Over the course of a few weeks, I released a series of posts on my social media pages (my Facebook page and my Instagram page). In these posts I discussed how we recognize the signs of stress and the signs of release in our horses during their bodywork sessions - and why this feedback from them is so important! I am also sharing my best tips for making equine therapy a positive and relaxing experience, allowing horses to enjoy all of the benefits of bodywork - even horses who tend to be anxious. I’ve now put all of those posts together into a cohesive article here on my blog. If you have any questions, or experiences to share with your own horses - please reach out by contacting me!
Signs of Stress
It's important to remember that within the context of a manual therapy session, horses should be allowed to give us their feedback - it's their body we are working with, after all. They can't speak our spoken languages, so we need to rely on reading their body language. This means that they need some freedom to speak to us in this manner. While working in cross ties isn't my favourite, sometimes it's the best option for that situation and we make the best of it. However, we need to realize that if the horse doesn't have the freedom to move around (like they would if we were working on a lead line or loose in a paddock), we need to be extra vigilant for signs of discomfort and stress. We must be more understanding when the horse chooses another form of movement like stepping sideways, pawing, or head tossing. If we punish the horse for doing those behaviours during their session, they eventually stop expressing themselves altogether, and then I no longer have the necessary feedback that I need to conduct a safe and effective equine therapy session.
Movement is natural and should not be considered a negative behaviour. If a horse is expressing those behaviours, we need to decipher when it signals that they've reached a threshold of discomfort or stress. If they require movement to achieve a tension release, we need to recognize and facilitate that for them too. That could look like changing what I'm doing based on the horse's cues, unclipping a cross tie or loosening the lead line to give the horse more freedom to move, or even taking the horse for a short walk. Potentially they've simply reached a threshold and that's a good place to change what we're doing, or end the session. All of these possibilities show why it's imperative to closely monitor their signals - objectively, without involving our human emotions, so that we can read the horse's communication accurately.
Signs of Release
We also need to be accurate observers of horses' signals of relaxation and release. Horses are individuals and some just don't express themselves all that loudly during therapy. Not every horse is going to yawn repeatedly, fall asleep, wiggle their bum back and forth, or drool throughout their session. If your horse is consistently standing with a relaxed posture and a soft eye while I'm working with them - I'm thrilled with that! Do you spend your entire massage rolling around on the table and moaning? Maybe some of you do, and those extremely effusive horses exist too, but many horses tend to simply relax and go into their own happy world when they're fully in tune with their manual therapy.
We all love watching those horses who boldly express their enjoyment of touch - but if this isn’t your horse, don’t be discouraged. Next time your horse is getting some bodywork done, or you're doing some techniques with them yourself, observe their body language closely. They may be showing more signs of release than you initially thought! Some subtle signs of relaxation and tension release can include resting a leg, stretching of a limb or the neck, soft eye movements and blinking, relaxed posture, a loose lower lip, jaw or tongue movement, twitches of the skin, and changes in breath.
Reading subtle body language also requires the ability to consider the context of the situation. Context can drastically change the meaning behind the cues that our horses are giving us. This requires practice, but an easy way to get started is to “read the room”, so to speak, rather than hyper-focussing on one behaviour from our horse. Is the horse pawing during bodywork, but is otherwise showing consistent signs of relaxation? Perhaps the pawing in this context is part of the release process. Is the horse yawning, but otherwise appears to be stressed and over-threshold? The yawn in that case is more likely a self-soothing behaviour than a sign of relaxation. An excellent article to get started on understanding calming signals and other body language that our horses use is this one by Anna Blake.
Five Practical Tips
I've created a short series of my best tips for making equine therapy a positive, relaxing experience - even for horses who tend to be anxious.
Prepare your horse for bodywork. This applies to the day of your appointment, as well as healthy habits to create with your horse in their daily life.
Some horses are nervous about being touched in general. Working on this ahead of time will prepare your horse for stress-free experiences with all professionals - vet, farrier, bodyworker, and others. It also helps us to identify the source of the anxiety around touch. This is different from a horse who is tender or protective of an area due to discomfort or trauma - that feedback from the horse needs to be respected.
I don’t condone the use of flooding to get your horse used to touch. Flooding, very simply put, means to expose a horse to a stimulus that causes him fear or anxiety, and forcing him to be exposed to that stimulus until the horse no longer responds in a negative way. There are many other effective, fear-free methods that we can use to help our horses become more comfortable with something like human touch. Some great resources are The Willing Equine, Leviosa Equine, and Josh Nichol - A Horseman’s Pursuit.
Having the horse in the right frame of mind for bodywork will make a significant difference during the session. Your routine will look different based on your individual horse, and some horses are totally okay with going straight from their turnout or stall time and into a bodywork session. But if your horse tends to be anxious about touch, or easily distracted by their surroundings, not taking the time to prepare them beforehand could result in a session where they cannot relax easily. Learning some gentle, mindful groundwork is excellent for this. Purposeless lunging (letting the horse run on the lunge line or in the arena to burn off energy) is not helpful and usually results in a horse with increased levels of fight-or-flight hormones like adrenaline and cortisol - not conducive to relaxation!
Be mindful of the day and time that you schedule your horse for bodywork.
If your horse is fed timed meals rather than free-flow hay/grass, doing the session while they’re hungry is not going to set up your horse for success. The same goes for turn-in/out times, or any other circumstance that involves disrupting your horse’s usual routine.
Scheduling your horse for bodywork right before or after they’ve already had to stand for the vet, farrier, saddle fitter, etc. is also not ideal for horses who have difficulty relaxing or focussing. By doing so, we have trigger-stacked our horses to the point that they have no more ability to pour from their now-empty patience cup!
Be prepared to be flexible.
Bodywork sessions can look very different depending on the horse’s current state of mind and what issues are the primary concern at the time. This may look to you at first like a less productive session if we are “doing less” - but it is in fact more productive than forcing a horse to stand still for us when they’re anxious or in pain.
Horses should never be rushed through or forced to participate in bodywork sessions. Rushing or forcing reduces the quality of the work by not allowing the horse’s mind and body to fully relax and allow the nervous system to unwind its tension patterns and experience novel sensations.
Does your horse usually get energized or anxious when they’re in the cross ties? Then we may need to find another place, such as in a paddock or stall, to do our bodywork session - or vice versa. Be prepared to go with the flow and provide what the horse needs in the current moment. Every horse is an individual.
Be aware of your own presence and frame of mind.
Horses are exceptionally intuitive - as prey animals, their brains and bodies are wired this way for survival. As a therapist working with horses, I need to make sure that my own energy and state of being is calm, grounded, and congruent with my emotions before I begin my work with a horse. If you are present at the bodywork session, you are a participant, whether you realize it or not! If you are feeling tense, anxious, or distracted while you are handling or even standing near your horse as an observer, your horse is picking up on those emotions and it may contribute to his or her own tension and anxiety. If you’ve ever tried to catch your horse from the field while you’re in a hurry and stressed about it, or ride your horse with tension in your body after a bad day at work, you know exactly how it feels when your horse senses this and wants nothing to do with you and your human agenda.
If you’re having trouble grounding yourself and being in a quiet, present frame of mind during your horse’s bodywork session (or any other time spent with them), I am more than happy to show you some of my own techniques for bringing myself into the right state of being to work with horses. Some great resources are Heart Math and Dr. Susan Fay’s amazing book, “Sacred Spaces: Communion with the Horse Through Science and Spirit” (available on Amazon, but do try to support your local bookstore if you can).
That being said, we are only human, and you aren't expected to be perfectly calm and grounded at all times - I'm definitely not. The important thing to remember is to be aware of ourselves and how we feel. If we have self awareness and honesty, our horses pick up on that more than anything else. They value congruence - harmony between what we're feeling and what we're expressing in our bodies. It creates clarity and trust between species.
Be open to other ideas.
My final tip is to be open to the fact that a horse who is consistently stressed and unable to accept manual therapy in a willing and calm manner, despite best efforts to find what works best for that individual, may require deeper investigation into the source of the behaviour. In my experience, horses who are unable to overcome their anxiety around therapeutic touch always have a reason for it. It could be related to pain, trauma, fear, or all of the above. Addressing other possible areas of concern can bring your horse back into a comfortable state that allows him to now relax and enjoy the benefits of bodywork. You may need to be open to other ideas such as:
Investigating sources of pain with a veterinarian.
Addressing hoof balance and health with a farrier or trimmer.
Adjusting diet with the help of a nutritionist.
Working with a horsemanship trainer to build your relationship with your horse.
Checking the fit of your tack by a qualified saddler.
Making changes to your horse’s lifestyle such as bigger or more frequent turn-out, greater socialization with other horses, or free-feeding.
Horses are also incredibly adept at hiding pain and fear, and compensating as necessary so as not to show any weakness (again - they are wired as a prey animal!). Unfortunately this can mean that even horses who stand quietly and don’t make a fuss can be suffering from pain and anxiety just as much as a horse who is clear about this in his body language.
Equine bodywork is not a one-and-done fix for any issue, just as my examples above are not quick fixes either. The advice that I give to all horse owners is to view your horse in a holistic manner. The dictionary definition of “holistic” is “characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole”, as well as “characterized by the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the symptoms of a disease”. Part of being a qualified equine therapist is recognizing the presence of other potential issues that could be affecting the horse’s comfort and quality of life. It is one of the most complex components of the job and requires life-long learning to become educated in all facets of equine science and welfare, not just bodywork techniques alone.
As a horse owner, try to remember that your equine therapist is a human doing their very best to give your horse the utmost quality of care. We don’t have a crystal ball or x-ray vision, but be open to hearing our ideas to improve your horse’s comfort and welfare - it’s how we best help you and your horse, what we love to do, and why we chose this career.
Kaiti Elliott, Certified Equine Performance Therapist
Fraser Valley, BC