LS Horsemanship

28/01/2025

I will be doing a live Q and A tomorrow at 7pm over on my patreon page.

You do need to login as a member to access it (there is an option to join for free).

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

Questions welcome during or you can submit them beforehand, any topic (horse-related 🥲) welcome.

I look forward to seeing you 😊

27/01/2025

Availability over the next few weeks 🐴

Friday 31st - Whitby/Scarborough/N York Moors area
Friday 7th - Durham

Also booking for days around York, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and everywhere in between regularly.

Equine behavioural consultant - kind, horse-centred training and support

Please see my page/website for further information.

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

27/01/2025

We’re actually being really annoying 🐴

It may sound silly, but something to think about today. We can be so focused on what we want our horse to do and how to get them to comply we don’t really think about the fact that this is all our idea. I often bring this up when I can see someone getting frustrated with their horse, not only does it break the tension, it can completely change our feelings towards the situation and make you a better person for them to be around.

Your horse has absolutely no idea why we want him to trot a circle past the gate, why don’t we just go out of the gate and go back to the food? That seems like the logical thing to do. Why is this human being so annoying?

Your horse did not sign up for any of this. They have no say in where they live, who they live with, when they’re stabled, when they’re turned out, what they’re fed, what their “job“ is. We control every single aspect of their lives, all our horses want to do is hang out with their pals, feel safe and eat.

They don't get to decide if they don't fancy being ridden today, and the few horses that do try to tell you are labelled naughty, stubborn, opinionated etc. There is this misplaced sense of entitlement in the horse industry that the horse somehow owes us something and if they don’t do what we want they’re difficult. Why should they do what we want?

We ask so much of them and I think we become desensitised to this. I am in awe every day that my horse lets me get on his back and listens to me, when he could quite easily not. They are such gentle, amicable creatures given the right environment and training.

Next time you’re feeling frustrated with your horse’s behaviour, when you’re asking him to do something that likely makes no sense to him, just think about this and appreciate how forgiving and wonderful they are to go along with us at all. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

25/01/2025

The power of positive reinforcement training. This is really impressive.

24/01/2025

Big sheltered barn available and the horses choose to stand outside in the wind, I think they feel safer without all the rattling.

How are you all coping with storm 672 of this winter?

23/01/2025

I am attempting to run a free live Q and A session on my Patreon next week, open to all you just need to join the Patreon page as a member (there is an option to join for free).

You can submit questions beforehand or during, any topic (horse-related😅) welcome. Please vote in the poll below your preferred date. It will be available to watch afterwards.

Hope to see you there and hope I can actually get it to work 😎

Get more from LS Horsemanship on Patreon

23/01/2025

Food aggression 🐴

Food aggression is almost always rooted in anxiety. Just for clarity I’m talking about horses who are aggressive towards people being around them while they are eating their feed/hay in this post.

It is often framed as a dangerous lack of respect and an effort from the horse to dominate us. People try to resolve it by making the horse move their feet and get out of their space through any means necessary to teach them this supposed “respect”. But once we understand that dominance theory has been disproven and these kinds of behaviours are much more complex, we will hopefully want to approach them differently.

While I absolutely agree that a horse displaying food aggression can be dangerous, there are things we can do to stay safe that don’t involve making our horse feel even worse.

First things first, we need to be safe right now. We need to create the least conflict around food possible. The best way to do this is to have the feed already in the stable before you put the horse in, then leave them alone to eat. Standing and holding a feed in front of a horse who already has severe food anxiety and not giving it to them until they back away from you is going to create even more anxiety.

In terms of addressing the issue longer term we would be looking at why the horse is feeling anxious around food. Are they hungry? Do they have gut discomfort? Do they have a history of being heavily restricted? Do they have pain in the body? Do they feel safe in their living environment? Is their diet appropriate? Once we assess these things we can start to implement changes to improve them.

You often find once the horse learns the food isn’t going to run out and nobody is going to stress him out about it, the behaviour around food improves.

So much food anxiety is caused by our modern horse keeping practices of leaving horses for long periods of time with nothing to eat and keeping them in high-stress environments where their basic needs of socialisation, movement and appropriate forage are not being met. Their anxiety will not improve if we do not get them out of these situations. You can chase the horse around and get them to cease coming at you out of fear, but the anxiety will still be there underneath causing your horse distress and damaging their emotional and physical health.

Food anxiety is a symptom of a wider problem. If you are having issues with this please reach out, I guarantee there is more at play here. 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

22/01/2025

Quality over quantity in training 🐴

Full disclosure I have done nothing but throw hay at my horses, poo pick, care for their hooves and change their rugs since before Christmas. It can feel so overwhelming to even think about training when we seem to have a storm every few days, the ground is either frozen solid or a total bog and the horses are resembling some sort of feral mud monster. Life gets in the way and just finding a place to start can be so difficult.

So I’ll tell you how I’m starting with my boys and how I tell my clients to start implementing changes too.

Start small, if it feels overwhelming its not small enough. Today I did 5 minutes of target training in the field with Lenny with his rug still on. Is it going to get him ready for Olympic qualification? No. Is it going to start improving his body and getting his mind back on board with me? Yes.

Start with something absolutely tiny, 30 seconds of standing still with you on the headcollar, 5 repetitions of asking for a rock backwards and forwards, one lap of the yard walking in hand each way, just “something” to get your brain into the habit of it.

The easiest way to build habits is to add them onto something you already do every day. Practise your leading/postural exercises going to/from the field. Spend a few minutes in the stable practising standing quietly together before you do your rug changes.

5 minutes every other day of quality time is going to be much more effective than one inconsistent longer session once a week. Consistency is the key to making progress.

The great thing about creating habits is that they create motivation. Motivation doesn’t come first, discipline does.

Once you are back into the habit it is easy to build up to doing longer sessions and venturing further afield with your horse. Your horse will be in a better headspace to do more too.

How do you make it easier to build training into your winter routine? 🐴

I'll be sharing short training session ideas on my Patreon page as I bring my boys back into "work" over the next few weeks.

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

21/01/2025

Behaviour is a symptom 🐴

We often see people asking for help with training through a behavioural issue, they’ll describe perhaps being a bit crabby under saddle or being difficult to mount. Usually someone in the comments will suggest a pain issue and the response is “but he isn’t showing any symptoms of pain”. Behaviour is a symptom, of something, even if it isn’t necessarily pain.

I think we are so used to seeing horses showing discomfort and stress that we don’t notice it as unusual, that’s just how horses are to us. We perhaps think that pain behaviours must be really loud, obvious lameness, biting, kicking, throwing people off etc.

When I go to any big livery yard there are inevitably a number of horses showing fairly extreme stress behaviours which is just accepted as normal, eyes are rolled, they are shouted at and “put in their place”. If this is what we’re exposed to all the time, its no wonder we feel confused when someone suggests our horse isn’t okay.

The other difficult thing to navigate is the number of professionals going out to see these horses who are also telling people the behaviour is normal and nothing to worry about. I suppose they are victim to the same conditioning, if all you see throughout your training are stressed, uncomfortable horses, then that seems normal to you. Education on behavioural science and how horses bodies should, or could, look without seeing them through the lens of the current industry standards is severely lacking.

There is such a disconnect that we cannot see our ways of keeping, training and riding horses are usually the main contributing factors to our horse’s physical and behavioural issues. But if we can break away from our conditioning and start to look at our horses through a different lens we can really change things for the better for them, and for us.

I want to give a couple of real world examples of seemingly subtle behaviour that people have been told to train through and what was actually going on.

🐴 Horse was bracing their neck up and shifting back as the rider mounted, was “fine” once you were on. Saddle had become too tight and was pinching.

🐴 Horse started snatching/striking out with front legs when trying to trim hooves. Horse was diagnosed with SI issues and was struggling to shift their weight behind and balance on 3 legs.

🐴 Horse started being difficult to load. Horse was diagnosed with kissing spine and hock arthritis that was potentially making travelling extremely uncomfortable for them.

🐴 Horse was pulling faces and threatening to kick people who came into their stable while they were eating. Horse was diagnosed with stomach ulcers. (I have a whole post coming on food anxiety).

How many of these scenarios have you seen that have been “trained” through using pressure and making the horse move their feet until they give in and comply? All behaviour is information, we just need to look a little deeper and question why rather than ignoring it or looking for a quick fix.

Do you have any stories of unusual behaviour which resolved when you discovered the underlying issue? 🐴

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

20/01/2025

We should not underestimate the negative effects of keeping horses alone

INDIVIDUAL STABLING FOUND TO ALTER IMMUNE RESPONSE

Research has found that horses moved from group housing to individual stabling showed changes in their white blood cell counts and plasma cortisol levels. These changes could mean they are at a higher risk of infectious disease.

Equine scientists at the University of Hohenheim in Germany studied 12 warmblood geldings aged 2-3 years old during several management changes, monitoring their behaviour and immune response.

The horses used were all living in a group, turned out at pasture. For the first part of the study the group was then split into two, each kept in a separate paddock so that the horses in one group could not see the others. After a trial period of eight days all the horses were returned to their original group, living together. They were then were left out at pasture for eight weeks.

For the second part of the study the horses were all moved into individual stables, where they could see and touch their neighbours through bars. During the first week of being stabled, the horses were given 30 minutes of turnout in an indoor area. From the second week onwards, the horses were lunged.

Throughout the study the research team collected blood samples from the horses to analyse their immune cell numbers and cortisol concentrations.

The results showed that moving the horses to individual stabling led to acute stress-induced immune changes. However, dividing the larger group into two smaller groups at pasture did not.

“The number of eosinophils, monocytes and T cells declined, whereas the number of neutrophils increased resulting in an increased N:L ratio. This pattern of change resembles the well-known picture of an immunomodulation induced by acute social stress."

The plasma cortisol concentrations didn’t change after dividing the group into the two smaller groups at pasture, but there was an increase in cortisol concentrations one day after stabling which then returned to the previous levels eight days later. However, the researchers reported that “Although cortisol concentrations returned to baseline level after 8 days, the alterations in most immune cell numbers persisted, pointing to a longer-lasting effect on the immune system of the horses."

The team also found that some of the horses started to perform stereotypical behaviours as soon as one week after stabling.

The team reported that the results “strongly indicate that social isolation is a chronic stressor with negative impact on welfare and health of horses and highlight the advantage of group housing systems in view of immunocompetence."

The researchers concluded that “relocation to individual stabling represented an intense stressor for the horses of the present study, leading to acute and lasting alterations in blood counts of various leukocyte types. In contrast, fission of the stable group did not result in behavioural, endocrine or immunological stress responses by the horses."

This sudden change from group turnout to individual stabling with training being introduced is a very common scenario for horses being started for the first time. This study gives us yet more evidence that stabling horses individually is stressful for them and detrimental to their physical and psychological wellbeing. The majority of the horses I see are stabled for the bulk of the day. I do wonder how much evidence is needed before horse owners, yard owners and professionals act on this information and change their management to increase turnout and group living...

The research is free to access and is a very interesting read: Schmucker S, Preisler V, Marr I, Krüger K, Stefanski V (2022) Single housing but not changes in group composition causes stress-related immunomodulations in horses. PLoS ONE 17(8): e0272445.

17/01/2025

A story in 3 parts 😅

16/01/2025

Lovely 2yo Splash learning to touch objects on a voice cue and building confidence in the environment 🥰

He has come such a long way from the uncatchable, nervous pony I first met, all down to his owner’s dedication and patience.

All achieved through helping him feel safe and building new, positive associations with people. Low-stress training.

www.lshorsemanship.co.uk

www.patreon.com/lshorsemanship

10/01/2025

Hi unfortunately someone is harassing me quite heavily and now targeting my clients and people on this page. If anyone gets a message could you please send me the screenshots so I can add it to the police report.

08/01/2025

Tentatively looking for 2 horses to join our settled herd on a private track/equicentral type setup near Stokesley.

Please read carefully before messaging.

The horses live free-range with
🐴 large open barn
🐴 ad-lib tested low sugar meadow hay
🐴 aubiose bedding
🐴 small track system
🐴 unfertilized meadowy grazing available all year
🐴 horse-friendly hedgerow
🐴 purpose-built hay boxes
🐴 slow-feeder haynets
🐴 20 x 40 arena
🐴 access to nice hacking
🐴 peaceful, quiet environment
🐴 barn/track cameras for late night checks

Looking for small horses/ponies who are used to living in a mixed herd and are quiet to handle. Horses must be barefoot due to how we feed hay etc. Can accommodate horses needing less grass/prone to laminitis. The horses live communally at all times, while we do have a stable for emergencies we cannot offer regular stabling.

Ideally looking for 1 local person with 2 horses on a DIY basis so we can help each other and share jobs etc.

This is a private, peaceful place which is also someone's home so it is important we find the right person. Looking for someone like-minded who is as passionate about keeping horses this way as I am.

Please drop me a message if you think you might be the right fit.

07/01/2025

On this day last year I brought the boys back home to the north after 7 years of living down south and much searching for a suitable place❤️

I feel so fortunate that I can give them such a lovely life here and I get to hang out with them every single day ❤️

I’m sure nobody will get as much joy from this video as me 😅 but here’s a little compilation of their first year in their new home 🐴

06/01/2025

I can feel the frustration bleeding out of this post from experience and I really feel for owners who are trying their best to seek help and being let down.

There are people out there who will listen and while we may not have the answers ourselves we will help you find them. Please reach out.

Getting to the root of a pain problem -

As our understanding of pain related behaviour improves, there are many situations where horses might present with a "nothingy something" of an issue but there is no clear indicator of where that problem might be arising from.

The interesting (challenging) thing with this is that, if there is no overt lameness or "if I poke here it really hurts", then oftentimes there is no clear start line for your diagnostic journey.

This can be very frustrating because you can find yourself running around in circles not knowing where to start, with conflicting advice from the professionals around you - some of whom might tell you unhelpful things like "just ride through it" or "it's just bad behaviour"

And this is where I have found traditional diagnostics really need to up their game because from a welfare perspective we need to be intervening with pain before a horse is hopping lame or ditching their rider.

And this in turn will encourage people to pay attention to the smaller behaviours rather than waiting for lameness or waiting to be ditched!

What I have learned is that sometimes you have to pick a place to start and work from there.

This means you may be searching for a little while and you might be ruling out more areas through diagnostics than ruling in areas, but that in and of itself is useful information.

Here is what my career has taught me so far:

- If you think there is a problem, there probably is. Find yourself a team of professionals that will support you.

Sometimes a professional might tell you there isn't a problem because they don't have the skillset to see it or find it, another opinion can often be a good thing - though do keep in mind that too many chefs spoil the broth.

There is many a time where I will say "there is a problem - I can't tell you what, though my observation/palpation skills tell me xyz and I will support you in finding out what it is".

- Sometimes there is so much peripheral noise that you need to strip out a lot of variables and then reassess. This includes improving your horse's management to meet their ethological needs and reducing the workload to see where a problem stops being a problem. These all take time.

I have also found that horses can present as painful because their human is expecting way, way, way too much from them given their physical and emotional health. Getting comfortable doing less and going slower is a solid way of rounding off with a happier, healthier horse that you can actually do more with in the long run.

- I'm a "let's deal with the elephant in the room" kind of gal:

If your horse has poor foot balance, deal with that and then go from there. This could include radiographs to monitor changes in hoof angle and this might mean seeking advice from other hoof care providers to support you and your current hoof care provider in improving things.

Likewise, if your horse's back looks like a saggy hammock, or they have weird lumps/spinal protrusions, deal with that. You could get radiographs to tell you the orientation of the spinous processes. Then rebuild your horse's spinal angle and see where that gets you.

- The problem will continue to be a problem until you have actually resolved it! If your horse has diagnosed hoof balance issues, which you are working on resolving, but the balance is still poor, then it will still be an issue!! This means you have to adjust your expectations of your horse accordingly!

- If you are requesting relatively non-invasive diagnostics, e.g. radiographing/ultrasounding your horse's limbs or back, and you are prepared to pay actual hard earned money for this service even though it might show you absolutely nothing of any value (although to me, ruling out an area is of enormous value), please don't let a professional convince you not to UNLESS they have a reasonable counter plan for another diagnostic (NB a bone scan, to the tune of thousands of £££ is not a suitable counterplan in my opinion)

"I suggested to my vet that we xray my horse's back but they palpated it and said that his reactions were normal so there is no reason to xray"

"Okay well what did they suggest instead?"

"They didn't"

"Great, so you have a horse that presents with pain under saddle and yet we are still no further forward with determining the cause"

- Equally, diagnostics and expertise do come with a price tag, this means that in order to find out what is going on with your horse, you do need to spend money. I know this gets tricky when your horse is presenting with a nothingy something and you have a limited budget to deal with it because you really want to spend that money wisely, but turning up to your vet and saying "I have 55p and three buttons to spend, please tell me what's wrong with my horse", is really unfair on your vet and also your horse.

"I had his hocks medicated but it didn't change anything"

"Did you do any diagnostics?"

"No, we just medicated"

"So what you're saying is you did something painful, that isn't without its risks, despite having not done any due diligence, which means you've spent money you don't have on something that wasn't the problem?"

- It is not as simple as medicating and riding into the sunset.

Why did your horse get the diagnosis they got?

What have you done to improve their management/lifestyle/way of going so you can reduce the instances of this happening again? For biomechanic induced issues, you need to solve the problem by altering their biomechanics; medicating is a way of reducing the pain/inflammation to buy you a window of time to do this in.

-

The relationship between pain and behaviour are very complicated. I really wish it was as simple as "nerve block here" to get results. There is so much more I could add and the nuances are vast.

There will of course be outliers to this - people who tried all of the above and are still without answers, or those who walked to hell and back to get them - and for those people I understand that this post might be very triggering, I am sorry about that. I hope you can see here that this is a good starting place for many people and I welcome your experience in the comments if you feel it has the power to help someone.

The final thing I will say is this -

Your horse does not need to perform in any way, shape or form in order to be deserving of your love, care and dedication to them. And if you feel they do, then perhaps you should consider getting a bicycle instead ❤️

05/01/2025

So great to see professionals looking at the whole horse and advocating for better welfare.

Kelly has a wealth of knowledge on nutrition and management as well as being an all round lovely person. I recommend getting in touch if you need any help, I think she covers Yorkshire, Cumbria and Scotland as well as the North East.

05/01/2025

The boys being absolute clowns in the snow this morning 😅❄️❄️❄️❄️