Natural Horse Company

Clicker Training and Equine Touch in Portugal

I've just returned from a week in sunny Portugal where I was working as an Equine Touch Practitioner and teaching clicker training.

A big thank you to Sophie who organised my trip and for putting me up in her wonderful yurt at her lovely organic smallholding, www.portugalsmallholding.org. She also organised an Equine Touch demo and took me to visit various equines in need of some healing, including one horse who had fallen through a wooden floor, a lovely rescued mule and a lusitano stallion with a bad back. Everybody was very friendly and enthusiastic, and now want to learn some Equine Touch for themselves, bringing ET to portugal.

Sandra was my host in Lisbon, based at her livery yard and riding school, www.centrohipico.pt. The clicker training workshop went really well, leaving them inspired to teach their horses new things in a postive and fun way. Equine Touch meant I met more wonderful horses there, my favourite being Anke, a lovely dressage mare.

Click here to see the photos!

Hannah

Equine Touch is for horses, VHT is for humans.

I attended an advanced VHTcourse last weekend, which gave me another chance to learn from Jock Ruddock, founder of Equine Touch and VHT. Jock's interesting history includes a career as a wrestler where he discovered his talent for bodywork. He has since developed his Equine Touch and VHTmodalities, which he travels the world teaching with his veterinary wife, Ivana.

3 common riding problems that VHT can help are:

Lower back pain

Stiffness after riding

Arthritis

But what is VHT?

VHT stands for Vibromuscular Harmonisation Technique. A bit of a mouthful, but it makes sense if it's broken down. The VHT move consists of sending vibrations through muscles and other soft tissue, hence vibro-muscular. Harmonisation is about bringing the body into a balanced state where the innate healing processes can kick in. This combined brings about incredibly powerful results helping a whole host of problems.

Click here for a list of common ailments VHT has been known to help.

Hannah

Equine Touch and Colic

Last week, I noticed India, my 3yo warmblood mare, lying down in the field quite a lot in the afternoon but didn't think much of it until everyone else started cantering around the field and she didn't join in. I called them all in to the yard and sure enough India was very uncomfortable, tucked up and stiff and isn't wasn't long before she started the telltale signs of nudging her tummy, pawing the ground and continually getting up and lying down. Putting my ear to her side all I could hear was a very ominous silence. Uh-oh, colic.

I immediately started giving her some Equine Touch and was thorougly amazed at the results! After about 30 seconds her stomach gave an enormous rumble and isn't wasn't long after that she passed some wind. I'm not often so excited by a fart! She was still very uncomfortable and her belly was very sore to the touch. Her abdominal muscles and some over her back were very tight and contracted and she really didn't want to move, so I carried on with the Balance.

As it went on she started to relax her muscles and breathe more deeply, and after about half an hour lay down. She was obviously more comfortable in this poistion and I just continued working on her where she was. Her muscles were relaxing, the grumbling was getting more frequent and she was still letting out the occasional fart. The pain around her belly was also getting less and by the time I finished she was fast asleep, eyes shut, head on the ground.

I left her where she was with Toby standing over and kept an eye out. She stayed there for nearly half an hour and when I checked on her a bit later she was standing up, had left a neat pile of muck and came trotting down to the fence demanding to be fed! I left her in overnight with a big bucket of Simple System feed and she was right as rain in the morning.

It was such a great result, Equine Touch is a very powerful tool and I'm constantly amazed at the great results it produces when I use it, from digestive problems, stiffness, lameness, tension, bad behaviour...the list goes on!

Hannah

Cock Rocks

How many horse owners know what this is a picture of? As the owner of several geldings, I have been cleaning sheaths for years but until recently I never looked any further (well, to be honest, who would want to??). Through my Equine Touch training I've learnt about urinary beans, (aka willy beans or, my favourite, cock rocks) and the above picture is one I removed from a client's horse I visited last week.

These beans are a build up of dirt, sweat, urine and secretion from the glands inside the sheath. They combine to form smegma which can form hard waxy balls inside the head of the penis. They build up in the urethral diverticulum, which is the pocket near the urethra near the end of the penis.

They can cause all sorts of problems, from difficulties urinating, behavioural problems and discomfort through the back and hind end. Problems such as being bad-tempered, bucking, reluctance to go forward when ridden and short stride length could all be caused by the pain of a urinary bean.

Next time you're cleaning your horse's sheath, gently pull back the skin from the head of the penis and check inside. Some horses are comfortable to let you touch that area while others are not so happy! Toby, my coloured cob, hates anyone going near his sheath and still puts up a bit of a fuss which makes the whole thing worse than it already it is and means i tend to put it off...talking of which, it's on my to-do list for today. What fun! : )

Hannah

photo courtesy of thehorse.com