THE DISCOMFORT OF HORSES
THE DISCOMFORT OF HORSES
There was a time that I was ignorant of how I made a horse feel with my inconsistent handling, my inconsistent cues and my utter disrespect for how horses learn and how to introduce them to new ideas or new environments. Back them I spent a lot of money on vets, saddle fits, bits, physical therapies, potions, herbs and supplements trying to get to the bottom of my horses anxious behaviour. Back then I saw all anxiety issues a medical or pain issue.
But then as I discovered the horses mind, how they learn and more about how to modify and manipulate their behaviour. I learnt how to increase behaviours I wanted and decrease behaviours I didn’t. So I swung the opposite way……I disregarded my old beliefs and saw everything as a problem with the horses understanding or motivation to perform. So I turned into someone who saw all anxiety issues as a problem that resided in the mind of the horse, unless of course the pain or medical condition where overtly obvious.
But reality is both these beliefs are ignorant. Horses can feel discomfort from many different things such as:
– Physical discomfort and pain – medical problems, natural asymmetries in a horse’s body and biomechanics, wear and tear, fatigue, exhaustion etc.
– Emotion discomfort – from fear, an association of something or somewhere with pain or fear
– Mental anguish and discomfort – from frustration, confusion, irritation or from an inability to control or navigate random unpredictable cues or pressure applied at them or that they must endure
Today, I am getting better all the time at being able to identify a wide variety of discomforts that can be suffered by horses – I also vow that I will never stop growing my awareness of the reasons that sit behind a horses behaviour and how they might be helped.
I urge everyone to read this story of a beautiful warmblood mare called Sox ( https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1480669298684413&id=1310218172396194 ). Sox has a significant soundness issue that was undetected for a long time because it is soundness issue that doesn’t necessary make a horse appear “lame”. But what I noticed Sox didn’t do was learn normally. When I put her through a simple learning task, where I carefully controlled cues, pressure and consequences, her response to the cue was very hit and miss and constantly required me to back up my cue (my ask) with an escalation of pressure. I therefore knew that there was something interfering with her motivation to identify that performing the behaviour I was asking for (to go forward and perform an upward transition) was “easier” than not moving forward and being met by escalating pressure. There was a glitch and the glitch was discovered to be a malformation in her neck vertebrae that made moving uncomfortable.
Horses do actually talk, they talk in their movement, their behaviour and their learning and many things can impact this from the way you are attempting to communicate to them, to the way their body feels, to the way their tack feels and the way you sit on them….so don’t stop listening to them because with skills and awareness we can hear them and when we can hear them we can help them.
Katrin Kuenstler - Building the Core for a Better Ride
December 4, 2017 ·
I am not a big blogger.
However, I wanted to tell you the story about my young mare 'Sox" as I hope this will raise awareness about a condition that is not yet very well-known, but that more horses suffer from than you might think.
Please also feel free to share it with all the people you think might find it of interest. As more awareness will be raised, more horses can be helped 😌
SORTING SOX
Soxy came to me as a very sweet, very talented, yet very immature rising 4 year old Oldenburger mare in October 2014. I don’t believe in rushing the training of young horses, rather am an advocate of building them up slowly and steady and thus I really took my time with her education.
However, in the 3 years I have had her under saddle, she only advanced very slowly and I kept having the feeling of treading on the spot and not getting forward much at all. I also kept wondering why she didn’t seem to develop more musculature over her back and neck, especially given that I did everything every vet or physio would recommend: hill work, pole work, in hand straightness training, lots of long and low, etc. I put it down to her being young and – being a WB - taking longer to mature than others.
This year (2017), however, her once very nice athletic movements appeared to get continuously worse rather than better! And in the same ratio her behaviour got worse. Her stress signs whilst tacking up and under saddle increased slowly, but surely and the jaw clenching, ears pinning, tail wringing, etc. got more. She was very cranky in the paddock and although never actually biting or kicking she threatened to do so whilst being caught or rugged, brushed and saddled. She was very reluctant to go forward and dragged her hind legs over the ground wherever she went and in her ridden work.
Although she had regular saddle fits and massages and I fed her anti-inflammatory supplements, Sox was always very sore in her whole back and through her glutes.
I could not get rid of the feeling deep down that something was not right with my mare, but I couldn’t pin it down.
I had her looked at by a lot of people in different fields from vets and body workers to alternative therapists and no one was able to pinpoint the problem. I, of course, got progressively more frustrated and as there didn’t seem to be a physical cause for her behavior, put it down to Sox just being a difficult horse who “didn’t want to play or perform”. Once again I drew upon the expertise of my good friend Shelley Appleton in working with “problem horses”. Shelley loves a good challenge when it comes to unpick horse’s minds and emotions and got right into working with Sox. After about four weeks of training that had progressed in snail tempo Shelley’s verdict was that Sox is “a lovely person” and actually does try, however is somewhat limited and she also thought that there was something not right with her. Soxy’s vet Dr Warwick Vale paid her a visit and was surprised how much the quality of her movements had deteriorated since he had seen her last about 15 months ago. I have to admit, this was not easy for me to take, especially when he asked what breed she was as rather than showing her beautiful natural uphill canter she now loped on the forehand like a quarter horse… Warwick suggested bringing her into the clinic to take some x-rays. When I did so a few days later, he and one of his fellow vets, Dr Anushka Chatuk (whose field of expertise is poor performance and lameness in sport horses), had a look at Sox and Anushka was the first person ever to state that to her “this horse seemed to have neck pain”! So after taking x-rays and a subsequent ultra-sound to confirm, a mild deformation of the C6 vertebra and inflammation in the C6/C7 joint was detected. Dr. Chatuk injected the joint with steroids in the hope that this would bring the inflammation in Sox’s neck down which I am happy to report – it has!
One of the many, many things, I have learnt in this quite trying process, is, that we have to give our horses the benefit of the doubt and do what we can to listen to them when they try to tell us that they are unhappy, in discomfort or pain. We are so quick in calling them “stubborn”, “lazy”, “arrogant”; I myself have called my horse every name under the sun. A horse can only express its distress by displaying bevaviour which we deem as “naughty”.
They have no other way to communicate it to us – they don’t speak human!
The second big point I wish to make is – trust your intuition! I had all kinds of propositions made to me from putting her into foal, putting her on Regumate, sending her to a professional trainer (preferably male), “sorting her out with a piece of poly pipe”, putting her down… No one knows your horse as well as you do. You live with them; they are part of your family. Learn to listen to them and don’t give up! I kept having the feeling that something was not right with Soxy.
So whilst her diagnosis naturally makes me feel sad, I am relieved to have found out what was going on. Now I can try to do whatever is in my power to help her...
