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I spent the 4 th of July this year with my wife and friends in Denver. My wife, Linda, and I had attended the Cherry Creek Arts Festival during the day, which has become a part of our routine for the last four or five years, and were invited by our good friends, Janna and Alby Scudiere from Morgantown, to spend the evening with them, their daughter and son-in-law at a barbeque in a Denver suburb.  We had the usual fare of hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, barbeque and watched the fireworks shot off at a nearby country club.  It was a wonderful night. Being there and reflecting on the 4 th of July has taken me back to the time that I was a small boy.  I’ve always loved the holiday because it was a time when I was a child that my mom and dad, brothers, sisters, grandparents, cousins, nieces and nephews would all get together for a family picnic.  The picnics were either at Kanawha State Forrest or Coonskin Park in Charleston, W.Va. It seems that, back then, more families chose to attend outdoor picnics than today.  At any rate, it was great fun.  We would arrive at the picnic site around 10 a.m., build our own little fire to cook the hot dogs, have the old fashioned grills fired up for the hamburgers, and have plenty of soft drinks for the kids and beer for the adults.  Everybody participated in all of the games that we played, including softball, badminton, croquet and the like.  We normally wouldn’t leave the picnic grounds until the park closed. Those memories were great and I have happy memories, as many Americans of my age do, of spending the time not only with their parents and brothers and sisters, but all the extended members of the family.  It seems that even though we have the get-togethers today, it’s at someone’s home and not the large extended families that we had back then. I also remembered being very much aware from the time I was young as to the significance of the 4 th of July holiday.  It really was a very important holiday that caused us to remember the sacrifices that those brave Americans who went before us endured in breaking away from England and having the courage to put their lives and their property at risk to form a new nation that would stand for liberty and justice for all.  When you think back to the opposition that our American revolutionaries encountered, even with their fellow colonists, who didn’t necessarily agree with their revolutionary views about breaking away from England.  You will recall our predecessors went to war with little money, ammunition, and training against the most powerful Army and Navy in the world.  It’s mind boggling to think what our founding heroes were able to accomplish!  Every 4 th of July, I find time to pray for and to thank in my own way those people who went before us and who were willing to lay down their lives in order to create the United States of America. I was also, during this 4 th, able to watch the television show entitled Sons of Liberty, which I felt was a very well produced rendition of the struggles of the people that were actually involved in the early formation of our country.  I thought the documentary was very well done and instructive and in large part fairly accurate.  I recommend anyone that didn’t have the opportunity to watch this show to pull it up.  I think you’ll be glad that you did.

Baltimore is turning to the federal government for help in stemming a dramatic uptick in violence over the last several months. Ten federal agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service will embed with the police department's homicide unit for the next 60 days, city leaders announced Monday. They join the 20 ATF agents who were sent in last week to form BFED, a joint task force that "is the next step of an all-hands-on-deck movement addressing violence in our community," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday. There have been 191 killings (this year) in the city of Baltimore, that is completely unacceptable," said Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby. "The police can't do it alone. The state's attorney can't do it alone." ?To some, particularly Al Sharpton, this is a welcomed process.  Recall that in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray and the culminating Baltimore riots earlier this year, Mr. Sharpton demanded that the Justice Department to "take over policing in this country," and asserted "we're going to have to fight states' rights in terms of closing down police cases." Just recently, The Washington Post reported that so far this year, 24 unarmed black men have been shot and killed by police - one every nine days, according to a Washington Post database of fatal police shootings.  Those 24 cases constitute a surprisingly small fraction of the 585 people shot and killed by police through Friday evening, according to The Post database. Most of those killed were white or Hispanic, and the vast majority of victims of all races were armed. However, black men accounted for 40 percent of the 60 unarmed deaths, even though they make up just six percent of the U.S. population. The Post's analysis shows that black men were seven times more likely than white men to die by police gunfire while unarmed. Others are not so enthralled with the progressive efforts to commingle federal authority with powers regulated to the states. Opponents feel that the trend toward centralization of criminal justice authority in Washington is a trend toward a de facto national police force, an entity of unparalleled danger to civil liberty. Keep in mind all of the military hardware that is finding its way into the hands of state and local police. Again, these federal policing activities are in their infancy, and there may be communities that require federal resources to help make them safe and/or combat unethical behavior.  It remains to be seen whether these programs are designed to be permanent or temporary education and training systems to assist local and state governments to be more effective in curtailing crime in their respective areas.  We will keep watching these developments.

I was channel surfing a few days ago, noticing that I had hundreds of shows to choose from but, honestly, nothing that seemed worth watching.  For a moment or two, my mind swept back to simpler times… When I was growing up in the ‘70s there were only 12 television channels.  But don’t be deceived.  That didn’t mean you had 12 choices.  No, each of those channels was affiliated with one of the major networks--ABC, NBC or CBS.  Except for a small handful of local programs, like the local news, you watched whatever the “big three” networks offered.  Standing all by itself on Channel 10 was PBS, which offered a mix of children shows (Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers were the most popular ones), news and round tables, educational shows, and a few shows borrowed from British television.  That’s how I was introduced to Dr. Who--but, hey, that’s a story for another blog. If you were a ‘70’s kid, you lived for Saturday mornings.  That’s when cartoons ruled the airwaves.  That’s also the only time you knew your mom and dad would let you watch whatever you wanted for as long as you wanted.  I remember watching plenty of Looney Tunes.  I was also a big fan of Scooby Doo (and, to tell the truth, I still am).  Sure, you had to sit through a bunch of commercials trying to sell every imaginable kind of toy and breakfast cereal.  But Saturday mornings belonged to kids, and it was our patriotic duty to soak up every minute of what was offered--commercials and all. Today it seems like we’re saturated by sports shows.  Believe me, things were different in the ‘70s.  By and large, sports were limited to the weekends.  College games were played on Saturdays and professional games were played on Sundays.  Unfortunately, the pickings were very, very slim.  Each network had its own lineup--usually showcasing ranked teams or teams from one of the power conferences.  As a Mountaineer fan, that meant I usually found myself following the games on the radio.  As it turns out, this ended up forging one of my favorite childhood memories.  My dad and I would score the basketball games together, making our own charts and keeping track of the baskets, free throws and fouls as we listened to the radio broadcast.  It turned out to be a great bonding time. I also remember that NBC had a block of murder mysteries that aired on Sunday evenings.  That’s where I first met Columbo, the frumpy detective who became a television icon and a lifelong favorite of mine.  Police and detective shows were also popular in the 70’s including Kojack, Cannon and Dragnet.  I’m surprised I didn’t become a cop, but my mom swears it was actually Perry Mason who set the course for my career.  Maybe she’s right! It must have been around ’76 that our cable company in Elkins finally expanded its channels, adding WGN to its cable package.  WGN was one of the country’s first superstations, broadcasting from Chicago, Illinois.  With my teenage mindset, there was only one thing about WGN that caught my eye--baseball.  WGN covered all of the Cubs baseball games.  The owner of the Cubs believed that baseball was meant to be played in the daylight, and he refused to install any lights at the ball field.  As a result, I could watch the Cubs play almost every single afternoon throughout the summer.  I was always a Pirates fan, but many of their games were blacked out.  I was happy to have another team that I could root for. I didn’t realize it at the time, but WGN also helped to expand my horizons.  For one thing, it had programming that was aimed at Chicago’s large Hispanic community.  Because I took Spanish in college, it was fun to watch these shows and try my best to follow the dialogue.  WGN also opened my eyes to a larger world.  Throughout my childhood, I don’t ever remember traveling outside of the tri-state area.  Seeing Chicago through the eyes of WGN gave me a small taste of what the rest of the country was like.  There were people in faraway places with different customs, languages and ways of life, but we were all Americans.  I suspect this sounds strange to those of you who have grown up in the Internet age.  But without smartphones, computers or 24-hour news cycles, the world seemed like a smaller place.  Until WGN came along it seemed like the world ended at Pittsburgh.  For the first time, I could see that there was much, much more.  And that, you see, was the power of television…

The answer is the only protection that children and their parents have to protect children from unsafe toys is the American lawyer working through the Civil Justice System. Most parents are aware of many of the problems that are readily apparent to children such as choking hazards, lead hazards, small items, such as children’s jewelry, toys that can easily be pulled apart, playpens that can trap and choke children, etc.  The American Association of Justice compiled information detailing more than a few of these issues that I would like to share with you. Did you know that 196 children died from choking on toy parts, small balls and balloons!?  And choking hazards were the leading cause of toy recalls in 2009 and up.  Yet the millions of recalled toys may just be the tip of the iceberg.  Many, many toys still on the shelves barely meet government standards for small pieces.  The most problematic objects are narrow in shape, such as toy nails or darts, because they can easily cause suffocation.  Something that you may not know is that over the last several years, toy manufacturers have increasingly used small powerful magnets creating a new category of deadly toys.  These magnets can come loose and be swallowed by small children.  Unlike other small objects, which are often passed through the body, magnets pose a unique risk.  If two or more magnets are swallowed they can attract each other through the intestinal walls.  This can result in pinched, blocked or twisted intestines.  The effect is fast and devastating.  Magnets quickly erode through the intestinal wall spilling bacteria into the body.  Serious infections, blood poisoning and death may result.  This information should be supplied by doctors, nurseries, hospitals, etc., to parents with newborns.  Unfortunately, I do not know of a case where that is done.  Therefore, I congratulate the American Association of Justice for bringing this problem to the attention of trial lawyers and by this blog hopefully to many more. Another area that may not come to the average person’s mind is children’s jewelry.  The American Association of Justice recently advised that children’s jewelry is more likely to contain lead or other toxic metals than many other toys.  Even after 18 million pieces of children’s jewelry were recalled between 2005 and 2007, tests still found that 20 percent of children’s jewelry contain unsafe levels of lead.  And the danger was not over once manufactures stopped using lead, as many began to use the carcinogenic metal Cadmium as a replacement.  Unfortunately too, most of the recalled items were never actually returned—meaning toxic jewelry remains on the children’s dressers. All in all as a parent we need to be aware of these problems and others such as lead contamination with respect to paint on walls.  The long and short of all of this is that a lot of children in this country are being treated in U.S. emergency rooms for toy-related injuries every single year.  As a matter of fact, injuries from scooters, choking, and lead contamination are often in the news, but beyond the headlines, lie even more serious dangers including asbestos and other toxins. The moral of this is to be cautious about what you allow your child to play with.

You would think as we grow older and have jobs out in the big bad world that the acts of bullying behavior would stop, right? Wrong. Bullies are not only the kids out on the playground and in our schools who push children around, call them names, steal their lunch money, talk badly about others and say things that can make a child feel like there is really something wrong with them. They also try to get others in their social group to do the same.  All it takes is one child to make another child’s life miserable. Well, I’m here to tell you that bullies just don’t exist on the playground anymore. They are everywhere like in our workplaces and on social media. I’ve been down the road of being bullied. As a child I was overweight.  Yes, I’m still overweight and yes, people still say mean things to me about my weight, but you would think that as adults we wouldn’t treat each other like this anymore. Hearing about bullying in the workplace bothers me to no end. It makes me ill and upsets me very much.  No one should ever have to go through something like this just because of one or a few people.  For crying out loud, we as adults should know what’s on the inside of a person is what counts, not what the person looks like on the outside.  God made all of us unique in our own way, shape and form.  God knows our hearts, our actions and God knows it’s just not our looks and body sizes that count. There are different types of bullying, like telling your teachers/bosses/co-workers on others because of something that you don’t like or telling others things to get someone in trouble. Some people who have been bullied can become bullies and not even realize it. It can be in their actions, how they treat others or even speaking in a  condescending tone to people.  Some bullies are what they call the Eddie Haskell kind (he is the character from the Leave it to Beaver TV show). He was always nice in front of teachers/parents/bosses, but boy oh boy, once they walked away his true colors came out. We all need to do our part to stop the bullying madness.  Whether it’s in our schools, on our streets, at our workplaces or on social media, it only takes one to make our children or adult lives miserable. Keep a look out for signs that someone you know and love is being bullied. It may be over a short period of time, but you need to watch for changes of behavior. Are they withdrawing from things they once loved to do? We need to be watchful especially with our pre-teens and teenagers. These can lead to deeper, darker and more harmful things. That’s a path I pray to God that none of us ever have to walk down. Bordas & Bordas is on a quest to stop bullying.  We have a program in our community that focuses on just that. The Bordas & Bordas Anti-Bullying Fighting for Justice Award recognizes seniors in the OVAC schools in Ohio, Marshall and Belmont counties who stand up for others. It’s a great program that recognizes our youth who try to stop these acts of cruelty.  If you know of a student who treats everyone equally, respects differences in others, stands up for those who are targeted or discriminated against and speaks out against injustice you can nominate them for the 2016 Anti-Bully Award. Nominations can be made by anyone in the community and are typically accepted in the spring. Winners receive a $500 cash award and tickets to a luxury suite at PNC Park for a Pittsburgh Pirates game. If you “Like” our Facebook page, you won’t miss the announcement or you can contact the firm for more information. The bullying stops with each and every one of us.  In the words of Will Smith, “Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.”  I keep this on my desk and read it every day at work and at home. Let’s all try to be nicer to each other, not because we have to, but because it’s the right thing to do. Rock on People, Rock On.

In other blogs I have addressed children’s issues, but on the other end of the spectrum, there are problems that are unique to our senior citizens with respect to chemical restraints, neglect, abuse, deaths, insurance denials, forced arbitration and scams. Many of you reading this are probably unaware that the use of chemical restraints—that is, drugs— used to subdue or restrain patients have increased dramatically in nursing homes over the last several years, even though most of these patients have no psychiatric diagnosis.  You see, it requires less time to attend to a nursing home resident who is almost passed out in their chair or asleep in their bed than an active nursing home resident.  Trial lawyers, like those at my firm, have not only helped get these patients off these stifling anti-psychotics but the American Justice System—the American lawyer—has also taken on the pharmaceutical giants that market these medicines to control our senior population. With respect to neglect, we’ve all heard stories of nursing home residents who suffered from inadequate care and who died all too early.  Stories of neglect are very common in American nursing homes!  As a matter of fact, over 14,000 nursing home patients die annually from malnutrition and dehydration alone.  In addition to that, it’s been reported, that roughly 160,000 nursing home residents had at least one pressure ulcer, yet only 35 percent of those with the most severe ulcers received special care for their wounds.  My firm has been very active in assisting nursing home patients and their loved ones in addressing this very critical issue.  As some of you know, these pressure sores can ultimately lead to wounds that are from the skin to the bone causing significant infection and sometimes leading to the resident’s death. My firm and many other trial lawyers throughout the country have for some time now been attempting to bring more attention to the very serious problems that exist in our nursing homes but, unfortunately, oftentimes our pleas for help from governmental agencies is ignored.  We are therefore left to try these cases to juries in hopes that substantial trial verdicts will cause the nursing homes and their insurance carriers to provide better care for our mothers and fathers. Another fact that might be surprising to some is that as many as 1.5 million seniors are abused every single year, many in nursing homes.  And that for every case of abuse that gets reported, many believe five more go unreported.  One reason for the underreporting may be that the nursing homes residents are afraid of the repercussions of reporting abuse to largely ineffectual regulatory authorities. It’s not bad enough that our senior citizens have to be placed in nursing homes with inadequate staffing and underpaid and under-skilled workers, oftentimes seniors and their families (who have faithfully paid their long-term care insurance premiums) have found their benefits cut just when they need them the most.  It seems that insurance companies calculate that few of their terminated insurance policyholders will ever complain and those who do will eventually die if they delay payment long enough.   We’ve tried a number of cases where insurance carriers through their failure to honor their contractual commitments, have been brought to justice in our local courts. And finally, we have all heard the stories of medical errors being committed in the entire population.  The unfortunate thing is that our seniors represent just 13 percent of the total population, but our moms and dads account for 34 percent of all adverse drug events.   Most of which are preventable.  In our civil justice system we try to insist that the nursing home facilities step up their patient safety systems so as to prevent the negligence connected with adverse drug events. The long and short of all of this is we must carefully research the facility our seniors are placed in and then be vigilant so as to limit the problems our seniors might otherwise encounter.

It’s that time of year again, time for the Mahrajan, a festival hosted annually at Oglebay’s Site 1 by Our Lady of Lebanon Church. This year, the festival will take place on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2015, beginning with a Maronite Catholic mass at 10:30, followed by food, music, games and various activities starting at noon and lasting throughout the afternoon.   I was at the church recently to go over some new procedures being implemented this year for the cashiers when I started flipping through the 2015 festival program.  My eyes went directly to my grandfather’s name in the Mahrajan Chairman’s Welcome and I immediately starting tearing up.  Although he has been gone from this earth nearly 25 years now, my grandfather is never far from my thoughts.  Some of my most cherished memories involve time spent with him in my grandparents’ kitchen helping him to make kibbee.  Although Our Lady of Lebanon is not my regular parish, I started helping at the Mahrajan shortly after I returned to Wheeling when I agreed to give one of my cousins a 15-minute “break” from his cashier duties and the rest is history.  I continue to help each year, however, in memory of my grandfather. In addition to advising that the proceeds of this year’s Mahrajan will assist in re-designing and improving the area adjacent to the church where a monument honoring the 11 Our Lady of Lebanon parishioners who gave their lives serving our country in World War II and the Korean War sits, the Chairman’s Welcome took time to recognize individual parishioners, including my grandfather, who served our armed forces in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.  That the proceeds of the Mahrajan will go toward honoring and preserving the history of the church and its parishioners is not something new.  In fact, the Mahrajan was initiated in effort to re-build the church after it had been destroyed by fire and to commemorate what has become known as the Miracle of Our Lady of Lebanon Church. On Dec. 19, 1932, a fire gutted the then10-year-old church.  At the time of the fire, a life-sized portrait of Mary, the Blessed Mother, with the Cedars of Lebanon in the design’s background, hung in the church above a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Lebanon.  The oil painting survived both the fire and a 25-foot drop to the ground unscathed.  Many of the firefighters who battled the fire attested to the miraculous preservation of the portrait.  One of the firefighters recounted his own experience leveling the main pressure hose at the portrait and the water, with all of its velocity, being diverted from the picture.  After the fire, the Blessed Mother appeared simultaneously in a dream to both the bishop and the pastor of Our Lady of Lebanon with the message that the portrait be hung above the main alter of the re-built church.  To this day, the portrait of Our Lady of Lebanon that survived the Dec. 19, 1932 fire, hangs just above the church’s tabernacle. In the words of Pastor Monsignor Bakhos Chidiac in his welcoming message to this year’s 82 nd Mahrajan: “Our Mahrajan is not about raising funds rather it is about keeping the tradition of our ancestors alive.  It is about building memories of ‘togetherness’ in the hearts of the new generation as we hand the torch to them and ask them to keep its flame alive and burning strong through the future years.” As I flip through the 2015 Mahrajan program, it is obvious from the pages and pages of memorial tributes to deceased family members, that Monsignor Chidiac’s welcoming words have captured the essence of the modern day Mahrajan.  As I looked through the list of volunteers during my recent visit to the church office, I saw many names I recognized, including some that I did not realize had any affiliation with Our Lady of Lebanon before reading through the memorial tributes to family members in the program. As we keep the tradition of the Mahrajan alive, I invite you to join us on Sunday Aug. 9, 2015 at Site 1 for an afternoon of food, music and memories.  Admission is free with food and beverages available for purchase. I will be there throughout the day next to a couple of my cousins acting as cashiers at the main food line where traditional foods such as kibbe, tabouli, stuffed grape leaves and shish kebab are served.  My aunt will join us at for a time and my mom and some of my other cousins will be at various other booths during the course of the day.  For those who prefer more “American” food, you have options, including hot dogs and ice cream to name a few.  There will also be a table with incredible pastries for sale.  I hope to see you there as we celebrate our heritage and the family members who came before us.

As some of you who are reading know, our law firm, for the first time, has a suite at the Pittsburgh Pirates games. As a result, we have been entertaining some of our family and friends and hope to be able to entertain a number of others in the very near future. Having a suite means that I have been able to attend five or six Pirates games during the course of the year while watching most of the other games on television.  What a joy it’s been to finally, in the last couple of years, watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play the way that they have played.  Can you believe they recently won games against the league-leading St. Louis Cardinals two nights in a row? Probably the two most exciting regular season games that I have ever seen. It was great. I didn’t think that we could ever have much more excitement than the Saturday night game when Andrew McCutchen blasted a pitch over the center field wall only to be outdone by the three-run outburst in the 10 th inning of the Sunday night game. I certainly hope there’s more like the Sunday night game.  As I dictate this, Andrew McCutchen hit a home run in the All Star Game and it seems like the beat goes on.  So, congratulations to all of you long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fans.  Perhaps this is the year that the We Are Family song will be revived and the Pirates not only will head to their first World Series since 1979, but also bring home the trophy to Pittsburgh.

Dear Jenn, Currently you are 16 years old, without a care in the world. Well news flash, please start being a tad more responsible when it comes to…basically everything, because the real world is not anything like mom and dad’s house. There are a few things I want you to realize now, and they will make your life so much easier in years to come. First lesson to learn, please stop trying to be friends with that girl who is consistently being mean to you...she is not worth your time. You already know at this point in life who your real friends are and trust me, you will meet many more when you go to college. Also, that boy on the football team has more than one girlfriend. Be more than a sister to your sisters. Believe it or not, they love you and want the best for you. Consider them your friends, because soon they will be giving you the most wonderful gifts in payments of little children, who now call you their aunt. Soon, that short walk down the hall to see what they are up too will become a text that reads, “gotta call you later, busy at the moment.” Oh, and while we are on the subject of family, please go hug mom and dad right now for all the things they have done for you. You don’t get it right now, but that moment you walk across stage at college graduation you will understand. STOP driving so fast and pay attention to the road. That bright red 2001 Chevy Cavalier does not look good with a silver hood, and yes dad will make you drive it like that as a punishment. Also, go look in your best friend’s back seat for your iPod you got last Christmas, so you can stop lying to mom. LISTEN CAREFULLY and please take those college visits seriously. It’s not about the size of the dorm or who else is going there. And while we are talking about college, start doing your homework on time and get your grades up. Your best friend is still the same and you will end up going to college together. There are going to be a lot of tears, laughs and memories trust me. When it’s game point against Hudson for District Semi-Finals, PLEASE do everything in your power to keep the ball in-bounds and swing line (their setter is leaving early every time). The real world is coming and don’t worry you will fail a few times, but I would say it all turns out just right. Try to stay young forever, Jennifer

Our office dogs, Barley & Guinness, along with their caregiver Jeanne, would like to remind you that the dog days of summer are here (again). The outside temperatures are way too hot to leave your animals outdoors without access to cool water and shade. These hot days are not only hard on us humans, they are hard on our four-legged family members, too.   It’s unreal that, to this day, people don’t understand that heat stroke or heat exhaustion can happen not only to people, but to our beloved pets if they are out in the heat for an extended period of time during these hot summer days. No dog should be chained outside 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Bait dogs that people use for dog fighting are treated terribly. Unfortunately, they are often tied up with no human contact and stay out in all types of weather.  Dog fighting is not a “SPORT”, it is a form of animal abuse and we all need to bring these two situations to the attention of our local animal shelters or local authorities if we spot them. Help stop animal abuse. Leaving your pet in your car with the windows rolled up or down is also a big “NO- NO” during hot weather.  Being in a car that is sitting outside, even in the shade, can be a death trap to our pets.  Please leave them at home if you’re out and about this summer.  Five minutes can be a life or death situation to our beloved pets if they are left in a car during a heat wave. So as a gently reminder, please make sure that if your pets have to be outside that they have plenty of cool water, as well as a place that they can get to so they can be  out of direct sun and get cooled down. Most importantly, try to bring them inside as much as possible to help cool them off. The new Tennessee law allows good samaritans to save pets from hot cars by breaking a window if needed.  West Virginia also has laws to protect animals, but it doesn’t have the Good Samaritan Act in place at this time that allows for the breaking of a window to help a get dog out of hot car in the heat of the summer.  West Virginia Code §61-8-19 addresses cruelty to animals, penalties and exclusions We also remind you to spay and neuter your pets, and as always adopt, don’t shop. Please check with your local animal shelter to see what animals are up for adoption. It will amaze you to see all the purebred and mixed breeds that come into our local shelters. You can help save an animal’s life by adopting. Bark on Bordas Dog Nation, Bark on.

A favorite pastime of mine, when I have the time, is riding my Quarter Horse “Sky”. There are a lot of things many people don’t realize that are vital to safety with horses.  A lot of the things I now know, I recently learned by owning a horse after many, many years of not having one. I learned from the lady where I had my horse stabled. When I owned horses on our family farm growing up, my basic mentality was “put a saddle on it, put a bit in its mouth, kick it to make it go and choke it to make it stop!”  Pretty basic thought process.  Little did I know, there was so much more to know about horses.  All horses have different personalities, traits and characteristics.  Just like each and every human.  Some are calm and carefree and others can be high-strung and anxious.  Sky can be a huge combination of calm, carefree, high-strung and anxious!  So I have many challenges that are exciting with her.  But, if you know your horse’s mentality, you can achieve a terrific relationship. One of the most important pieces of knowledge you can gain is accepting and respecting the fact that ANY horse can overpower you.  Certain situations and circumstances can alter the mood and temperament of the animal.  There are steps to take in maintaining and assuring you aren’t out of control of this 1,500 pound animal!  But you also need to be aware of when it’s best to walk away and surrender for the day. After all, horses, like humans, get moody and have bad days. Safety is the number one key for me.  When I was younger, I had no fear that I’d ever get thrown or hurt by a horse.  When I was probably 14 years old and throughout my high school years, me and my best friend from high school would saddle up her uncle’s horse and ride double from sun up to sun down through woods, hills, creeks, rocks…virtually anywhere we could get the animal to go.  We never thought of situations that would or could put us in harm’s way.  Now that I’m older (and not so brave), I have a lot more respect and knowledge of how numerous things can trigger a horse’s mood. With that said, one area to help with safety while riding a horse is to make sure your horse is “desensitized”.  This basically means helping your horse understand that unexplained or unexpected noises, situations or objects will not hurt them.  My horse, for instance, is pretty well desensitized.  She doesn’t startle easily.  I work with her to maintain this, and any horse owner should continually work on this area with their horse.  She can be the sweetest, calmest horse and then boom - a door slams or there’s an object she sees that she’s not familiar with and everything can change in an instant.  However, because I work to keep her desensitized, I am rarely in that type of situation with her.  But, if I hadn’t worked with her, that peaceful moment could turn to pure chaos and potential harm.  Helping a horse understand that the unexpected or unusual don’t always pose a threat is vital for everyone’s safety. Desensitizing Sky is takes a lot of ground work in a round pen or arena (I am not riding her but rather standing in an area with her and asking her to do things while holding onto a lead rope attached to her halter).  One training tool I have used is a hoola hoop that has beads through it.  I would shake it over her neck, under her stomach, through her legs and bounced it on all parts of her body.  If she acts afraid or reacts in a frightened way, I look away from her, keep a firm grip on my lead rope and basically force her to realize the hoola hoop is not going to harm her.  It’s amazing how quickly she calms down and understands.  Another tool I use is a good ‘ole Walmart plastic bag and a stick. I tie the bag to the end of the stick and shake it like crazy around her!  If she goes crazy, I keep ahold of her, look away and continually shake that stick until she sees it’s not going to hurt her.  I have also placed tarps on the ground and walked her over them.  The first time I ever did this, she bucked and ran like she’d been shot!  But consistency is the key.  I picked up the tarp, threw it over her back, shook it around her legs and over her head until, again, she realized it wasn’t going to hurt her.  Eventually, she calmed down and walked right over it.  Then I jumped in the saddle and made her walk on the tarp while riding her. Besides various noises, horses can be alarmed by objects and unusual sites, so I also practice walking her through narrow doorways, from areas that are light into dark (and vice versa), across rocks, bridges and areas that have shadows.  My horse is particularly funny when she sees a shadow or a little puddle of water.  She’s very apprehensive at times to approach them.  But because I have worked to assure her that odd and abnormal things will not hurt her, with a little comfort, petting and calm vocal reassurances, she walks through them instead of freaking out and potentially throwing me or jumping and hurting herself. There are numerous other methods to desensitize a horse, and it’s very important to do so to ensure you and the horse are safe.  You never know when a dog is going to unexpectedly run up and bark, someone will start a lawn mower or a door will be slammed.  If your horse isn’t desensitized to noises and sights, they can rare, buck, lose their footing and you and the horse can be seriously injured.  Although a hoola hoop, Walmart bag and tarp make somewhat different noises and look differently, it helps my horse understand the various noises and objects she encounters will not hurt her.  If I take her on a trail ride through the woods and a deer steps on a stick, the cracking noise won’t startle her because she’s accustomed to these types of sounds.  I literally have ridden her along the road and had someone coming up from behind us in a vehicle blow their horn as they passed us (please don’t ever do this if you encounter someone on the road riding a horse!)  Because of my consistency in working on desensitizing her with anything I can imagine up, she may raise her head or tilt an ear, but she’s usually unaffected. If I neglect to use these tactics for desensitizing my horse on a regular basis, I am only putting myself and her at risk every time I take her for a ride.