I've been witness to a lot of equine chiropractic adjustments, and it's a treatment modality that I'm utilizing more often now. I used chiropractic myself as a teen and into my early 20s. During that time, I was doing multiple sports, growing, and working part time, and periodic chiropractic adjustments were a lifesaver back then. So it wasn't much of a leap for me to choose to use chiropractic care for my horses once good, credentialed equine chiropractors became affordable in my area.
Just this past Saturday morning, I had my 5 year old mare, Briar-Rose adjusted. It had only been about three months since the last time she was done, but she had shown signs of being sore and she's been in moderately heavy work. Because her feet aren't the best, in spite of my excellent farrier's best efforts (Jesse Coker, for those in the Orange County, CA area), she had gotten sore in the front of her shoulder/base of her neck. Even though she'd shown no signs of being lame in her legs or feet, the chronic issues with her hoof angles had caused her to be sore much further up - which is a good reminder to take a holistic approach to horse care.
I have to say that I had never seen such an instantaneous and dramatic change in a horse in response to chiropractic work as I did in Rose this past Saturday. It was Dr. Don Moore who came out to work on her, and as soon as I pulled her from the stall he could tell where she was having problems. He gently pressed on the front of her shoulder, squeezing the muscles lightly. Rose trembled as if besieged by flies and pinned her ears. After the very first adjustment to her neck, Dr. Don touched her there again and Rose showed no reaction to the touch at all. He then did the same on her other side. Dr. Don also did a range of motion test for Rose's front legs, and after a few more adjustments, her range of motion was greatly improved. And though Rose has always been sensitive to being curried and brushed, after Dr. Don's adjustment of her wither and upper back area, he encouraged me to take a rubber curry to her, and she showed none of her usual reaction - no flinching or tail swishing. It was such a clear and obvious change in Rose that I dearly wish I'd gotten it on camera.
Not all horses will show these kinds of dramatic improvements, and not all horses need regular or semi-regular maintenance adjustments - but so often our horses put up with physical discomfort of various kinds. And those discomforts don't always manifest in the way you'd expect. And because animals don't suffer from the Placebo Effect, if they act more comfortable, move sounder, and generally seem like they feel better - that evidence is hard to ignore.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Woodrow
The first time I saw Woodrow, I mistook him for a mare.
I was about 15 years old, and still reeling from the loss of my beloved lease horse about six months prior. Losing Rocky was also the loss of my horsey support system; once he passed I found that it hurt to even think of returning to the barn. But I'd had a year long apprenticeship with the barn's manager/trainer - working rescued horses and turning up boarder's horses under his tutelage and in exchange for lessons. I'd even started teaching group lessons for the barn in trade for my lease. And so after all that had ended, I drifted for awhile - depressed and horseless but for the ancient TB gelding I fed mush to 4x a day as part of my FFA class duties.
Then I got hired on to teach riding lessons to young kids at my high school's FFA farm after school, and that blossomed into taking care of and exercising all of the horses several times a week.
It was a bleak Friday morning in midwinter, cold and damp. I was bundled up in the way that only Southern California kids do when "real weather" strikes. I didn't drive yet, and my mom had dropped me off a bit later than usual, so I was in a hurry to feed the horses and climb the steep 75 steps up to the main campus before the first bell rang.
My wellies, hastily pulled on and a size too big, squelched in the mud as I stomped up to the corral. A new face was hung over the white vinyl fence. A shaggy chestnut face with a slightly off-center star and a thin white stripe and perky ears. My boss, a lady in her 30s who oversaw the riding program at the time, had mentioned that we might be getting a new horse, but hadn't said when, only, "I think it was a rope horse or something." Back then, we didn't have much of a selection process for acquiring school horses. If it was free and mostly sound, mostly sane, and at least partly broke - she took it.
"Hi girl," I said, assuming that the horse under all the crusted mud was a mare, and giving the cute star a rub. Since I hadn't gotten any special instructions, I fed them and went over to look the new horse over, my worry over earning a tardy to first period taking a back seat to curiosity.
Almost immediately I noticed that the "mare" was, in fact, a gelding. He was on the skinny side, his ribs showing even though the winter coat. He had little quarter horse feet on a big boned, square frame, and the beginnings of a swayback. He must only have arrived the night before, but he had already set himself up as the boss of the herd and all without leaving a scratch on any of the others. I patted his shoulder and resolved to call my boss after school to find out his name.
Little did I know as I slipped out between fence slats and slogged up to class that Woody would end up being my best friend, partner, confidant and psychologist for over a decade.
I was about 15 years old, and still reeling from the loss of my beloved lease horse about six months prior. Losing Rocky was also the loss of my horsey support system; once he passed I found that it hurt to even think of returning to the barn. But I'd had a year long apprenticeship with the barn's manager/trainer - working rescued horses and turning up boarder's horses under his tutelage and in exchange for lessons. I'd even started teaching group lessons for the barn in trade for my lease. And so after all that had ended, I drifted for awhile - depressed and horseless but for the ancient TB gelding I fed mush to 4x a day as part of my FFA class duties.
Then I got hired on to teach riding lessons to young kids at my high school's FFA farm after school, and that blossomed into taking care of and exercising all of the horses several times a week.
It was a bleak Friday morning in midwinter, cold and damp. I was bundled up in the way that only Southern California kids do when "real weather" strikes. I didn't drive yet, and my mom had dropped me off a bit later than usual, so I was in a hurry to feed the horses and climb the steep 75 steps up to the main campus before the first bell rang.
My wellies, hastily pulled on and a size too big, squelched in the mud as I stomped up to the corral. A new face was hung over the white vinyl fence. A shaggy chestnut face with a slightly off-center star and a thin white stripe and perky ears. My boss, a lady in her 30s who oversaw the riding program at the time, had mentioned that we might be getting a new horse, but hadn't said when, only, "I think it was a rope horse or something." Back then, we didn't have much of a selection process for acquiring school horses. If it was free and mostly sound, mostly sane, and at least partly broke - she took it.
"Hi girl," I said, assuming that the horse under all the crusted mud was a mare, and giving the cute star a rub. Since I hadn't gotten any special instructions, I fed them and went over to look the new horse over, my worry over earning a tardy to first period taking a back seat to curiosity.
Almost immediately I noticed that the "mare" was, in fact, a gelding. He was on the skinny side, his ribs showing even though the winter coat. He had little quarter horse feet on a big boned, square frame, and the beginnings of a swayback. He must only have arrived the night before, but he had already set himself up as the boss of the herd and all without leaving a scratch on any of the others. I patted his shoulder and resolved to call my boss after school to find out his name.
Little did I know as I slipped out between fence slats and slogged up to class that Woody would end up being my best friend, partner, confidant and psychologist for over a decade.
Let's try this again
So I'm going to try my hand at blog-writing again. I think that the reason I've had trouble keeping up with one in the past has been the same reason that I'm struggling with the books I've been "working" on for the past year; I get overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the project and the responsibility I feel to the reader to present correct, well-documented information in an accessible format. On the other hand, my creative writing doesn't seem to suffer from the same writer's block because that's something that I can do in spurts and starts, and it's only for my own entertainment.
In any case, I'm going to make a commitment to myself to get into the swing of blogging again, in the hopes that doing so will help revv me up to do some real work on my bigger projects. So this will all be equine-related, but other than that, I make no promises.
In any case, I'm going to make a commitment to myself to get into the swing of blogging again, in the hopes that doing so will help revv me up to do some real work on my bigger projects. So this will all be equine-related, but other than that, I make no promises.
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