What a Difference a Day Makes

Well, the clinic with Narelle Stubbs from the Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center was a huge success! Narelle and her colleague, Nicole Rombach, were an outstanding team and brought a much-needed perspective to us horse owners on how to keep our horses strong and capable of taking on the demands of training. And for me, they provided a whole new approach on helping Elvis maximize the recovery from his injury.

They started the day with a talk on the work they are doing at the McPhail Center on gait analysis. Boy, do they have some fun toys! They are doing some amazing work there on sorting out how our equine partners are using their bodies to perform the tasks that we ask of them.

Narelle co-authored the book "Activate Your Horse's Core" with Dr. Hilary Clayton. She showed us how, in only once-a-day, five days a week sessions, one can improve the horse's strength, stability, and flexibility. If you don't have this book, you definitely should have it in your book collection. It comes with a DVD, too, that shows how to set up the exercises properly. I am doing many of them now with Elvis and am already seeing a difference. This sort of active rest, as she called it, is so important to help the horse get his whole body strong again (in my case) or improve the strength to take on the demands of training.

One of the most important facts I learned was that once a horse has injured himself, no matter how insignificantly, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around that area are changed forever. So, even if the pain is gone (no more outward signs of lameness), there is still underlying damage that needs to be corrected. And, in Elvis' case, since the injury was so traumatic, many of the actions of the muscle groups involved have been significantly inhibited and need to be "re-awakened" to get maximum recovery.

In order to do this re-awakening, Narelle and Nicole used several approaches. We did many of the stretching and core strengthening exercises that are explained in her book. I had already been doing some of these and so Elvis was more than happy to perform. She showed me some more exercises that are designed to strengthen his pelvis and all of those muscle groups. They are all fairly easy to do and not just for injured horses. She told us that they did studies at the McPhail Center to show that these exercises (if done correctly) can really help in developing core strength and stability to help our horses manage to rigors of training, just as it helps human athletes. Definitely get her book if you want to try these with your horse. The DVD is very helpful!

The most interesting approach for me was the use of kinesiology tape. This tape is what made me contact Narelle in the first place. When I broke my arm last year, my physical therapist used it on my incision to help get rid of the adhesions. And you may have seen it in the 2008 Summer Olympics because many athletes were sporting it, like Kerri Walsh of the US women's beach volleyball team.

I hadn't thought of it since last year but saw a big display of it in Sports Authority one day and made me wonder if it might help with Elvis. A couple of Google searches and some emails led me to Narelle and to her coming to Maryland to give the clinic.

After each application of the tape; some on his croup, some on his injured hock, and some following the muscle groups that connect the two, we all saw a noticeable difference in his gait. To refresh your memory, it's his left hock that has been injured. And there has been noticeable atrophy up on his croup because of the injury. The placement of the tape was designed to engage his proprioception of all of the tissues in his damaged leg, from the biceps femoris muscle in his croup all the way down to his hock. And it clearly did! To say that I was thrilled doesn't begin to describe how I felt as I watched him walk after each application.

I wish I could post the pictures but she has asked me not to since this is the sort of technique where you need experienced hands to get started. But, I can post some video of him walking without the tape so you can see how he's doing now. And, I will post more video as we progress with these new exercises and rehab techniques. I do have to mention that my husband, Rick, was wonderful and came to help so I could watch - I'm very lucky!

Any of you who have been through physical therapy to recover from an injury know that it is a progression of exercises designed to encourage the correct healing of the injured area. Now I feel that I have a whole new set of tools and exercises to help Elvis get as strong and as sound as he can. This opens up a whole new chapter on his recovery and I can't wait to see how it works out!

Mamma Said There'd Be Days Like This

We had a bit of a set back these past 5 weeks or so which was a bit of a bummer. Elvis needed to have his feet trimmed after we moved him but a new farrier got a bit over-zealous with his hoof knife and Elvis came up very foot sore the next day and stayed sore for just over 5 weeks. I had to keep a pair of Cavallo Simple boots on his front feet all the time just to keep him comfortable. And here's the problem. I was there, I told this guy not to take too much off, Elvis had enough problems with his hind end and I was willing to take a few trim cycles to get the angles right.

So what am I supposed to do? Call the guy and ask if he can come back and put all of those hoof trimmings back on? Sheesh. If anyone has any suggestions as to what a girl has to say to get her point across about her horse's feet, please let me know.

It was taking so long for Elvis to recover from this, I was starting to worry that his coffin bone had rotated or something crazier so I had the vet come out. She took x-rays which luckily showed that everything looked pretty good. She gave us some Equioxx pills to help with the inflammation and the pain. Here's a tip: these pills are for dogs but it's the same stuff and much cheaper than the paste!

Last week, a different farrier came out that did an incredible job correcting on one of Kim's horses so I had him take a look at Elvis. Steve took one look and quickly sorted out what needed to be done. He really took his time with Elvis and gave him a chance to rest his bad hind leg periodically. And he did a great job with Elvis' feet. I could tell the minute I walked him away. There was that familiar rhythm of his foot falls on the barn aisle and he kept it up as we walked outside, across the gravel drive and on to the grass. Yay!

So now we can finally get back to work and I got the go-ahead from my surgeon that I can get back in the saddle. It took me longer than I anticipated to get my strength back after my surgery. Power naps were an important part of my life for about 6 weeks. As my surgeon told me, there are only 5 small incisions on my stomach, but a lot happened underneath them. My body would let me know that on a regular basis...

I am so looking forward to sitting on Elvis again! It's been since late January since I've ridden him so I am keen to see how he feels. We'll start with long-reining again for a couple of weeks to get him back in shape and then put the saddle back on. Kim has also offered to let me get on some of her horses and hack them around the farm which will be a great way for me to get my riding legs back. I haven't sat on a Thoroughbred in a long time so it will be fun!

And, on Aug 28, Narelle Stubbs from the Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center will be coming to Leighton Farm for an interesting clinic. Narelle uses a physical therapist's approach to equine rehab and performance improvement. If you're interested in attending, go to www.leightonfarm.com and click on the events link for more details. I will post about how it went because of course Elvis will be one of the horses she will work on.

Gettin' Better All The Time

Well, we finally moved Elvis to another rehab facility closer to my house over the Memorial Day weekend. He is now in the very capable hands of Kim Clark and J.K. Adams at Leighton Farm in Upper Marlboro, MD. Kim and J.K. re-purpose Thoroughbreds who didn't make it at the track. Some of them need to be laid up for a bit before they can get back into training and others just need to be shown that there are other things in life besides going fast around an oval with a bunch of other horses. Kim and J.K. are skilled horsepeople and have seen and handled all types of horses. From Elvis' demeanor, I can tell he trusts these folks and the other horses tell the same tale. I'm so glad they had room for us!

It's a small place, much smaller than Fair Hill where Elvis was, but it is quiet and laid back and Elvis is settling in very nicely. He is going out in a larger round pen for at least 2 hours and usually longer. He introduced himself to his neighbor and they get along just fine. I think the extra turn-out time in a larger space has encouraged a bigger range of motion in his injured leg. When he first comes out of his stall, he's pretty stiff, but after a few yards of walking, his stride looks pretty even and he is landing flat-footed. No more toe first landing. His hock still looks big but nowhere near as big as it did a few months ago.

It's nice to have him closer so I can be more involved in his day-to-day physical therapy. Well, I should qualify that. Rick, my husband, has become more involved in his physical therapy lately. Earlier this month, I had to have major surgery and am just getting back on my feet. Without boring you with details, ladies, make sure you get your annual gyn check-up. There are real reasons for doing this. You neglect this easy "preventive maintenance" at your own risk.

So, Rick takes Elvis out and hand-grazes him for about 20 minutes and then walks him purposely around the farm for about 20 minutes. Elvis has a naturally long stride so we are trying to encourage him to keep that up. After his workout, we put ice on his hock and then hand-graze him for another 40 minutes or so. It's not quite as glamorous as the cold seawater spa at Fair Hill but it serves it's purpose. And Elvis certainly enjoys the extra grazing time.
We will start long-reining him soon and once I get the go-ahead from my surgeon, I hope to get back in the saddle. Chuck Arensberg, Elvis' vet up at Fair Hill, had told me that it would be fine to do that as long as I keep it slow and steady. Elvis seems happy to have a job again and I am happy to see him more often than just on the weekends. One more month down...

Going To Temple

After doing more work using clicker training to help connect with Elvis, we found more and more ways of entertaining ourselves and exploring our surroundings. It took a while but I finally realized that I needed to acknowledge his fears and anxieties and try and teach him to look to me to help him through difficult situations.

All of these interactions with Elvis made me appreciate how truly little I knew of how he perceived his universe. My friend Janalee told me about a great book she had read called "Animals in Translation" by Temple Grandin. To say that this changed my perspective is a huge understatement. Dr. Grandin is a high-functioning autistic who is on the faculty at Colorado State University. She has made a name for herself in the autistic community because she is one of the first autistic people to write down how she sees and experiences the world. She has also become an advocate of animal welfare because she believes that animals are more like autistic people. She wrote an interesting article explaining that fear is the primary emotion in prey animals, like horses and cattle. Her newest book, "Animals Make Us Human" gives a wonderful overview of which emotions are paramount in an animal's life dependent on if they are prey or predator species. If you haven't read any of her books and fancy yourself an animal person, you should get one straight away. "Animals in Translation" would be a great start.

The more I delved into this concept the more I understood about how horses in general, but Elvis in particular, interacted with their environment. Catherine Haddad wrote a wonderful article in Dressage Today last year about her horse Cadillac and his autistic tendencies. There are several articles on line about autism and horse behavior but one article in particular really hit home. It seems that there is a behavioral principle used with autistic people when they become distracted called the body parts drill. To help the person re-focus on the task at hand, the therapist will have the child point to different body parts. I unwittingly stumbled onto this technique with Elvis.

Janalee had shown me how to teach Elvis to target his ears, eyes, and nose when we were working on teaching him ground manners. This came in very handy when the vet came one day. I proudly showed off what we had learned but felt absolutely deflated when the vet said "Well, that's a cute trick but what purpose does it serve?" and proceeded to get ready to do a nerve block. Elvis was showing some lameness behind and she wanted to isolate the pain. We tried (very briefly) to put a twitch on him but that was unsuccessful. I asked if I could try to keep him still by having him target my fingers with his nose. She reluctantly agreed and I had Elvis focus on me by having him target first his eyes, then ears, then nose and kept him targeting his nose ( and clicking periodically) while the vet gave the injections into his stifle.

Elvis stood so still that she kept looking back at us wondering what I was doing. When it was over, she stood up and said "that was the easiest stifle block I have ever done!" "Well", I said, feeling vindicated, "I guess that's one purpose for the targeting."

Whenever he would start to get distracted or when I could tell he was starting to ramp up, I would have him target his body parts and make him move forward and back until I felt he was back with me. Then we could move on and it was as if nothing had happened. And I have found that if I forget about this technique, I pay the price in some way, however small. If I miss the cues and let him get too distracted or too nervous, it is virtually impossible to get him to completely calm down. The more I can do this on the ground, the easier it is to keep him focused on me when I'm in the saddle.

Lori Yearwood, of Skode's Horse Treats (which,by the way, are the best treats I have found) and I have had discussions about sensitive horses and their needs. We both feel that it is imperative to make sure that we leave our emotions at the door when we go to work with our horses. This may seem positively obvious but if your horse is of a sensitive nature himself, it's not fair to bring all of your baggage into the stall or the ring with you. There really isn't enough room...

And so, I find, that I must periodically re-read parts of Temple Grandin's books to remind me that Elvis' universe is much different from mine and that I need to respect those differences if we are to continue to communicate effectively.

Almost Home

I decided to leave Elvis at the Fair Hill therapy center for the month of April. I wanted to give him one more month under their watchful eye while he graduated to hand-walking and turn-out in the round pen. If something happened and his hock started to swell again, he could go back into the cold seawater spa straight away. And in fact, that happened twice. They aren't really sure why; maybe doing something in his stall or the increase in walk time, anyone's guess, really. The swelling wasn't bad but Bruce Jackson felt it best to get the swelling down quickly. ( Look who else has made good use of a cold seawater spa. Elvis is in good company!)

He is enjoying his time out in the round pen and gets to hang out with the other horses in the neighboring pens. The other day, all three of them decided to roll, practically in unison. It was fun to watch. "Hey, good idea! I'll join you!" And I was glad to see that he didn't struggle when he went to get up so the leg must be feeling better. He will rest that left hind, as you can see in the picture, but he is putting more and more weight on it and seems very comfortable in his stall and during his walks.

Tony, one of his favorite grooms, walked him for me the other day (the video is below). I haven't seen him walk in 2 weeks and was very pleased to see that his stride looks pretty normal. He seems to move just a tad short on that leg but I am really hoping that will improve once the walking time increases more and we can start long-reining him. So, one more month down, who knows how many more to go. I am checking out a rehab place that is closer to home and will probably move him sometime in May. It will be nice to have him closer and start doing the next steps of physical therapy myself. Hope I'm up to the task....

Where Do I Go From Here?

So here I am, the owner of a green-broke 10 year old Hanoverian whose first reaction to anything that he's unsure of is to spook first and ask questions later. And not just a hop sideways or planting his feet. This guy's flight response goes from zero to panic in a second, with not much in between. I'm beginning to think we didn't get such a deal...

After feeling sorry for myself and wondering what to do next, I get a call from my good friend Janalee Redmond. She is a very gifted horsewoman and I always welcome her advice. She invites me to her farm to watch her work a mare that she has in training that has some similar issues as Elvis. When Janalee first got this horse, the mare wouldn't stand still on the cross ties, the farrier said that he wouldn't come back to do her feet until she behaved herself, and was generally difficult to work around.

In the course of a few hours, Janalee showed me that what Elvis and I had was a failure to communicate. And we had to develop a language that made sense to both of us, not just me. She showed me how she controlled her mare through body language using all of the ground work skills that the natural horsemanship folks rely on. And, when she needed to teach the mare something new, she taught her through clicker training.

Many of you have probably heard of clicker training and I had seen it used in zoos to help the caretakers care for the animals. But I had never heard of it being used for horses. I was so inspired when I left her barn. The next few weeks were transformative for us. Between making him respect me as his new person and giving us a language to communicate through clicker training we made some real progress. He seemed so thrilled to get an indication of when he was doing something right and I was equally thrilled to find things to make him do.

The first order of business was to teach him to target. I used the lid off of a supplement bucket. Since horses always check things out by touching with their nose, this was an easy behavior to teach and he was a very quick study. Hold the lid right in front of his nose, touch, click, treat. Hold it farther away, or drop it on the floor, touch, click, treat. We went into the indoor and I could throw it like a frisbee and he would walk me over to it and put his nose on it to target. And he would always give me his lovely nicker every time he did it right. What fun!

We put this new behavior to the test one winter day after a light snowfall. The snow was melting and sliding off the roof of the barn and indoor. I hate that sound, it's sounds like a train is going through the barn. All of the horses were a bit bug-eyed from the noise when I got to the barn. No time like the present to see how well this new targeting behavior had been learned. When we first went into the indoor, Elvis got pretty tall and was jumping at every little sound. I started with targeting the lid very quickly and very close to his nose. He would target but was clearly waiting for the next scary snow slide. But, by the time we were done, we were walking all around the indoor arena targeting away. Elvis was so concentrated on where the lid was going next that he completely forgot about the snow. And so did I. Huge breakthrough for me, really. This stuff could be the trick...

But the biggest triumph for this approach came when it was time to get back in the saddle. A professional in the area had been recommended to me. A great rider who is quiet and good with green horses. I wanted Bernardo to get Elvis going for me. The rearing episodes had really backed me off (Hard to admit, but true. I realized I wasn't a young, fearless teenager anymore. Dammit.). I told Bernardo about this and he was willing to give it a try. The first time Bernardo got on, it went well until the first time he asked for a trot. Elvis stood on his hind legs within seconds. Bernardo looks at me a bit surprised and asks "Is this what you mean?" I nodded a weak yes and fully expected him to hop off, hand me the reins, and tell me that he wasn't so interested in helping me. He stuck it out but told me that it was going to be tricky to deal with.

The next day, I told Bernardo I wanted to try something different. I gave him a brief explanation of the clicker training I had been doing, got a very skeptical look, but told him I wanted to walk beside Elvis with Bernardo on his back. Every time I would stop, Elvis would stop, click, treat, with Bernardo giving the aids for a halt. We would walk off again with the aids coming from Bernardo, click, treat. Slowly, I began to move away from beside Elvis and Bernardo would ride around me as I walked up and down the middle of the arena. Bernardo took over the clicking, too. And the first time he asked for a trot, no rearing, no stopping, just a lovely transition that was rewarded with a click and a big pat on the neck. "It worked!" Bernardo said with a big grin. It made a believer out of both of us. And Elvis seemed so relieved that he finally understood what us crazy humans were asking of him.

Am I Ready

As I mentioned in my first post, Elvis has taken me down paths I'm not sure I would have explored in my quest for dressage knowledge. My husband and I first saw Elvis one hot summer day five years ago. It was pretty clear that he was very green which wouldn't be so unusual except that he was 9. He was pretty unstable in the bridle and pretty nervous. But, when he put it all together, he looked amazing.

The owners were asking way too much for what he was but there was clearly talent there. I didn't bother to get on because it was obvious that the horse was on his last nerve. I politely told the trainer to keep me posted on the horse's training because I liked what I saw. When we got back in the car and before I could make a comment, my husband said "Don't even think about that horse. He's for a professional." But, I replied, no professional is going to want him because he's too much of a project.

We kept looking and had 3 horses vetted that didn't pass but I kept thinking about this horse. Fast forward 4 months. It's Dec 30, I'm convinced I will never find another horse and am feeling pretty sorry for myself. I come home to a message from the trainer telling me that the horse is still available if I'm still looking. The owners want him sold by Dec 31 and will take any reasonable offer. OK, I'll play. No promises, but I will come and take another look.

To shorten the story, within 12 hours we bought the horse. At a very reasonable price. With no vetting, because the trainer was insistent that the purchase take place that day. The poor trainer didn't stand a chance against my husband, who negotiates with insurance companies all day long. He made a crazy-low offer stating that we didn't have to buy the horse, they had to sell him. And that the low offer was the amount we were willing to lose in case the horse didn't pass a vetting that we would do with our own vet later.

I know what your thinking. How many red flags did we need to see to walk away from this horse? The rational side of me couldn't agree more but I kept thinking of what it felt like to sit on all that power. And he had a sweetness to him that intrigued me. I kept him at the trainer's barn for the month so he could help me get to know the horse better. I mean, he just needs more training under his belt. How hard could this be? One day, when I was longeing Elvis, he was so electric that he was just exploding off his feet at the trot with his tail up over his back and kept wheeling around on the line. All I could think was "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

A good friend of mine, who is an equine massage therapist, offered to come and give him a massage while he was still at the trainer's barn. I was so excited to show off my new horse and see what she thought because she has worked on some really nice horses. So, I bring him out of his stall and she carefully and quietly starts to pat him and lightly work on him. "I'm having a little trouble getting into his muscles. He's pretty tight" she tells me. "I know!" I proudly say. "He's in such good shape that his muscles feel like you can bounce a quarter off off them". "Well, no. He's so tight because he's holding himself so much because of his nerves. It's like he's doing isometric exericises all the time" my friend tells me. Here is the first hint of what is in store for us.

At the end of the month, I took him back to the barn where I had boarded my previous horse and gave him a week to settle in. I would longe him lightly every day that first week and just let him get used to me and his new surroundings. It was during the second week that I realized that I indeed had a training project on my hands but not the one I had expected. I knew he was nervous and unsure of me but discovered that his reaction to any perceived pressure, a light leg aid, asking to go into the corner, flexing to the left, would result in either a stop or, much worse, a rear. Not my favorite thing to ride. Ah, I thought. There's the hole in his training....

After about the third time that this happened, I thought I had gotten myself in way over my head. He was so nervous and so quick and strong that I wasn't sure I was up to the task. And so began our exploration of different approaches to his training needs. This is still an ongoing process but I hope to chronicle in the next couple of posts what the past 4 years have taught us.