As I have mentioned many times before, pole work is great for improving proprioception (neural ability to know where your limbs are in relation to the world) and coordination, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness, core stability, joint range of motion and health, and dynamic stretching of muscles.You can increase proprioceptive challenging by arranging sporadic poles […]
Pole Work for Horses Read More »
Let’s talk obesity! It is a huge issue in horse and dog welfare in the UK. Being overweight puts huge strain on the body systems, particularly the joints and can predispose to conditions such as osteoarthritis. Body condition scoring can be a great way to monitor your animal’s weight. Weigh tapes are not accurate as
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Core stability is an important concept to ensure appropriate biomechanical function. Core stability assists with the dorsal ventral chain, and by achieving core stability, contraction of the long back musculature is reduced (de Oliveria et al. 2015), which assists with back function by allowing greater ventral flexion rather than extension (figure 1). Core engagement involves
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So the walk is a 4 beat gait with no suspension phase. That means your horse and dog have to use concentric (shortening) and eccentric (lengthening) muscle contractions for every stride to produce movement, and isometric (contractions without a change in muscle length such as core muscles). Whereas in trot and canter where there is
Lets talk about walking Read More »
What is it? It is the cranial cruciate ligament that can be torn (shown with the arrow in the image). It is the same as the ACL in humans! But as dogs have an anatomically different knee (stifle) to us, if this ligament is torn, even just partially, their femur and tibia can slide away
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Desmopathy means ligament disease, such as desmitis (ligament inflammation), but can occur without inflammation and be fascial restriction or nerve compression. The suspensory ligament (figure 1), is present in the fore and hindlimbs, with prognosis of hindlimb injury being much more guarded than forelimb, and with hindlimb often being bilateral in presentation and linked to
Suspensory Ligament Desmopathy in horses Read More »
So although we could comment on a LOT of things with my position (such as my horribly contracted hip flexors!)…we are going to focus on the horse This horse is slightly older in age, and suffers from bilateral hock osteoarthritis, and has always had a slightly stubborn and “lazy” temperament (unless jumping!) These 2 images
