With Spring comes days that are getting longer and rain and mud that will (hopefully!) be drying up soon. It is time to start thinking about pulling your horse out of the pasture and dusting off your saddle to go for a ride.

Whether at home or on the road, horses can be inadvertantly exposed to contagious respiratory viruses and bacterial infections.  Following are some steps to take to minimize your horse's risk and what to do if there is an outbreak.

Horses, donkeys, and mules have hypsodont teeth (see right), which continue to grow until they reach five to seven years of age. Although the teeth are done growing, they continue to erupt from the gum line by two to three millimeters per year.

The old adage "No Foot, No Horse" is as true today as it was years ago .The extreme athletic endeavors that horses participate in, the effects of genetics and poor breeding, poor farriery practices, and their sheer size can result in diseases of the foot, some with devastating consequences.

 A yearly physical exam, or wellness exam, is an important way to assess your horse's overall health and well-being. While your horse may seem healthy to you, there may be conditions you likely won't notice from the outside.

Rabies is a virus that causes fatal neurologic disease in mammals. It’s transmitted in the saliva, often by the bite of an infected animal to a non-infected animal.

We all have seen the pictures of the classic “Cushing’s” horse: long, curly hair, weak topline, pot-bellied and aged.

Vaccinations are an important tool in maintaining the health of your horse.  Following is a list of vaccines that we at Tacoma Equine recommend to our clients, as well as a brief description of the diseases that protect against. 

Though historically uncommon here in the Puget Sound region, Pigeon Fever has started to spread to our area and we want to provide you with some fast facts about this hardy bacterial disease (and no, it doesn't involve the bird).

With the continuing poor air quality due to the many fires throughout the west coast, many people are asking themselves what they need to be worried about for their horses.

Respiratory diseases can be very devastating for owners and horses alike. Now is a good time to remember that the bio-security measures we are taking for ourselves are good ones to remember during an equine respiratory disease outbreak.

Once the foal is born, all the excitement surrounding the foal should not drown out the importance of the mare!

Creepy crawly little things! There have been rumblings that this year is going to be a bad one for ticks so we wanted to talk about what to do if you find one (and how to try and keep them far, far away).

Laminitis is a devastating, very painful disease that occurs when inflammation interrupts blood flow to the internal structure that suspends the horse’s distal phalanx (coffin bone) within the hoof capsule.

So you walk out to the barn to throw your pampered horses an afternoon flake of hay and find your favorite trail-riding horse, Buddy, covered from nose to tail in hard bumps!!