mooi bericht uit clickryder.

Mary, hi.

Yes, I imagine you'll need very little chiropractic therapy if you continue
with the clicker. You'll see in my book, The Book of Balfour - Quiet Magic,
that I introduced clicker to Balfour more or less by accident. I needed to
engage him in some activity because walking was out of the question because
he was so unsound. I don't ride and didn't know much about horses then, so I
was at a loss. A friend of mine suggested I try clicker and his response was
immediate. It gave him

something to focus on other than his pain and inactivity. And, I believe,
that raised his serotonin levels. As I understand it, the production of
serotonin (a feel good hormone) is triggered, in humans, by sedentary
activities that provide deep personal joy such as listening to music,
painting, reading, watching a great movie. In other words, anything that we
look forward to and become immersed in.

Endorphins, those other great feel good hormones, are triggered by exercise.
If one can do the two together, fabulous. But either will do, when there's
depression or illness. What Balfour was experiencing, for the first time in
his six years of life, was play. No pressure to perform something
athletically horsey. No performance issues. Just play. And,

of course, the clicker engaged me directly with his mind and the rest of his
being. So we very quickly became very close.

As you probably know, our emotions create our biology. So once Balfour was allowed to become more playful, was allowed to work things out for himself,
was given choices, and was invited to participate rather than be given
instructions, he re-engaged with life. His biology became less acidic
(bitter), and the ringbone began to disintegrate. In fact, he began to do
lateral steps with me, in response to the clicker, before the ringbone had
diminished very much. Medically speaking, that should not have been possible
because of the lack of flexion in the joints. The vet said: "Balfour has
forgotten he has ringbone."

The healing power of joy and belonging is immense. Balfour, by the way, is
destined for the dressage ring.

I think you will find the rest of Balfour's healing journey very
interesting. I'm posting it in instalments on my website:
www.aboutbeing.info <http://www.aboutbeing.info/> . I've not got to the
clicker section yet.

Moira