Mervi Pakola Horse Academy

30/12/2024

27/09/2024

03/09/2024

Check out this post about equine tooth pain!

DVM, PhD, MSc Clinical Management of Pain Ann-Helena Hokkanen: An equine toothache

📌Dental diseases are common causes of pain in horses. Several different behavioral changes can indicate that a horse is experiencing toothache. In particular, changes in eating behavior and the horse's attitude to the bit often indicate pain in the mouth. In a Finnish study, the results of a dental examination performed by a veterinarian were compared with the horse's behavior reported by the owner.

✅️Researchers found that horses and ponies with at least one potentially painful change in their molars showed more pain-indicating behavior than animals with no potentially painful changes in their teeth.

A horse or pony with a toothache can:

🐴turn his head while eating
🐴move hay around in his mouth
🐴take breaks while eating
🐴drop hay from his mouth
🐴 wash hay in water
🐴avoid drinking cold water
🐴resist taking the bit
🐴open mouth and shake head with the bit
🐴be afraid of touching his head

The clarity and number of changes in the animal's behavior that indicate pain are always individual, because many different factors affect the experience of pain and its intensity. In some horses and ponies, pain in the tooth caused numerous different behavioral changes, while in some dental problems only minor changes were associated, especially in eating behavior.

✅️It is important to stop regularly to observe the eating of the horse under your care, so that it would be easier to notice the changes. The researchers also found that the behavior of ponies and Icelandic horses telling about toothache is often more subtle than that of horses. Therefore, even small changes in behavior related to possible dental problems in ponies should be taken seriously.

⚠️The horse's mouth and teeth must be examined by a veterinarian regularly. Therefore, always follow the instructions given by your own veterinarian about the appropriate inspection interval.

References: Laukkanen T, Karma L, Virtala AM, Mykkänen A, Pehkonen J, Rossi H, Tuomola K, Raekallio M. Behavioral Signs Associated With Equine Cheek Tooth Findings. J Equine Vet Sci. 2023 Feb;121:104198. doi: 10.1016/j.jevs.2022.104198. Epub 2022 Dec 23. PMID: 36566909. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36566909/

18/08/2024

I welcome you to join our new page about Equine Pain . Here you will learn more about the most important thing as a horse people, pain behaviour of the equine.

Please share, because it's very important that us horse people learn to recognise pain instead of saying thing like "the horse is just being naughty" and stuff, so we can treat the pain. 🙏

19/12/2023

⚠️This horse is lame. Do you see which foot?

As a horse trainer and rehabilitator I come across with horses that are lame, but this lameness hasn't been seen. I think it's important for all the horse people to learn to see lameness.

❗Answer which foot below. Don't tell, how you can see it, so everyone else has an opportunity to answer as well.

I will make new post of the answer later.

17/11/2023

🐴Rearing, running and tantrums brought this horse to us for training. At the first training session, you could see them at first, but after just 15 minutes of ground work, leading changed in a much calmer and safer direction.

✅You can make horse life easy by training ground work and recognizing pain in time. These are worth studying.

➡️Learn to be a skilled horse handler with our online courses. You can start with my free course here https://subscribepage.io/mervipakolahorseacademy

23/10/2023

This rehab horse had such a lovely reaction during fascial treatment, when she turned her head to my lap. 🥰

Especially, because we haven't known each other very long and her reactions to my first treatment were more tense, this reaction was so nice to feel (not see, feel). ❤️

16/10/2023

We have been able to take the stitches off from Lexuses head. Latest antibiotics seems to have helped and there is no signs of infection at the moment.

Kick to his head cost me over 1000 euros, but I'm happy to see he is recovering nicely. ❤️

06/10/2023

For me, ground work is the tool to make everyday life with horses easy and as safe as possible.

🤷‍♀️For example, it is usually easy to make leading a horse very problem-free and easy. That's why I wonder why anyone would struggle with leading issues.

In this video I tell you more about the topic and show with Morfeus how easy it can be.

➡️If you want to learn how to make your horse life easier check out my free course in https://subscribepage.io/mervipakolahorseacademy or join my ground work courses in finnish or in english here https://mervipakolahorseacademy.com/shm1/

05/10/2023

In these pictures, Mortti moves in a better form, with better balance, and Riio in a worse one. The pictures have been taken from the same phase of the movement.

Which points do I pay attention to myself:
🐴 The distance between the legs. With Riio, the imaginary triangles that can be drawn between his hind legs are smaller than the triangle drawn between the front legs. Mortti has tringles closer to the same size.

🐴 Riio's lumbar back is low, when it's active with Mortti.

🐴 Riio's pelvis has sagged forward, while Mortti's has turned more backwards.

🐴 Riio's topline is short and low in the withers area and Mortti has long, stretched upwards withers area.

🐴 Mortti supports his chest much better than Riio. With Riio, the stomach and thus also the back hangs down and the back looks tight.

🐴 Mortti's nose is at the height of the shoulder joint, which I myself aim for in forward, down and out position. Riio is far from it.

🐴 Riio's lower line muscles are stretched (lower neck, stomach). The topline is short and tense. With Mortti, the muscles work more symmetrically, and nowhere is too much stretching or too much activation. Mortti's movement does not hurt and does not tire the horse in the same way as Riio's.

Even if your horse doesn't move in perfect balance or form, it's good to know what you're aiming for so you can get there. Perfection is challenging to achieve anyway, but a lot of good can be done by avoiding the Riio shape seen here.

Any thoughts? Comment ⬇️

03/10/2023

Lexus has been a great patient. He loves to recover with his friends in a herd. ❤️

It has been really easy to inject him with penicillin. But because we have had to medicate him already a few weeks, we try to avoid making injecting a bad experience by positive reinforcement. So he gets treats for nice behavior to make the situation better for him.

It's smarter to avoid problems than fix them aftewards if you can. 😊🙏

Lexus has a head wound which was just examed and treated at the clinic.

21/09/2023

What does equine osteopathy look like?

Equine osteopathy has been developed on the basis for originally developed for humans.

I myself have studied with prof. Led by Stuart McGregor, who is considered to be the developer of modern animal osteopathy. He has more than 30 years of experience in osteopathy.

In this video, I treat a horse with OAB (Osteopathic Articular Balancing) and HVLA (High Velocity Low Amplitude) techniques. At the beginning of the video, you can see how the horse resists the OAB technique, where the neck is bent by moving the horse's head back and forth. His neck bends more rigidly and the horse raises his head against my hand.

After the HVLA thrust technique (i.e. fast movement that opens the facet locks), the neck bends without resistance much better. It's great to notice such concrete, quick changes already during the treatment! 🤩

26/08/2023

Masterclass in advanced osteopathic techniques in Norway done! 🤩

It was great 5 days working with my equine osteopathic techniques and learning new ones. I'm very pleased with these studies and eager to put them in practise at home. 😊🙏

My studies have been supported by Big thanks for helping make this happen!

23/08/2023

Day 3 in equine osteopathy clinic in Norway, Skien. It's been really interesting and I've learned a lot! 🤩

Today we started learning HVLA technique for joint adjustment. Cool!

Can't wait to use everything I've learned in Finland. 🙏

20/08/2023

I'm currently in Oslo on my way to Skien where equine osteopathy Masterclass starts tomorrow. 😊🙏

I've been studying equine osteopathy since the beginning of this year and I've learned a lot! I'm very excited about this Masterclass in Skien. 🤩

In the spring I also started studies in Salpaus, Lahti in a special professional degree as stable master (Tallimestari EAT). I'm specializing to become a specialist in equine muscle care (hevosten lihashuollon erikoisosaaja) and horse stable and industry developer (hevostallin- ja alan kehittäjä).

All this helps me with my job in horse training and rehabilitation. All my previous studies have enabled my acceptance to these schools. It's really been worth it. 🤩🙏

I find it really exciting to be able to help horses and their owners with different kind of horse problems. Learning more all the time is one of the things that makes this job fun for me. 😊

I will tell more later about my studies in Skien.

15/08/2023

I got a new horse a couple of weeks ago. Lexus is 8-years old lusitano gelding which I got from an old friend. He has got some food allergies and mild osteoarthritis.

He is such a sweet horse. ❤️

He loves Bemer treatment. I give it regularly to help with the challenges that osteoarthritis gives him. It seems to be helping. ❤️

02/08/2023

Emppu the fjord horse was rearing and bucking when ridden when her owner asked my help.

At first we talked on about her behaviour which seemed pain behaviour to me. After talking to the owner it sounded like stomach or intestinal issue so I recommended veterinary inspection for those.

Vet found infection from the intestines which was the treated. Some of the pain behaviour went away, but rearing and bucking stayed still.

After another vet check where also her back was x-rayed and her movement checked, Emppu came to us for training.

I noticed a very tight lumbar back which we started treating right away. I suspected that might be the reason for remaining problems.

She also had limited range of movement in the hind end and a bit asymmetry there. This was possibly because of the lumbar back problems.

Emppu was with us 4 weeks and this after video is from our 3rd week. She is moving happy and a lot more symmetrical. She isn't protesting, but likes riding again.

Now we have a healthy and happy horse. ❤️

Learn more horsemanship skills in my free course. Join here https://subscribepage.io/mervipakolahorseacademy

19/07/2023

We did some extra desensitizing with this sensitive horse. Because a rider in his back was a bit scary, we took a step back and desensitized him with a homemade dummy. We also did some desensitizing from the fence so that he would get use to people being above him.

He took our crash test dummy really well and got relaxed with it quickly. This video is from our first training session with it.

I usually don't train young horses with a dummy, but sometimes we have to adapt to make thing easier for the horse.

I think it's a sign of a good trainer to sometimes take a step back and do more work to get the horse ready for the next step than just trying to get the horse to do things the way we have been thinking things should go.

It's better horsemanship to listen to the horse.