How to recognise if your horse is in Horses are prey animals therefore one of their species specific traits is to to hide their pain as much as possible. This is the complete opposite to humans, now that may sound obvious to some people but often I need to remind horse owners of it because they don’t understand why they’re not always seeing pain signs in their equine companion until it’s shown to them. It can be difficult for those who don’t have a good knowledge of the biomechanics of the horse and knowledge of how to physically evaluate them to detect whether they are in pain or not. In fact, it is quite common for me to come across horses who have ended up with chronic conditions because they’ve successfully masked their pain from their owners, sometimes for years. This is why part of what I do during equine acupuncture treatments is showing the owner how they can better evaluate if their horse has restricted movement and/or pain.
What are some common misconceptions about pain in horses? There are quite a few misconceptions about horses that I hear regularly including my horse is being stubborn, unwilling, needs more training, is being disrespectful or is a problem horse, when in reality and more often
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Many horses will still perform even with chronic pain issues which sometimes makes it even harder for people to recognise a problem especially when they’re still working it is assumed that there couldn’t be anything wrong with them but they won’t be performing at their best and if the issue is not addressed will only get worse over time and sometimes a lot harder to fix.
than not, pain or discomfort is the problem. Pain can induce changes in their behaviour and unfortunately this is often misunderstood as purely behavioural, without understanding the root cause. As an equine acupuncturist I have come across a variety of situations where a horse’s poor behaviour has been attributed to one of the above when in fact pain was the cause. One common misconception is around horses who are head shy. How many times have you heard ‘My horse is head shy he must have been hit around the head’? While in some instances this may be true, being head shy can also be an indicator of pain. Nearly every horse I have seen with this problem was a result of the horse having a painful poll and/or neck and when the pain is relieved their head shy behaviour is immediately resolved. Another very common misconception is if a horse has had a certain behaviour for years there’s the assumption that it really is purely behavioural, don’t underestimate the horse’s ability to hide pain for years leading to compensatory behaviours. A good example of this is girthiness. I hear people say ‘my horse has always been like that therefore it’s just his nature’. From the horses I’ve treated, I highly doubt it and would always lean toward it being a pain response which sometimes they’ve been trying to tell you for years. Chronic pain can be harder for the average person to detect than acute or traumatic pain because it’s hidden more easily. There needs to be a big paradigm shift in the way we approach this issue with horses. I believe pain should always be the first consideration if something doesn’t seem right. Often, at the first hint of trouble the horse is thought to need more training to fix whatever problem is going on, no doubt good quality training is imperative but there’s no point training a horse in pain and certainly no point getting more training when that wasn’t even the issue. Unfortunately pushing a horse through pain not only makes the pain issue worse but if it’s mistaken for a behavioural issue the horse then gets labelled as even more stubborn, unwilling, or even a problem horse that eventually becomes dangerous because they can’t cope with the pressure anymore.
What are some physical signs of pain in horses that an owner should look out for? Some obvious signs of pain in horses include tail swishing, head tossing, girthiness, bucking, rearing, kicking, biting, being resistant when trying to pick hooves up and generally being resistant. Although these can be caused from a myriad of reasons it’s amazing how common pain comes into the equation. ...continued page 14. SUMMER 2018
