SARAH: "As the spring comes and horses
start to shed their winter coat, I thought of this question."
I wonder if it's going to be about Chapstick,
because that's the biggest problem
I have during shedding season, is when your horse's hair
sticks to your lips.
It's terrible.
She's not wondering that.
She's wondering, "Is it healthy to use a shedding blade
to get the winter coat off faster or is
it healthier to leave it alone and wait
until the horse will lose his winter coat by himself?"
That's really interesting.
I never thought about that.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I didn't either.
It was a very interesting question.
Healthy is one thing, but I think deshedding, or whatever,
is fun, because you get to buy--
SARAH: Yeah, I see that you brought lots of toys.
DR LYDIA GRAY: --all of these.
My new favorite-- have you tried these?
SARAH: I have not.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The HandsOn gloves.
SARAH: But I've heard all of the riders
at SmartPak talking about them.
DR LYDIA GRAY: They come in fun colors now.
And I think by the time this goes up, we might have some.
But they have these little nubbins on them
and different sizes and both hands.
So you can use both hands at once.
And horses love them, because you can take your finger
and get behind the ear and under the jaw
and in on the ankle, the fetlock.
So super fun.
SARAH: Feels like good for shedding season,
but also good for like after sweaty rides.
DR LYDIA GRAY: That and bathing.
You can soak these puppies up and have at it.
That's so fun.
For shedding though-- so let's answer her question.
And then, we'll get back to the toys.
But I think it's healthy to help the horse shed out,
because your currying the skin.
And any time you can massage the skin,
it's healthy, because it releases oils
and it gets rid of dead skin cells that
are maybe hanging on.
So that's a really good thing.
This is fun.
Have you tried one of these?
SARAH: I have not.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The Posture Prep?
Because it not only massages the skin and, because it's plastic,
it grabs onto the hairs really well and releases them.
But it's designed to penetrate deeper
and it uses a cross-hatching mechanism
on muscles and ligaments in the soft tissue.
So it gets deeper, even, than skin and hair.
And I love this and my horse loves it.
But these plastic ones pull the hair out really well.
So--
SARAH: But pull in not like a painful way.
DR LYDIA GRAY: No.
SARAH: Because the hair's already loose.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The hair's dead.
So it's a good idea to get rid of the dead hair.
It's going to fall out eventually.
So why not get rid of it and stimulate new hair growth,
stimulate oils, and sebum, production of healthy things.
That's what's going to produce a good shine on your coat.
So we've talked about-- this one is good for bathing,
as well as grooming.
I think it's called a Rubber Grooming Mitt.
It's got little nubbins.
This is fun, the SleekEZ.
It's got this metal edge here.
And you want to be careful when you use metal ones--
like this is just a regular Shedding Blade--
that you don't go across bony areas.
Like this is not for legs, hip bones,
like the point of the shoulder, the head.
SARAH: Well, you don't want to do that.
Not comfortable.
DR LYDIA GRAY: But where it's just skin over bone.
You want to go where there's some muscle or ligaments.
There's another curry.
A lot of people like this Slick 'N Easy horse grooming block,
because this pumice stone sort of grabs, in a nice way,
grabs onto hair.
So just lots of fun things here.
And I would encourage you to help your horse get rid
of that loose, already loose, almost falling out dead hair.
SARAH: Yeah.