What would you do..

[Skhosu]

If your horse just wasnt 'right'?
Has been getting progresively grumpier, more difficult, nippier being saddled, more unsettled to ride.
Would the vet be able to find anything (no reaction to pressure around back area)? Or who would you get out?

 

[GTs]

I would just have fun with him, take all pressure off, and make being a horse enjoyable again!!

I might play him some Red Hot Chili Peppers too - their new song is very dope!

 

[kayleigh_and_rocky]

My first reaction to that behaviour - especially the nipping being saddled - would be get the back person out. The vet is obv qualified but they dont specialise in a specific area - so where a vet might not be able to find something a physio might well find something

 

[Super_Kat]

When you say nippier being saddled is this when doing the girth up or putting the saddle on his back?

 

[GTs]

Is this the same horse who is not eating? I would get the vet out, if he is just a little wrong and you cannot convince your parents, turn him out for a few months and just monitor him! Not ideal, but time heals a lot.

 

[kildalton]

Why aren't you in bed?

 

[GTs]

[ QUOTE ]
Why aren't you in bed?

[/ QUOTE ]

HI MUM!

 

[puddicat]

quote: The vet is obv qualified but they dont specialise in a specific area - so where a vet might not be able to find something a physio might well find something

This is a really common misconception that vets know less about backs than physiotherapists. Sure physiotherapists have their skills but legally they work under supervision of vets and there's a reason for that. Vets are academically the highest achievers of all university intake and work very hard for 5 years. Believe it not this means they know more than anybody about diagnosing and treating animals full stop. That is their profession. They are trained in and have access to diagnostic tools and treatments that physiotherapists or anyone else for that matter simply don't have. Having said all that I think GT's answer was a really good one and I can't really add anything to it!

 

[GTs]

I agree with puddicat - I am bemused why people would get physios and farriers out to treat medical problems. I admit that I only trust my ambulatory vet with vaccines - anything else I go to the hospital. I would never let these people work on my horse without veterinary supervision.

 

[JaneMBE]

we have a pony who wasn't right, just seemed very miserable and not like himself at all. Would still have food left and barely ate his hay at night.
We had re-arranged the horses and he wasn't with his mate. We chucked him back out with mate last week and he is now as happy as he was before... for him it was simply because he missed his field mate! They have bonded really well but we hdn't realised how much.

Hope yours is as simple

 

[siennamum]

Absolutely spot on. (Given that a majority of back problems are actually symptoms of a problem elsewhere - why get a physio out to diagnose a problem with the lower leg/ teeth/hocks etc etc etc. Does my bloody head in!

)

 

[Nailed]

in defence of farriers.. with the shoulder/ hip down they are as intensly trained as vet at least engliah ones are) and therefore any limb damage i would go to my farrier before my vet.. 9 out of 10 cases!
Lou x

 

[Skhosu]

Thats what I thought, so vet it is? He is nipping when the girth is done up.
Same horse, but he IS eating, just not in his normal way, and it may be that he's being fussy (see update) and I haven't explained it well enough!
Parents are getting more content with the idea we might get the vet out, if nothing else he can do a check before the eventing starts.
Al;ways wondered about the physio/vet which to call, so general thing would be vet?