Hind End Issues
In my experience, most horses with hind end issues have multiple sources of pain and emotional trauma, mostly associated with human decision making. In order to fully heal the issues, each one has to be recognized, acknowledged, and addressed, by a human. There will usually be different levels of trust and/or pain associated with each issue and many issues will be linked to other parts of the body/trauma.
I try to differentiate between pain and trust issues and work on them appropriately.
My approach is to listen and get them to tell their story, then show them how to accept it and let it be in the past. I try to find a balance between softness and mindful persistence and show them that they can do the thing that they’re afraid of without pain or fear.
This can be like 50 first dates and it can take years for some horses. Others can be healed in one session. This will depend on the depth of the trauma and the personality of the horse.
They need a person to acknowledge that someone else did something careless with them in the past.
The opposite of this would be someone that keeps a mental ledger on every injury/mistreatment that ever happened to the horse, and brings it up everytime they’re struggling through an interaction with a practitioner. Too much repetition of past events can be re-traumatizing and prevent moving forward. There is a balance that needs to be struck between acknowledgment of past events and being stuck forever in the past.
I often work on horses with numerous issues and they start telling me everything, and I just start working on it. I let them tremble, shake, try to get away, or fake a fall…sometimes they really fall. I just stay physically and ( try to remain ) emotionally neutral and get the trim and bodywork done. The way I hold the legs while I’m trimming is to support the horse and help them release the trauma. If I just let go when they start struggling, they escape the healing opportunity. In some cases the release can really reveal how much pain and fear they have been holding on to. Sometimes it takes many sessions of balancing the horse until they’re ready for a big correction. Many owners have a low threshold for pain and suffering and don’t want to see their horse reliving something bad. IMO, they’re usually just mirroring their own struggle with their own issues. If they can’t handle their own past, they’ll have a hard time handling their horse’s past. Horses can get over things really fast when their owners can do the same. Getting into situations like this with people and their horses can be a really cool experience that brings about a lot of healing or it can open a can of worms that makes everything go downhill fast.
As a practitioner, it’s important to always get permission from the horse and the owner before unintentionally going into their past. It just comes up. That’s what horses do.
The horses are always easier than the humans. Most horses don’t hold grudges. When you learn something about them that they’ve been hiding they are capable of releasing it. Humans are more complicated to deal with. People can become quite angry about something that is revealed. Instead of healing they may be upset.
A lot of owners are getting in the way of their horses getting better. As a practitioner, you can learn to recognize this before you get too invested. You can also really get burned if you don’t recognize it
