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Spalding Labs is family owned and operated AND filled with terrific, animal-loving, and long standing team members! Our team is thankful for you! I asked for submissions of what some of us are thankful for on a personal level and received some lovely responses. I share with you some giving thanks below! Happy Thanksgiving to you all and happy holiday season!

Tom Spalding, Spalding Team Member Since ♥ The Beginning  ♥

"We are thankful for another Thanksgiving with all the family including my 97-year-old mom who founded Spalding Labs along with my brother Pat 43 years ago."

Jessica Starcevich, Spalding Team Member Since 2011

"I am thankful for animal rescues and rescuers who have done so much to join me with some truly amazing dogs!"

Toni Dunn, Spalding Team Member Since 1975

"Working for Spalding Labs since I was 10 has been a huge blessing. I have a second home and family in my Spalding family."

Happy, happy day!  ☺

We wish our team the best of luck at the upcoming Vegas Tuffest Jr. World Championship!

The Vegas Tuffest Jr. World Championship is produced by the power couple of rodeo, Mike & Sherrylynn Johnson and is held the first weekend of the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Riders 19 years and under compete in goat tying, breakaway roping and tie down roping. As one of the highest stakes payout for youth rodeo, the champion will take home $10,000 to $20,000 in cash and prizes. Total prizes paid at the competition this year will exceed $650,000 as winners take home saddles, rope cans, buckles, rings, and lots and lots of SWAG from sponsors like Spalding Labs.

 Spalding Fly Predator Team:

• Trenton Leggett
• Riggun Barrow
• Rylie Edens
• Jezimay Watson
• Lane Webb
• Rozlyn Herren
• Madison Outhier
• Chase Heim
• Kali Thompson

These talented young riders will be competing December 5-8th as the Spalding Fly Predators Team alongside 430 other contestants! Come watch at Horseman's Park in Las Vegas, Nevada! Event schedule below...

I am a compulsive reader. Always have been. I keep a book in each bathroom, next to my bed, on the dinner table, in my car, several where I watch TV (I read during commercials), and I even carry my own books or periodical journals to my doctor’s appointments and even to fast-food lunch facilities.

So sometimes it takes many months to get through a book.

My colleague, Dr. Marcia Thibeault, sent me a copy of her book, I Make Horse Calls. I reviewed it and thanked her for it. I love reading other veterinarian’s books. James Herriot really started something!

Then, months ago, she sent me the sequel, More Horse Calls. I fast-read it and then, afterwards put it in one of our bathrooms for more casual, in-depth absorption.

Halfway through it last night, I was surprised to find myself in it.

Thank you Dr. Thibeault. Apparently you see that my imprint training method, used on newborn foals helps to produce a gentle and cooperative patient after they are mature.

An excerpt from More Horse Calls.

Luckily Sunny had been imprint trained, a process made popular by veterinarian Dr. Robert M. Miller. Imprint training takes advantage of a foal’s ability to learn rapidly right after birth. By exposing a newborn foal to potentially threatening stimuli, and showing the foal there is no real danger, the foal relaxes and a strong bond forms between horse and human. These imprint trained foals have less fear. If the foal is also taught to yield to pressure rather than fight against it, when it later becomes trapped, the foal soon finds struggling increases its pain, so it is more likely to stop struggling. They are also more willing to let humans help them. I hoped Pat’s early handling of Sunny was paying off now.

One of the things that I have noticed horse owners to be the most negligent about is foot care.

Proper and regular care of the feet is an essential part of good horse care. Now, that does not necessarily mean shoeing. Many horses are not worked enough to need shoes, but they still need to be checked regularly by a competent, experienced farrier.

For example, my horses and my wife’s no longer need shoes. I ride maybe once a week and, even if my wife rides daily, most of it is on smooth trails or on soft arenas, so there is not a lot of foot wear from abrasion.

However, we have our farrier see them at six-week intervals, year round. Hooves keep growing, often irregularly, and need to be balanced and trimmed.

Irregular hooves often cause abnormal angulation of the foot, excessively straining the structures of the foot, or in the joints and supportive anatomy above the foot. This can cause damage ultimately leading to lameness.

So, good horse care must include regular foot care including, if necessary, trimming and balancing the hoof wall, shoeing if needed, and sometimes corrective shoeing.

As I said, Debby and I no longer ride enough that our horses need to be shod. But, they are still seen every six weeks, and trimmed and balanced. Left untrimmed, their toes elongate, imbalancing the gait and stressing the joints.

How do wild horses get by without farriers? Well, they are in constant motion on an abrasive ground surface. That’s why wild mustangs feet usually look so perfect. But domestication is not the same as living in the natural wild environment.

Domestic dogs frequently require nail trims. Wolves, in the wild, do not. Right?

Many horse owners believe that shoeing is “unnatural”. Of course it is. But excessive wear due to domestication and hard work often necessitate horseshoes to keep the horse comfortable. For the same reason we humans often wear work gloves.

Additionally, certain breeds, especially the gaited breeds, often require special shoes. Also, many horses have either conformational qualities or pathological problems that can be helped and even corrected by special shoes.

Good professional quality foot care is part of the expense of horse ownership.

But, it is worth it.