On James Roberts plan the second item is "touch all over". And he means all over. There should be no "yeah but" spots.
It has taken me the better part of a year to get to the point I could literally touch Filly all over and am I glad I took the time now. The difficult spot that took most of the time was the flank up to her teats. I got badly kicked at one point when trying and nearly passed out with the pain. Folks at the yard were a little derisive that I spent so much time getting to the point I could handle her teats relatively easily. But it has now paid dividends.
Filly starting lactating yesterday. I was gently playing with her and was more than a little shocked when a stream of milk came out of her teats. A quick phone call to our vet, Ben, and he reckoned she could be having a little phantom pregnancy brought on by the changeable weather and the fact she is on box rest. But he stressed that to ensure she did not get mastitis it was important to clean her teats.
A year ago that would have been an extreme sport, but because of the touch all over from James it was relatively easy. To be honest she was not wild about me using a wet sponge (maybe I should have used warm water
) but she was fine with my hands. She had a lot of nasty gunk there so I
was pleased to be able to get it clean and reduce the infection risk.
The last thing I need when she is about to go away for 12 weeks for
rehab.
So a question to ask is "can I touch my horse ALL over, even in those slightly embarrassing bits, or am I going to find I can't when a medical emergency arrives?"
It has taken me the better part of a year to get to the point I could literally touch Filly all over and am I glad I took the time now. The difficult spot that took most of the time was the flank up to her teats. I got badly kicked at one point when trying and nearly passed out with the pain. Folks at the yard were a little derisive that I spent so much time getting to the point I could handle her teats relatively easily. But it has now paid dividends.
Filly starting lactating yesterday. I was gently playing with her and was more than a little shocked when a stream of milk came out of her teats. A quick phone call to our vet, Ben, and he reckoned she could be having a little phantom pregnancy brought on by the changeable weather and the fact she is on box rest. But he stressed that to ensure she did not get mastitis it was important to clean her teats.
A year ago that would have been an extreme sport, but because of the touch all over from James it was relatively easy. To be honest she was not wild about me using a wet sponge (maybe I should have used warm water
) but she was fine with my hands. She had a lot of nasty gunk there so I
was pleased to be able to get it clean and reduce the infection risk.
The last thing I need when she is about to go away for 12 weeks for
rehab.
So a question to ask is "can I touch my horse ALL over, even in those slightly embarrassing bits, or am I going to find I can't when a medical emergency arrives?"
2 comments:
Wow! Never heard of that happening before... but yes, extremely important about that "touch all over." Thankfully my Lady came to me with that mostly in place, likely from a former pregnancy/foal. :)
We make sure we can "touch all over" before every ride. This checks the horse is physically and mentally ok before we get on.
I noticed a horse being lunged hard in our indoor school recently. When I asked why they said that he was "fresh" and had been bronking with the saddle on. I asked to check him over and we found his back was extremely sore. Seemed he had sun burn ! No wonder he found the saddle a bit sore.
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