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We give the Pet Remedy Natural Horse Calming Kit an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars.
Horses are by far one of the most beautiful, majestic, and intriguing animals out there. Even more fascinating is our relationship with them! But where many see confident and powerful animals with their riders, most don’t see the difficulties involved in getting them there. Horses are prey animals, making them easy to spook and nervous by default, with a fight-or-flight instinct that activates in split seconds.
If a horse has a great foundation and start to life, they can overcome these instincts and have full trust in their rider. Unfortunately, horses tend to change many hands throughout their lives, and not everyone is kind to them. This leads to animals that deal with anxiety, nervousness, and even hot-headedness.
Luckily, companies like Pet Remedy are out there looking for healthy and natural ways to calm our animals down. In the case of horses, we used the Pet Remedy Natural Horse Calming Kit on some rescued equines to help them settle into their new lives.
About Pet Remedy
Pet Remedy is a passionate company that aims to ensure your animal friends remain calm and happy in stressful or anxious situations. Having started in the United Kingdom, the company now ships its products worldwide to help relieve many species, from dogs and cats to horses and rabbits. The Pet Remedy team comprises of specialists in the field, providing their expertise!
With each product made up of natural ingredients, their solutions to an otherwise frustrating problem have no adverse side effects. Pet Remedy encourages the production of GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), a natural calming agent in all mammals, reptiles, and birds. When an animal becomes stressed, the various products at Pet Remedy trick the brain into producing GABA instead – encouraging the animal to become calm again.
The Pet Remedy Natural Horse Calming Kit isn’t just a theory either – this kit is backed by science. UCNL did a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on whether or not this kit can help reduce stress and anxiety-related indicators in horses prior to exercise – and it can! You can read all of the scientific data (for those curious) here.
Overview
The horse kit comes with a calming spray and calming wipes for our equine friends.
Pricing
The kit (which includes the calming spray and six calming wipes) is priced at £14.00 or $17.55 in USD. Refills on the spray cost £20.00 or $25 in USD for the large bottle and £7.50 or $10 in USD for the small bottle, and refills of the wipes (12 wipes) are at £7.50 or $10 in USD.
What to Expect
Pet Remedy promises an immediate calming response on its website. That is because the way the formula works is that the combination of herbs tricks the brain into producing gamma amino butyric acid, which is a calming agent.
In our experience (detailed further below), this actually did do the trick on the rescue horses!
Kit Contents
The kit includes a 75ml calming spray and six calming wipes.
Ingredients
Pet Remedy predominantly uses vetiver, valerian root, sweet basil, and clary sage in their formulas. All four of these herbs had been extensively studied and confirmed effective, as well as proven safe for use on animals.
Some of those ingredients have been known to have sedative effects, so Pet Remedy carefully formulates the amounts to ensure they are not sedative.
Ease of Use
I really cannot imagine a simpler kit to use.
For the calming wipes, simply use the wipes on your hands and pet the horse, or you can wipe directly on the horse’s muzzle, under the chin, or on the chest! The rescues actually really loved the wipe on their muzzle and nose and kept asking for more.
The spray is, well, a spray. It is rated to last for two to six hours and is sprayed near the horse.
Reviews of the Products We Received
1. Natural Calming Wipes
The Natural Calming Wipes are very self-explanatory in its use; just wipe on your hand or directly on your horse. It smells really sweet and herbal, and we found that the horses gravitate towards it as well! It felt very soft and gentle on the skin.
2. Natural Calming Spray
Like the calming wipes, the Natural Calming Spray is self-explanatory; just spray near the animal. Unlike a wipe, however, the spray can be a bit frightening to horses that aren’t used to a spraying experience. It doesn’t take long to acclimate them, especially since the bottle is small and non-threatening! The spray didn’t have a pungent scent and felt gentle.
Is the Natural Horse Calming Kit a Good Value?
Truth be told, with horses, anything that works is a good value – regardless of the price. These are very large and powerful animals; whatever keeps them calm is well worth it for everyone’s sake!
So much horse care is pricey, but luckily the Horse Calming Kit isn’t too expensive, so you don’t need to shell out an arm and a leg. For £14.00 or $17.55 in USD, you get both the spray and the wipes, with refills being around £7.50 or $10 in USD. Even if you need to refill the spray and wipes consistently every month, that’s £15 or $20 a month, leading to only £180 or $240 for the year!
FAQ
Is Pet Remedy a sedative?
Nope! Pet Remedy does not use sedation to calm your horse. If anything, the ingredients are actually specially adjusted in the amounts used to ensure it does not sedate.
How long does the kit last?
The kit comes with six wipes and a calming spray intended to be used in situations that cause your horse stress. How long the kit lasts depends on how frequently you need to use it. Refills are easily available.
Can you use this kit on other animals?
Yes! Both the spray and the wipes are formulated for all animals.
Our Experience With the Pet Remedy
For a little backstory here, the barn that I ride at is owned by an amazing equine rescuer and rehabilitator who takes in the “broken” horses no one wants and gives them a new life. This kit came in at just the right time, as several new horses had just been transported to the barn after their previous owner didn’t want them anymore (and subsequently neglected their care).
These horses were nervous, stressed, and unsure of their new surroundings (completely normal when ripped from the environment they once knew well). If the kit worked, it would benefit them as they get a fresh new start in life! If it didn’t, then other methods would be used to acclimate these sweet souls.
We started with the short and fluffy white gelding, who is anxious when taken out of his stall. The stall is his comfort during this big life change, and when tied up to a post or taken into the arena, he has an emotional meltdown – complete with kicking, stomping, and screaming. It doesn’t help that he lost one eye as well due to an infection going untreated.
He was very afraid of the spray despite the bottle being so small – which is very normal for a horse like this. Instead of spraying on him, we sprayed the tie pole he was going to be attached to. Although he still threw a tantrum immediately after being tied, he calmed down faster than in previous ties! Both the rehabber and I attribute that to the spray, as that’s the only condition that changed between the day before and the current day.
For the wipes, we tested these out on a gorgeous brown Arabian who came in, known for hot-headed behavior and being a little… crazy. He was immediately drawn to the wipes. From the first rub on the muzzle, he immediately settled down and enjoyed both the smell and the sensation. He even pushed his muzzle into the handler to ask for more!
He was not happy with the spray either, but I don’t consider this to be the fault of the spray; these are just horses with a lot of trust issues to work through. I use the spray on my dog and my parrot and have had no issues!
Over time, the white gelding definitely became a lot calmer and more conditioned to being out of his stall with the help of the calming kit! The wipes were introduced when it was safer to touch his head, and the response was very positive. For the Arabian, the wipes worked miracles, and he became much safer to work in the pens and arenas than before.
Conclusion
The kit has become an invaluable resource for the horses needing rehabbing and helped make their training and transition smoother for all involved. On this alone, I cannot recommend the Pet Remedy Horse Calming Kit enough.
If it worked this well on rehab horses, then I can only imagine how well it would work for well-adjusted horses that might need a little help in scenarios such as loading a trailer or dealing with holiday noises and dreaded fireworks.
It’s a great product and value all around!
