Helen Jacks-Hewett - McTimoney Animal Chiropractor

27/10/2024

Interesting warning from vets at leading veterinary hospitals regarding the use of SGLT2i drugs (eg ertugliflozin and canagliflozin) for EMS/laminitis.

Reports from the world of equine science

27/10/2024

26/10/2024

Rein tension is commonly used to manipulate head and neck posture in many horse sports.

It is common to see the horse’s neck either extremely flexed or extended in a wide range of activities, including (but not limited to) cross country, dressage, driving, reining and showjumping.

Although over-bending does occur in nature, it lasts for only brief periods. Sustained over-bending, however, is becoming increasingly common for the ridden horse.

A so-called broken neck is not a reference to a fractured vertebral column but a description of how horses with their necks flexed artificially by force appear to show the greatest amount of flexion at the junction of cervical vertebrae 4 and 5.

An abrupt change in the flexion of the crest can be seen in horses undergoing this intervention.

A horse is said to be over-bent when it carries (or is forced to carry) its nasal plane behind the vertical. At this point, minimal further flexion is possible.

If the horse has been forced to show this flexion by rein tension or resistance in the rider’s hands when it attempts to extend its neck, it can do nothing more to get relief from the pressure in its mouth.

This leads to shortcomings in training (i.e., the quality of the slow/stop/step-back responses declines) and subsequent conflict behaviours result from the confusion.

This technique may be carried out because riders are unaware of the correct neck outline that is required by the sport of dressage (nasal plane at or just in front of the vertical line).

The correct posture is an emergent property of the correct shaping of both the operant rein tension and leg pressure responses. Instead, many contemporary riders use increasingly strong rein tension until the horse brings its mouth towards the rider’s hands and thus shortens its neck in an attempt to relieve bit pressure.

This neck-shortening is believed by many to be an acceptable practice to achieve the required head and neck outline.

Equitation Science, 2nd Edition - Andrew McLean, Paul McGreevy, Janne Whinther Christensen & Uta König von Borstel

26/10/2024

15/10/2024

“The horse just has a little arthritis in his left hock, it doesn’t seem to bother him too much, he just gets a bit stiff!”

Horses are great compensators, and they will create alternative locomotive patterns to continue movement.

So, say this little bit of osteoarthritis causes a reduced range of motion of the tarsal (hock) joint. In an attempt to maintain stride length and hide this dysfunction to potential predators (because you never know when a lion could be waiting around the corner... or a flapping plastic bag!), the tarsal joint is rotated medially (inwards) during the swing phase of the stride. This results in asymmetrical & medial weight bearing through the digit. This places additional stress through medial hamstring muscles, resulting in muscle tension and trigger points. And this is all something that is potentially going on in the affected hindlimb.

A hip hike/drop can occur at corresponding phases of the stride, placing the sacroiliac joint under stress, resulting in paraspinal and asymmetrical gluteal tone/pain.

Decreased impulsion from the left hindlimb leads to increased weight bearing through the right forelimb diagonal. This can create tension and hypertrophy to the right pectoral muscles and related fascial planes.

The spiral of compensation could continue on further, affecting cervical muscles that become hypertonic as a result of weight shifting, digit shape and size, TMJ pain, head tiling, hyoid dysfunction, asymmetric tail holding...

Often it can be the case where I see a horse that is a chronic stage of compensation and it can be difficult to find the true cause especially when the horse may appear just overall “stiff”.

I liken the rehabilitation of chronic cases to peeling the layers off an onion; one layer at a time and piece by piece to unravel and rewind the compensation spiral. It is important to identify and manage the root cause, rather than just accepting it🐴

30/09/2024

👀Looking for Volunteers!👀

Are you a pet owner or do you have sole care of one or more animals?

Are you able to spare 30mins on Monday 14th October to help RAMP form a focus group to discuss musculoskeletal services in animal care?

Please drop us a message with your email address and we will be in touch. ☺️

26/09/2024

**𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛 𝗣𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗗 𝗜𝗡 𝗘𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗡𝗘 𝗩𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗥𝗬 𝗝𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗡𝗔𝗟**

𝗡𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗲’𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘁

MacKechnie-Guire, R*, Williams, J.M., Nixon, J., Fisher, M., Fisher, D., Walker, V., Murray, R., Clayton, H.M

𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 (read without a subscription):
https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evj.14420

For the past four years, we have investigated the pressures beneath different nosebands when adjusted from 2.0 to 0.0 finger tightness (0.0 finger adjustment so that the noseband was touching but not compressing the skin).

Poor noseband adjustment could create high pressures that may risk pain or tissue damage. This study is a step forward in providing quantitative data relating to pressures associated with noseband type and fit when adjusted to various tightness’s.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀:

🐴No significant difference between noseband pressures when the noseband was adjusted from 2.0 to 1.5 finger tightness.

🐴Noseband pressures were highest on the mandible vs. the lateral aspect of the nasal bones.

🐴No differences were found in noseband pressures between the cavesson, flash or Swedish (crank) noseband types at 2.0 to 0.5 finger tightness.

🐴The Drop noseband had the lowest absolute nasal pressures (mandible pressures not measured) and significantly lower values than the other nosebands. We need to be mindful of the position of the traditional drop. More work needed.

🐴Noseband pressures were lower when ridden in trot, compared with when chewing a treat.

🐴Noseband pressures were cyclical (rise and fall) and not continuous – changing during the stride and the chewing cycle of the horse.

As always, this is a team effort. Thank you to our research assistants, riders, owners and horses.. Thank you to our funders, World Horse Welfare, British Equestrian, Canadian Sport Horse Association, The Worshipful Company of Saddlers and Hartpury University.

NB image taken from pilot testing and was not included in the main study. All noseband types are described in detail in the manuscript.

23/09/2024

“The findings also suggest that horses form emotional attachments to their human keepers and have advanced facial recognition abilities. On an ethological level this would be very important as of course they would need to learn who to trust so they could alter their behaviour accordingly – knowing who to avoid or who they can approach safely.”

HORSES CAN RECOGNISE THEIR KEEPERS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

Research has found that horses presented with photos of humans can recognise their keepers at a rate much better than chance.

Ethologist Léa Lansade of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, conducted an experiment to find out how well horses can recognise individuals from photographs. Their results showed that horses can remember a keeper’s face even six months after having seen the person.

The research team used two computer screens to display a random selection of unfamiliar human faces. 11 three-year-old Welsh mares were trained to choose between two side by side images by pressing the touchscreen with their nose, then being given a food reward. Then over a course of 32 sessions, the team started to introduce photos of the horses' handlers into the selection of unfamiliar faces.

The researchers found that the horses correctly identified their current keeper and ignored the unfamiliar faces about 75% of the time – a rate significantly better than chance. The horses also selected photos of previous keepers – people they hadn’t seen in six months.

These results are surprising for several reasons. They suggest that horses can understand that photographs – two-dimensional images – represent real people, without being given any other cues like voice, behaviour or scent. They actually performed better at this task than dogs have done in previous research.

The findings also suggest that horses form emotional attachments to their human keepers and have advanced facial recognition abilities. On an ethological level this would be very important as of course they would need to learn who to trust so they could alter their behaviour accordingly – knowing who to avoid or who they can approach safely. Of course these results also show that horses have a good long-term memory for human faces.

Study: Lansade, L., Colson, V., Parias, C. et al. Female horses spontaneously identify a photograph of their keeper, last seen six months previously. Sci Rep 10, 6302 (2020).

22/09/2024

This is well worth a share, totally agree with what Clare says here. Whilst it’s good to look at the benefits of natural horse keeping we have to be practical and realistic with what our climate has to offer.

17/09/2024

Meet my new pony Skinny Frank!

My wonderful husband brought me back this nearly whole feral Welsh Mountain Pony skeleton from a training trip to the Brecons. Some girls love gifts of flowers and chocolate but Mr H knows the sort of gifts I love!! Poor chap had to carry him down the best part of 2 miles down a mountain before driving home with a somewhat smelly pile of bones in the back of the car!! All I can say is thank heavens I’ve never regained my full sense of smell after getting covid…

From my initial examination Skinny Frank has a refreshingly normal skeleton both anatomically and pathologically. He was approximately 11-12hh high and was about 6 years old when he died judging from the growth plates still open at C7/T1 (see photo where I’m pointing at this). There are no signs of any obvious trauma (left hind leg and skull may prove differently) so we can only speculate on the cause of death.

I’m unsure of his gender but he has quite a narrow pelvis and very solid p***c symphysis which may indicate he is male and not a female who has foaled. It would be likely for a 6 year old female hill pony to have had at least one foal by now.

Sadly Frank is missing his skull* and left hind leg from the stifle downwards, but for me the most important thing was to have a full spine to examine. Closer inspection of the ventral (underneath) surface of his neck shows a very symmetrical and anatomically normal C6/7 which means he is unaffected by ECVM (Equine Complex Vertebral Malformation, which from my previous posts you may have gathered is a strong area of interest for me).

I’m going to take some time cleaning Skinny Frank and then he can join me on my rounds for educational purposes. If anyone would like to meet him in person to learn more about correct spinal anatomy then please let me know!

*Edited to add we think we may have located Skinny Frank’s skull! One of Mr H’s running friends picked it up a year ago as an interesting “find”. There are photos of Frank’s carcass to go with it so we are pretty sure it’s him. His skull (ok minus the mandibles) is now cleaned up and cherished!

15/09/2024

I hear this phrase ALL the time and every time I do my heart breaks for the horse in question.

It is a very big misconception in the industry that pain can be ruled out in the horse.

What leads to this statement can also vary drastically from person to person.

The horse might have had a quick muscle palpation, they might have just been scoped for ulcers, or they might have had a very extensive (and expensive!) veterinary work up over days or months.

Regardless, you cannot rule out pain. You might not be able to find a source, but you cannot rule out pain.

Ask any human who has not received an immediate diagnosis for their pain or not been listened to regarding their own health concerns.

Pain does not have a blood test or a specific color or feel.

Pain can be obvious, it can be concealed, it can be complex, it can be poorly understood.

There are certain things, like gastric ulcers, that can be definitively ruled in or out as a SOURCE of pain with a gastroscopy.

But it is the horse’s behavior that says whether pain is or isn’t present. And unfortunately, very often pain in the horse is not a simple thing to diagnose and cure.

When a trainer, owner, rider, or vet says “we have ruled out pain” it is often an invitation to train the horse with harsher methods to overcome performance or behavioral problems.

If the horse refuses to do something, doesn’t cooperate, struggles with tasks, has a change in behavior, or exhibits behaviors that have been scientifically studied to indicate pain in the horse (such as the equine discomfort ethogram and ridden horse pain ethogram)….ALWAYS keep in mind that just because it can’t be located, DOES NOT mean a horse is not in pain.

14/08/2024

News is spreading and the scientific papers are out there for all to see but still ECVM is not being taken seriously.

Sounding the Alarm.

Recently, I had a day at work where two clients, back to back, announced to me that their horse was just diagnosed with ECVM. ECVM is a genetic disorder of the lower neck bones (C6-C7) and the first thoracic (T1). Early indications point to an extremely large population of domestic horses, have this. It is a proven post-domestication event. Meaning, created by in-breeding. If early researchers are correct, we could be facing a reality that 40-60% of all domestic horses, are living with dysfunctional bodies that are difficult to diagnose.

Dysfunction in the lower neck causes severe pain; nerve, muscular and fascial, it causes major problems with movement. Inability to be trained without HUGE pressures "holding them together". Behavioural issues in some of these horses correlate to aggression, some to apathy and anxiety. It is a very serious diagnosis.

I just got off the back of chatting with Dr. Temple Grandin, one of the world top Animal Scientists. Her primary concern; poor breeding practices creating non-functional animals. That good handling doesn't matter, if the horses cannot be handled (Or trained) because their bodies are sore, or they are lethargic from being born into a broken body.

If Temple is concerned, I am terrified. The ramifications are huge.

We are facing a potential reality, where our horses are non-functional, and it will be hard to find functionally bred bodies. We are facing dysfunction in a region of their bodies notoriously difficult to scan, and even harder to diagnose even if the vets know what they are looking for.

Inattentional Blindness; a scientific phenomena where you will not find something that you're not looking for.

I am concerned that once we start looking for it, we are going to find it everywhere.

That we are going to see a slide backwards towards inhumane handling, training and treatment of animals as persons who are either unaware or uncaring of the animals protests, escalate to force compliance on animals who are trying to tell us that they WANT to, but they just cannot.

I am concerned that we may lose a generation of Horse Sense. As able bodied, resourced, passionate and kind hearted horse people step back from developing their higher equitation skills and instead become full time nurses to equine disease and dysfunction. And it is barely the fault of anyone we know. It is the result of a slow, multi-generational mistake, as we over select horses for size, early maturity and hyperextension, we also accidentally bred ticking time bombs. Horses who not only don't have collarbones like humans do, to stabilise their enormous torso's, but now don't even have properly formed spines these torso's hang from... and that we want to sit on.

The tsunami is here. Sounding the alarm.

I want to lead on this issue. Not by becoming an expert on the diagnosis of this issue. But an expert in long term management and support of owners who steward horses with chronic health issues for whom "correct" training... no longer applies.

Because with these horses, it rarely does. Do not decompensate these horses. Their compensations are holding them together. Our classical ancestors, had healthier horses to train... they could stick to firmer rules and stricter protocols. Not all of these rules apply now. We are going to need to be flexible, adaptable, smart. We need to outsmart the sh*tty genetics these horses were cursed with and find ways to help these animals not just survive, but thrive. While we also double advocacy work to spread awareness of genetic malformations and poor breeding practices, and start breeding these problems out.

A few of my podcasts guests who have been sounding the alarm for years;
Becks Nairn, Unbridled LLC with Kim Hallin, EQ Therapeutics, Plateau Equestrian / Caballo Holistico la Meseta just to name a few.

Recently my colleague Mills Consilient Horsemanship has been retroactively going through her past client horses, and announcing the physical diagnosis that informed their behavioural problems, one by one.

Actually, all my podcasts guests have been sounding the alarm for years.

The horses have been too!

It is time we listen and we start implementing real on-going support and leadership for the owners (stewards) of horses who through no fault of their own, are born to bodies that fail to thrive.

12/08/2024

Have you ever got the feeling your horse understands exactly what you mean but doesn’t respond in the way you think they should? This study indicates horses are far more intelligent than we give them credit for and we really should stop judging intelligence from a human brain perspective.

Horses can plan and strategise, new study shows

It's hoped the findings lead to more humane horse training regimes and improvements to welfare.

05/08/2024

Exercises in standing - another great paper published recently measured muscle activity in 4 hindlimb muscles during 6 exercises.

Lateral tall pull aka hindquarter rocking increases middle gluteal and tensor fascia lata activity on the same side and gracilis, on the inside of the opposite hind leg.

Straight tail traction activates gracilis but not any other, as we have seen from another research paper checking pain reactions in the back and pelvis muscles.

Pelvic rounding reflex switches glutes and biceps femoris on, and extension reflex doesn't activate them.

So what does it tell us? That we can pick the right exercise to select muscles, and to know how to progress and regress exercises. Also that gracilis is really interesting and involved, probably in a stability role, and shouldn't be forgotten!!

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eqre.2024.100013

Elósegui, M., Cediel, R., Goyaga-Elizalde, J. and Hernández-Fernández, T., 2024. Evaluation of the electromyography activity of hindlimb muscles during core exercises in horses. Journal of Equine Rehabilitation, p.100013.

25/07/2024

23/07/2024

📖 BSAVA COMPANION 📖

We are really pleased to share with you an article that has made the BSAVA Companion Journal July edition. Our Vice President Lucinda Stott wrote an article for them on “Regulating the animal musculoskeletal industry” which has been made free to download via the following link.

https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bsavalibrary.com%2Fcontent%2Fjournals%2F10.22233%2F20412495.0724.20&data=05%7C02%7C%7C0f3c67b3d0bb48bfef4a08dca7cf7dc1%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638569756838954926%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=mhvpl%2BSJEw5ad5WhzlTBNg19V5EkNxuMqcnM39%2FUCgc%3D&reserved=0

10/06/2024

21/05/2024

07/04/2024

This is Lanes the very sweet JRT I treated last week, very lucky to have been rescued from a horrible life and now having all her physical and emotional needs met with her lovely owner Jan ❤️

McTimoney Animal Association
RAMP-Register of Animal Musculoskeletal Practitioners

31/03/2024