John Dowdy:
Hello, and welcome to this week's Equinety podcast. We're going to swing up into Tennessee, and we've got Marlise Parent on the call this week. She going to be talking about her four-year-old Appaloosa. Marlise, welcome to the Equinety podcast.
Marlise Parent:
Hey John, I'm really glad to be here.
John Dowdy:
Great, well we're happy to have you, and let's jump right into this. I saw you commenting on some of our ads on Facebook, on some of the ads that we have going. So I reached out to you because I thought your story with your horse was pretty darn interesting, and could benefit anybody that might be going through the same thing. So tell us a little bit about how you acquired this Appaloosa, and what was going on when you brought him to your place.
Marlise Parent:
I'm more than happy to. I purchased him in March this year, and he was delivered to me ... from Iowa. Back in that time, they had a minus 60 degrees temperatures. It was really cold, and he walked off the floats with three blankets really bundled up. At that time in Tennessee, we were already at 65 degrees. So when he came off, he experienced not only extreme climate change, but everything else that came with it. A new owner, a new pasture, a new stable, pretty much everything around him changed. And I do believe he had a little culture shock, I would say I would call it for us humans when we move.
John Dowdy:
All right. Yeah, absolutely. So what was his previous life like?
Marlise Parent:
Well, he was a stable horse. He was stabled at night. During the day, I think they did turn him out into the pasture, but he was very well taken care of. He was a halter horse, he was a show horse, and he was babied. He still is to an extent, but in his new home, he's allowed to be more of a horse than anything else. He's a trail horse now and just ... living the good life, I hope.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Hey, that's what they need. Right? So, what did you start noticing going on? And I think you as we were previously talking around a five or six months, you are kind of having some issues and noticed some weight loss going on.
Marlise Parent:
Exactly. I do believe the biggest problem was the diet change that he had ... and he was a show horse. They had him on a very specific diet. They bucket-fed him most of the times as he was stabled, and when he came here, he turned out into the pasture and that was pretty much it. I noticed he started losing a lot of weight because vegetation over here obviously is different as well. So, when I started worrying about his weight, I started looking up online things and at one point, Equinety popped up on my news feed on Facebook.
I started looking at the pictures, I started looking at the reviews, did some more research online about it, and I figured, well, there's not much I can do wrong. If it helps, great. If not, I guess I'm just going to have to look for something else or something more to help him ... on not only the weight loss, but also an extreme case of rain rot that he acquired because he wasn't shedding after he moved from that cold environment to the relatively early, hot environment over here. So I ordered the product, and I gave it a shot.
John Dowdy:
Yes, and in addition, to that, you, his hooves were also pretty brittle too, weren't they?
Marlise Parent:
Yes, they were fairly soft. He's got four white hooves, and they were soft and my farrier office said try to put some oil on it and treat it, and there was this and that and the other. But once I put him on the Equinety, it just, it just literally fixed all the issues that I had with him within a fairly good amount of time too.
John Dowdy:
Yep.
Marlise Parent:
His rain rot went away within, I don't, don't even lie, within about four weeks.
John Dowdy:
Yeah.
Marlise Parent:
It is a pretty straining process if you, you don't cut them down, and you've got to scrape everything off, and it's kind of a pain. But it took care of that within a short amount of time. His hooves got way harder, more solid. His fur turned into absolutely beautiful, shiny and he's, since he's an Appaloosa, he's a, what we call a snow-cap. So he's brown up-front, and he's got a white rear end.
John Dowdy:
Oh.
Marlise Parent:
And it was amazing. Like his fur ... was beautiful during the summer, minus the minor mud flaps that we had.
John Dowdy:
Right, right. Yeah. Now, and what did your farrier think about the quality of the hooves after being on the Equinety for what? What'd you say? Four to six weeks by that time?
Marlise Parent:
Yeah, something like that. And he, he loved it. I actually got him to purchase it.
John Dowdy:
Oh nice.
Marlise Parent:
Yeah, he absolutely loves it. He's never seen a change in, in hooves that quickly. And it's, it even helps. I have a friend, she's got her horse standing there too, and she had an abscess. So my friend was using the Equinety on her mare for a couple weeks, and the abscess just, it just disappeared so quickly. She stopped limping and starts walking properly again. So I mean it's a miracle product to be honest.
John Dowdy:
Well.
Marlise Parent:
I don't talk like that about a lot of things.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Well I tell you what, we have heard, I tell people it's not a miracle supplement, but it sure does some miraculous things.
Marlise Parent:
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
And for those tuning in for the first time, what this product is, it's 100% pure amino acids. There's no fillers, no sugars, no starches, there's no loading dose. Serving size is 5.2 grams, so not quite a tablespoon. But the amino acids are specifically formulated to give the body what it needs to stimulate the pituitary gland, which releases the necessary hormones, which help heal the body at a cellular level. So in what we're talking about here, rain rot, brutal hooves, the coat ended up being a lot softer shiny. And how about the, with the weight loss that was going on, and you even tried to mimic the diet that he previously had, but what's happened with weight gain and things like that now that it's been, well since May of this year, so about eight months total that we've been on this. How, how's he doing now? Weight gain, looking, feeling, demeanor, all that kind of stuff.
Marlise Parent:
Oh, he's doing absolutely amazing. He's gained some great winter weight. I like him a little chunkier during the winter, since there's not much out there to eat. And we kind of have to supplement with a whole bunch of other stuff. He is happy. He's finally kind of included himself into the band where he was rather a loner in the beginning. So that's a great thing. And what I noticed too, in the beginning, he had, he's kind of accident prone.
John Dowdy:
Need to be bubble wrapped, does he?
Marlise Parent:
Yes, yes. I was thinking that. I actually saw somebody wrapping their horse in bubbles. Yes, he's one of those. His scratches and all that, that he kind of obtained throughout the days, heal very, very quickly. I technically don't even need an external ointment for them anymore. It just takes a day for it to just close up, and it's amazing. I, I don't know what else to say.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, well and that goes to show the healing process, and I in all the phone calls and emails and feedback that we receive, I would say in every single scenario where we're talking about an injured horse and whether it be cuts, scrapes or you get into tears, even with ligaments and tendons and deep flexor tendons and muscles and things, when they're using the Equinety, they have seemed to always heal ahead of schedule in whatever that schedule is. As long as they don't re-injure themselves, obviously. But in those scenarios, they always do heal ahead of schedule, so which is great.
Marlise Parent:
Agreed.
John Dowdy:
So yeah, absolutely. So he is now just a loving life.
Marlise Parent:
Yes, yes he is. He's out in the pasture and probably today getting wet because it's raining. But I'm pretty sure that the rain rot is going to stay away.
John Dowdy:
That's great. Yeah. Now, I'll, I'll ask you this question cause you've been around horses for many, many, many years and you know, somebody tuning into this and maybe they're bringing a horse into a new environment, like what you've done and you know, they're thinking, well of course a horse is going to acclimate over, eight months or seven months or whatever. I mean what other option do they have? But you know, with your opinion, based on your experience, do you feel that by adding the Equinety product helps speed up that process, or I mean what's your opinion on that or your thoughts?
Marlise Parent:
I definitely do think that it helps. Like I said, he went from being completely bucket-fed on the bucket fed diet with a whole bunch of different supplements and oils and grains and things like that to a pasture-only horse and diets. So ... I do believe it definitely helped him acclimate to that new diet. I did feed him a little bit of weight gainer as well because he lost rapidly. He lost about 200 pounds in the first three months, which was extreme.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Marlise Parent: And that's on the summer pasture. So with the little bit of weight gainer and the Equinety, he just bounced back within about three and a half, four months, all the weight loss that he had. So I'm, I'm definitely saying that it was a big part of him adjusting quicker and his intestinal system to adjust better to the new diet that he's going to live on.
John Dowdy:
Right. Yeah. And I think it's important for people to know too. I mean it's, it's not like, hey this is a miracle thing, you just add this and it fixes everything. I mean you are doing everything that you felt like you needed to do on your side, and this just enhanced and sped up a lot of things that you were already doing. So I think that's important as well. Now for anybody that's tuning in for the first time, that might be a little skeptical about this whole Equinety thing. What was, and you may have mentioned this earlier, but what was your take? How skeptical were you, and what advice would you give to them to go ahead and give the product to try?
Marlise Parent:
I was very skeptical because there's so many products out there that everybody is trying to sell. They're trying to make money, which is kind of understandable, but every horse owner has the worry is what I'm giving my horse the right thing for my horse? Is it going to not just improve it? Is it, could it possibly be hurtful? You never know. So I, I definitely was very skeptical. The price kind of, in the beginning took me back too, but thinking about that one little case lasts for three months, because the portion is really itty bitty, and when I got that little scoop out, I was like, okay, well that's not too bad.
John Dowdy:
Yeah. Yeah. A little, I know you're like this little tiny scoop does everything? Yeah.
Marlise Parent:
Yep. And it, it definitely does. It's, it's very surprising and very convincing. Definitely convincing.
John Dowdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Yeah, and for as quickly as it works, I mean, that surprises a lot of people as well. This product actually does start working in 24 hours. It's just a matter of how quickly you can begin to see the changes, so yeah.
Marlise Parent:
Yeah.
John Dowdy:
Yeah, so.
Marlise Parent:
I mean, I've, I've seen from him going from adult coat because of the rain rot and everything that he went through, and I think he was also stressed. Obviously, the change new people, different horses, you had to be outside, it was, it was definitely stressful, and I do believe it did help him as well with his stressing and anxiety to manage that as well.
John Dowdy:
Right.
Marlise Parent:
He became quite fast, really mellow and enjoyed actually even being by himself. He, it didn't bother him, being by himself, and so I'm really grateful for the product. I'm definitely a lifelong member now.
John Dowdy:
Great. Well we're glad to have you on board, and especially to share your story here. We appreciate it. Marlise Parent out of Tennessee. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story here on the Equinety podcast.
Marlise Parent:
You're very welcome. It was great talking to you.
John Dowdy:
All right. Thank you. Bye, bye.
Marlise Parent:
Bye.