This message is from: Marsha Jo Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Pat and Maggie McCurdy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Our gelding, Patick, is six years old and over 3 months ago began > short stepping with his right hind leg. At first we thought he had > been kicked or something and gave him some rest. However, it kept > returning. So, we had a lameness expert check him out and give him > a flex-test. The diagnosis was arthritus in his left-rear hock. > We began a regiment of bute. His short stepping never changed with > or without bute.
A few years ago, my Fjord gelding (Sleepy) was moving just a smidge unevenly---not something I could see, but I could feel it when I rode him at the walk; it went away at the trot. I called out the vet, who concluded that he wasn't lame---but the "hitch in his get-along" continued, off and on. A few months later, I had a massage therapist out to check into the donkey's cinchiness, and almost as an afterthought, had her check everyone else over. She found that Sleepy had an ouchy spot in a muscle in his chest, sort of up underneath his shoulder blade, and another one on top of his rump, on the opposite side. Our best guess is that, one of the times he'd jerked a shoe the previous winter, he pulled that muscle in his chest (when he stood on the heel of the shoe with his hind hoof, then tried to lift that "nailed down" front hoof). He then mildly strained the muscle in his rump, trying to take the load off the sore shoulder---and six months later, the muscle spasms were still there! The massage therapist "released" the spasms, and his little unevenness went away. Interestingly, his long-standing minor misbehaviours with the farrier on that hind leg also went away! I understand that minor chiropractic problems can cause similar problems. I found it interesting that, from the ground, the vet couldn't see the problem. Only by knowing how the animal normally moved under a rider, could I feel it. The massage therapist could see it, in minor differences in the way the animal held himself, which I wasn't observant enough to pick up. Marsha Jo Hannah Murphy must have been a horseman-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] anything that can go wrong, will! 15 mi SW of Roseburg, Oregon
