New Forest Animal Behaviour Clinics

30/01/2025

The public has spoken.

21/01/2025

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SPOT COLIC IN HORSES?

Colic indicates a painful problem in the horse's abdomen (belly), which can be caused by a number of different conditions. Less than 10% of all colic cases are severe enough to require surgery or cause the death of the horse; nevertheless, every case of colic should be taken seriously because it can be difficult to tell the mild ones from the potentially serious ones in the early stages.

Horses show signs of abdominal pain in a wide variety of ways, and usually a horse shows only a few of the signs during an episode of colic. The rule of thumb is — the more obvious the signs of pain, the more serious the problem.

If you suspect the horse is suffering from colic, we suggest that you:

• Alert your veterinarian immediately

• Remove all hay and grain from the horse's surroundings

• Don't medicate without your veterinarian's approval, as pain medications can mask clinical signs

• Walk the horse around if it's continually rolling or in danger of hurting itself — but do not tire the horse with relentless walking and don't approach the animal if it's not safe

• Keep the horse under close observation until the signs of colic resolve or the veterinarian arrives

The key to increasing the chances of a good outcome is to identify the problem early and get your veterinarian involved from the start.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of colic signs. Horses are individuals and may display signs of pain in a variety of ways. Always consult your horse doctor for more information.

02/01/2025

18/12/2024

Balance and biomechanics of the seat are so important when considering ridden equine behaviours. We advocate and teach this in accordance with Enlightened Equitation principles.

17/11/2024

29/10/2024

We know your incredible animals are super important to you… and they’re ‘im-paw-tant’ to us, too!

To help you all this fireworks season, our Clinical Animal Behaviourist, Nicola, would love to share our advice and tips, to help you keep them as safe & comfortable as possible.

Whether you share life with a dog, cat, guinea pig, horse, donkey, goat, sheep or any other companion or field animal, it's important to consider the effects that fireworks can have on their wellbeing & safety.

As we approach the main event of the season - Bonfire Night - we have made a note of some things to consider over the coming days.

Please click here: www.mgar.org.uk/fireworks-season to read our guidance and help prepare your animal for the season ahead.

We'd love for you to share this post with your friends & loved ones, to help spread the word and support our animal-loving communities 💚

03/09/2024

Welsh Section A and laminitis risk!

💫Laminitis in Section A ponies💫

Some of you may remember me asking the Section A world to fill out a survey as to whether their pony had suffered from laminitis or not.

I had such an overwhelming response (and balanced response of yes and no’s) I have managed to generate a database of more than 3000 ponies and associate these ponies to development of laminitis or not.

What is remarkable AND the first of its kind, is that you can see there is two very distinct groups of ponies that either fall into the lamintis or no laminitis group.

These two group separations are a direct result of the ancestors of these ponies represented in the figure in this post.

As a result of this analysis it is now possible to risk score ponies for the genetic risk of them developing laminitis based on their ancestry.

The accuracy of this prediction has already been completed for around 50 ponies already and provided back to the owners with 100% correct placing achieved.

Currently the sensitivity of this method is 89% and the specificity is 85%. This will improve as more ponies are entered into the database and the data is modelled. For any geeks on here the AUC is already 0.935 👏.

I am currently working with an expert modeller to model this data to make the predictions even better and then to automate the analysis so that anyone can enter a ponies breeding and obtain a risk score (it’s manual at the moment).

Just imagine being able to “breed out” laminitis!

25/07/2024

In the horse world: I just wanted to put it out there that whips and the way we behave with them doesn't just have the potential to cause immense physical pain, but immense psychological pain and trauma. Even a whip being held but not used can have a profound and negative psychological affect on the horse, regardless of the terminology the humans attach to it. It is the horses perception and association attached to the whip and therefore the human holding it that matters.

05/07/2024

Thank you, Justine Harrison.

Equine specialist questions whether the animals’ behavioural needs are being met and says capital may be overwhelming

01/07/2024

More bolting military horses in London.

Happy to help in assessing as an independent ABTC-CAB approved clinical equine behaviour consultant.

Animals spooked by a bus unseat two riders before one is seen running into a car bonnet in Pimlico

30/06/2024

Some really sage advice on cat management style from Lucy Hoile .

Deciding whether or not to let your cat outside is a difficult decision for lots of people. Are you making the right choice? Lots of people feel very strongl...