Strange behaviour.. any ideas/help please (Long) also in CR

charlie76

charlie76

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You may or may not know but last month I took my horse to a venue for dressage. In the warm up he became increasling agitated, head shaking, pawing the floor and twitching like something was annoying him. I checked him all over and there was nothing. If I kept moving he was fine but the moment I stopped he was upset by something. The next day he still was a bit twitching and ended up rubbing his face on a fence and this resulted in him slicing his face open! The vet stitched him up and he went away, the horse got worse, sweating, scraping, head tossing ect , in end result being him ending up at the vets for 4 days and having scans and xrays of his head to see if he had a neuroligal problem. Whilst at the vets it went away and he came home, the tests showed no problems in his brain.
They also washed his ears out.
Fast forward three weeks, horse has been going well at home so we took him to dressage again at the same venue as before and he started it AGAIN! not as bad this time but was def upset by something. Luckily it only lasted whilst he was at the dressage and then he was fine the next day.
He has been fine ever since.
Until last night where I decided to jump him. He started doing it again, flicking his head as is he has something in his ears and getting twitchy and uptight. I ignored him and carried on and it got less but he was still irritated by something. I don't jump him often and he was pretty excited about it.
When I got off there was a little bit of his mane caught under his head piece and when I compete he is plaited- could the tightness of this ( caught hair/plaits) really be causing him to get that upset? But that doesn't explain it carrying on the next day after the first episode?
My other thought that its excitement/nervousness/excitement casuing it.
This is what he did when he had the first episode:
picoseye.jpg


In between these episodes he has not shown any sign of doing it.Odd. Any ideas?
 
This is a long shot, but do you change bridles when you compete? Could it be that his headpiece or browband is too tight and pinching? :confused:
 
Does it only happen when he gets hot?
I have a pony who behaves in a similar fashion for the last few years and the only thing i could put it down to was her skin getting iritated when she gets warm. Idid get a very experienced vet to look at her once but he said he had only ever seen it twice but i dont think he actually knew what it was or how to treat it.
My pony is fine for the first say 20 minutes to half an hour then she starts snorting, throwing her head, rubbing her head on her legs, and then finally stopping every few paces to itch her sides. She does this with or without saddle on.
 
I used to school a dressage horse and he would get very agitated if his mane, or forelock, was not put through the bridle correctly. He had a bridle path that stretched a long way down his neck! Looked a bit odd, but it made him happy!

You do not need to plait up if you are competing unaff, or prelim and novice level. I wouldn't bother with it if I were you!
 
Two things occur to me it seems to be when he's tense/excited have you thought about a osteopath checking him over could be a trapped nerve in his neck which is worse when he tenses up which like you say plating could make it worse, second would be teeth but I'm sure your vet would have checked that vets like doctors though aren't always that good at bones being out.

Also
Is it possible there's an irritant in the air where you go for dressage that's irritating his eyes?

Hope you get to the bottom of it there's nothing worse than them being in obvious discomfort and not knowing how to help them, a lot like when babies have colic you feel totally helpless xx
 
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