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> Somewhere in the rules is something about not doing anything that 
> involves
> invasive procedures, or some such wording, so it's no go during a
> competition.  No reason why you can't use it before or after. 
Great! So long as it's legal for everybody it's worth talking about. If
I'm not mistaken THIS IS A BRAND NEW SUBJECT!! :-D

So here's how it went, and here's what I wondered about. My friend, the
vet who has just finished all her acupuncture courses does dressage and
has ridden all her life.  (Not your average DQ...raised on a chicken farm
> g<) She's had lots of back problems herself and finally got relief
through acupuncture and thus became a believer. I did her a favor by
producing a sale video for one of her horses so she said she'd if I'd
bring Kaboot down she'd work on him. 

First she sort of just did little finger strokes around on his body
looking for sensitivity. For instance, one of them *I think* was
sensitivity in the girth area meant soreness in the foot. But she really
stroked just in front of the girth area on the muscles above the foreleg.
He sort of had a reaction both before and after the treatment. Same on
his neck...but he's a pretty reactive horse. 

She also looked at his tongue but made no comments. The first needles she
put in were on the neck and along the shoulderblade. I thought about our
discussion last week of abscesses when I saw needle after needle go in. I
asked about abscesses and she said the only person she'd talked to who'd
dealt with one before was a practitioner who was doing it in CA during
all the forestfires and he tought soot was involved. 

I think Kaboot ended up with one or two needles on the upper neck, three
on each shoulder, a couple around the sacroiliac, one near the fetlock
and 4 around the hoof. He danced around a bit but wasn't horrible. Kaboot
is the "perpetual motion" machine and to groom him you just have to take
a swipe at a moving target. However, once all the needles were in he
stood *stock still* and his head lowered and he looked sleepy. He did not
move a foot for 20 minutes but yawned a lot. It was pretty weird. It
especially freaked me out when she put the needles in his foot. I held up
his hoof and he got one in front and three right across the bulb area
with one sort of above the cleft. Looked awful, but like I said he looked
absolutely sedated. 

While he stood around looking stoned, my friend started showing me her
other toys. She's got the electrodes that you hook up to the needles to
increase the effect, and then there's some injections they do for a long
term affect that is just saline and B-12. Then there was this herb you
burn. This is where it got funny. This stuff comes in a form that looks
like a 9" long Roman Candle. You light one end and it smolders like a
cigar. She showed us that you hold it up to an acupressure point and just
close enough for it to heat it up. You can also hold it by a needle to
heat it up. She showed Josie a place between your thumb and forefinger to
hold it to get rid of a headache...you hold it against your calf to get
rid of cramps, the back of your knee for hip or back pain, etc. The funny
part was it smells, to a non-user, a lot like pot! The smell gets all
over you. By the time we'd held it passed it back and forth we were
covered with the smell. She gave me a stick of it (said it's about a $1 a
stick) and on the way home we were cracking up wondering what would
happen if we got pulled over. The whole inside of the truck smelled like
it and I have absolutely no doubt we'd have been searched if a cop
smelled it. Josie was craving a Yogurt Parfait from McDonalds and we
pulled it, then realized a bunch of my students worked there. I felt like
a typical pothead teenager rolling down both windows and trying to fan
the smell out before we got to the take-out window! >g< 

I was beginning to wonder about this stuff since Kaboot looked absolutely
stoned when I led him back to the trailer. He was so mellow that you
almost felt like you needed to walk him awhile before loading him up. The
fact that the "acupuncture doobie" was just a dollar made me pretty sure
it was legal, but still a bit nervous. The pitcher on Josie's softball
team has a hurt leg and we joked about taking it to school to work on her
and the drug dogs jumping us.

If nothing else, I think I've probably gotten one of my stories out of
this. >g< 

Angie

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