and found in all animals. This protein, made up of one thousand amino acids, is primarily produced by the kidneys. A portion of it is then released from the cell, acting as a hormone that can influence cells in distant locations, including the brain.
Klotho affects platelets, causing them to release PF4, one of many platelet factors. PF4 stimulates the brain's synapses in 4 hours, causing a profound increase in cognitive functions lasting for 19 days or more after administering it to mice and primates. The hope is that giving this protein will reduce or eliminate cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease in humans.
An even more exciting result is the reduction of "all-cause mortality" in mice and primates after raising the amounts of Klotho. Could this also be true in horses? The best way to increase Klotho is exercise, which causes a 30% increase. Feeding adequate amounts of high-quality protein may also help increase Klotho.
**********
TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a website for learning about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its membership side allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide working with horses.
HorsemanshipDentistry.com is a website that discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. TheEquinePractice.com/appointment
HorsemanshipDentistrySchool.com is a website for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. There are eight spots a year for interested students PLUS, there is a separate online course for those wanting to learn how to do this but can never get to South Florida for hands-on training.
Show support for The Horse's Advocate by wearing a hat or shirt or drinking from a cup, all with the official logo. Go to this link for our swag (https://the-horses-advocate.creator-spring.com/).
Please give a thumbs up or 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

  Building muscle in horses is a two-stage process. Many horse owners expect results when applying only one factor. This podcast shows that ignoring one of these factors results in poor muscle formation.
In the first stage, the key is to prioritize protein in the horse's diet, particularly the amino acid leucine. Leucine, a branch-chain amino acid, plays a pivotal role as a signaling molecule when it attaches to the mTOR receptor on muscle cells. This crucial process alerts the muscle that the necessary materials for muscle building are available. Understanding this, horse owners can better cater to their horse's nutritional needs, knowing that the right protein, high in leucine, is essential for effective muscle formation.
Step two is to add exercise to the horse to build muscle fibers. More importantly, this also consumes the excess glucose in the diet. Exercise decreases the need to convert the free amino acids into glucose, thus preserving the pool of recycled amino acids.
**********
TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a website for learning about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its membership side allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide working with horses.
HorsemanshipDentistry.com is a website that discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. TheEquinePractice.com/appointment
HorsemanshipDentistrySchool.com is a website for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. There are eight spots a year for interested students PLUS, there is a separate online course for those wanting to learn how to do this but can never get to South Florida for hands-on training.
Show support for The Horse's Advocate by wearing a hat or shirt or drinking from a cup, all with the official logo. Go to this link for our swag (https://the-horses-advocate.creator-spring.com/).
Please give a thumbs up or 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

There is a turf war between veterinarians and non-veterinarians, both wanting to provide horses with preventive dental care. It started in the late 1990s and has gained protection behind laws meant to protect horse owners. But is there proof that any approach to floating is better than another? Or is it just positioning based on territorialism? I used the following script to make this podcast, but I also added to it freely to emphasize several points.
This podcast is more formal than usual because I am reading a script I wrote in response to a graduate of my dentistry school challenged by the Veterinary Medical Association of her area. She is a non-veterinarian working in equine dentistry. Most of the United States allows individual states to determine what a profession is, and most states broadly state that veterinarians are the ones to perform medicine, surgery, and dentistry on any animal. This statement includes fish, reptiles, birds, and any other animal other than humans. It is the prerogative of the veterinary board to investigate anyone who does any work on any animal in their state. However, routine care of animals, including preventive medicine, is usually avoided. You can purchase and administer vaccines and dewormers, adjust angles on hooves, apply therapeutic shoes, prepare any mixture of medicinal supplements, breed horses, deliver foals, apply linaments, clip the hair of horses not shedding, splint crooked legs of foals, adjust bones, massage muscles, use red light, PEMF, and a dozen more things to a horse without being a veterinarian. But you cannot remove the unworn parts of the cheek teeth in horses, digging their sharp edges into the tongue and cheeks and causing pain with every movement of their jaw and tongue.
I have been training veterinarians and non-veterinarians in the technique of Horsemanship Dentistry. My definition of this form of working on the teeth of horses is as follows:
1) Removing sharp points from horses' cheek teeth by filing them to a smooth edge is commonly called "floating teeth" but is also known as odontoplasty. The root cause of most dental problems is pain in the tongue and cheeks caused by sharp enamel points. Therefore, routine maintenance of the horse's teeth removes pain from these sharp points. Secondary to the removal of sharp points is finding pathology and addressing this.
2) Administering sedatives to horses for routine floating is unnecessary; instead, horsemanship skills are used for 97% of horses (from annual data consistent over the past decade). The remaining 3% are horses that are reactive to pain, fear the process, or have a painful procedure done, such as extracting a fractured cheek tooth. With those, I administer pain and anxiolytic medications.
My name is Geoff Tucker, and I am a veterinarian who graduated from The New York State College of Veterinary Medicine (Cornell) in 1984. I have worked professionally with horses since 1973, starting on a Saddlebred farm in Ohio and moving to a Thoroughbred breeding and training farm in New York that same year. I completed my undergraduate degree at Cornell University in 1979 and graduated from veterinary school in 1984. In my autobiography, I tell my story: "Since The Days Of The Romans; My Journey Of Discovering A Life With Horses." It's available on Amazon, and I have also read it here on "The Horse's Advocate Podcast."
While in veterinary school, my mentor told me the importance of maintaining horses' teeth. With him, I floated my first horse in 1983 and made this a part of my practice in 1984. Since then, I have logged the number of horses I have worked on or who I have taught. In February 2024, I recorded my 80,000th horse. But I always continued learning about horses' teeth and oral cavities. I have attended many continuing education courses offered by veterinary professional organizations in person or online. 
The New York State Equine Practice Committee invited me to join them in 1996. The reason

This podcast is about sugar as a fuel for our horses to use when it's needed to run away from danger. However, I also tell the story of the risks of eating more sugar daily than is required to fuel the body. 
The first thing to know is that the body can make all the sugar needed to make it through the day. Adding sugar to food is required for only two things: replenishing stored sugar as glycogen for the next emergency and storing it as body fat for future use. Think of it as cash that you have either quick access to on a bank debit card (glycogen) or cash stored in a long-term asset requiring time to get, such as stocks or property (body fat). Further, think of using fat as fuel steadily released from body fat into the cell, like dividends automatically deposited into your bank.
When sugar is released freely into the blood or cells, it sticks to proteins, preventing them from doing their jobs and causing damage. Over time, this damage will cause the demise of the cell and the horse.
So why are you still feeding grain and giving hay 24/7?
**********
TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a website for learning about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its membership side allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide working with horses.
HorsemanshipDentistry.com is a website that discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. TheEquinePractice.com/appointment
HorsemanshipDentistrySchool.com is a website for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. There are eight spots a year for interested students PLUS, there is a separate online course for those wanting to learn how to do this but can never get to South Florida for hands-on training.
Show support for The Horse's Advocate by wearing a hat or shirt or drinking from a cup, all with the official logo. Go to this link for our swag (https://the-horses-advocate.creator-spring.com/).
Please give a thumbs up or 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

This podcast breaks down how to feed horses into five simple rules based on what the food does, good and bad, within the horse. It is a short discussion that avoids a deep dive into science. Instead, it is a to-the-point instruction set for those wondering why their horses are falling apart in front of their eyes and what they can do to help the horse survive.
There are no gimmicks or supplements. If your horse is sick or lame, there is a strong chance it has been caused by the food they eat. I tell you in the first part my five rules for feeding horses. After this, if you want to understand why I made these rules, I lightly go into the science. Future podcasts will go deeper into details to strengthen your ability to share what works for your horses with those still feeding the foods that make them unsound, unhealthy, or both.
**********
TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a website for learning about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its membership side allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide working with horses.
HorsemanshipDentistry.com is a website that discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. TheEquinePractice.com/appointment
HorsemanshipDentistrySchool.com is a website for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. There are eight spots a year for interested students PLUS, there is a separate online course for those wanting to learn how to do this but can never get to South Florida for hands-on training.
Show support for The Horse's Advocate by wearing a hat or shirt or drinking from a cup, all with the official logo. Go to this link for our swag (https://the-horses-advocate.creator-spring.com/).
Please give a thumbs up or 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."

This podcast provides an alternative perspective to an interview published in an equine veterinary magazine with a board-certified veterinary equine dentist about EOTRH (Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis). I am troubled by what was said.
Professionals are skipping to conclusions in a world demanding scientific evidence for decision-making on health issues. Worse, their focus is on treating this disease while saying multiple times that the cause is still unknown. In addition, alternative views are ignored and never mentioned, while there is good anecdotal evidence of many more cases of this disease.
I hold nothing back but often become speechless. After 41 years of working on horse teeth, I have some thoughts that need airing, and I do so here.
**********
TheHorsesAdvocate.com is a website for learning about horses, horse barns, and farms. Its membership side allows horse owners to attend live meetings to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of what they have learned on the site. Membership helps support this message and spread it to everyone worldwide working with horses.
HorsemanshipDentistry.com is a website that discusses how and why I perform equine dentistry without immobilization or the automatic use of drugs. I only accept new clients in Florida. TheEquinePractice.com/appointment
HorsemanshipDentistrySchool.com is a website for those interested in learning how to perform equine dentistry without drugs on 97% of horses. There are eight spots a year for interested students PLUS, there is a separate online course for those wanting to learn how to do this but can never get to South Florida for hands-on training.
Show support for The Horse's Advocate by wearing a hat or shirt or drinking from a cup, all with the official logo. Go to this link for our swag (https://the-horses-advocate.creator-spring.com/).
Please give a thumbs up or 5-star review and share these everywhere. I know horse owners worldwide listen, and the horses need every one of you in "Helping Horses Thrive In A Human World."