Approaching care interventions with minimal stress
Do you and your horse struggle with vet visits? Is he needle shy? Does he seem to fight sedation? How about the farrier? Dentist? Saddle fitter? How about administering wormers or eye drops? Cleaning wounds on legs? Cold hosing? Do you come away from these experiences feeling a bit uncomfortable or even shaken up either from the methods used to achieve adequate restraint or from the way the procedure made you and your horse feel? Do you end up feeling a bit worried or sad that you’re pretty sure it will take a while before you and your horse feel back in a good place again relationship-wise? How about if the treatment is ongoing, and it’s becoming more and more of a struggle each day? And to top it all, you’re worried about doing it properly so that your horse gets better.
I hear you!
I am both a veterinary surgeon and a horse owner and I get it. I have felt all of the above at various times, with my own horses as a client myself, with client horses as a student shadowing other clinicians and working as a vet myself. I have also felt the same with other species, I have worked in mixed practice for most of my career and it definitely also happens with dogs, cats, cattle, sheep, you name it.
To me, it just doesn’t feel right to expect the animal to cope well with something (and often someone) they are unfamiliar with, which often involves some degree of discomfort, makes them feel funny or less able to defend themselves, and all of this at the same time as a baseline of feeling unwell or in pain. So many times I have remarked to my clients of patients of all species “I wish we could just explain to them that this part might feel slightly unpleasant but doesn’t take very long and afterwards they will feel better”. Well, I started to think that I should explore this if it felt so important.
I already knew that we can communicate to animals that we mean no harm. Then I thought of course we can prepare them better for the types of behaviours that might be needed of them to make these procedures go more smoothly. Then I discovered that we can go even deeper - we can establish modes of communication with our animals that allow them to give us consent to do these procedures. And if they give us consent for them, their experience is likely to be truly less aversive, because trustworthy relationships make sentient beings feel better physiologically as well as emotionally, including lessening pain. This blew me away and is incredibly powerful.
Then there is the question of which interventions to choose, for example potentially invasive diagnostics or treatments. I believe that in some cases we might even have to have a conversation over whether, at this time, there are some interventions the patient will struggle to cope with or might even be trauma-inducing. Sometimes if the case is urgent or an emergency we don’t have much choice, but if we do have a choice, my thoughts are that considering how the individual patient will respond not just clinically but also emotionally is an important part of making our plan.
A basic look at how we can achieve maximal benefits clinically, mentally and emotionally:
Communicating that we mean no harm. This is a huge subject! It’s a funny one, it both is and isn’t something you can do well with a very small amount of time. On the one hand, being present and aware of subtle signs of worry in your horse and responding to these, demonstrating that you have noticed, can be surprisingly effective in a very small amount of time. On the other hand, deep trust is earned with repeated demonstration of our trustworthiness and takes time. But horses are incredibly generous and knowing beings, if you do have to put your horse through a stressful or painful veterinary procedure, I promise he will forgive you!
Preparing for types of behaviours that will be needed. At their most basic, these include wearing a headcollar and standing still (I don’t recommend tying horses for healthcare interventions), but this might actually be challenging for some horses. It is helpful to go far more advanced than this, preparing horses to have their jugular vein raised, their skin pinched slightly where a needle would go, their feet lifted, held and put on a stand, clippers used, a syringe placed in their mouth and their eyelids gently parted. The list goes on but is absolutely doable and working on these things will have deeper training and relationship benefits than just achieving these behaviours.
Gaining consent for procedures. Choice in a matter makes it far less frightening and builds trust in the person presenting the possibility. We can use something called start and end “buttons” that allow the horse to tell us in a safe way when they are feeling uncomfortable and then we can take a pause. Funnily enough, in time this makes it far more likely they will not ask us to stop so much. This is absolutely doable by everyone who is willing to learn some principles of animal training and work on them. Once again this will have far deeper relationship benefits than just coping better with vet visits.
Modifying the plan for the horse’s unique needs. This certainly does not ever mean compromising on welfare and in emergency and urgent situations we may need to use means we would usually prefer not to - horses in pain and panic can be dangerous to themselves and others and safety is a priority. But for example, we can have the conversation over whether a horse can emotionally cope with a surgical intervention at this time or whether conservative management will overall be more optimal for them.
Here’s what I’m proposing: I want to empower people to have better experiences for themselves and their horses where healthcare interventions are required and I want this to come from and return to a good horse-human relationship. I want to have the conversations around what is needed to make this happen. I want to give people the knowledge and skills to be able to put this into practice with their horse. I believe we can work on preparing horses better for procedures, making them safer and less stressful for all involved.
