jesse

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The post Settle Petal! The Nervous Horse appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.

He started the day a little nervous (understandably) but settled quite well as she rode him all round the showground and in between the rings in the company of a friend. She tied him to the float, which he’d experienced several times at home, with his new mate and a haynet.

Disaster struck when the new mate was taken away. George panicked and broke away, madly galloping around the grounds until Amelia caught him. Once settled enough she loaded him onto the float and took him home.

The next day whilst riding in the paddock he spooked and she fell off. This was Amelia’s first fall from George, and didn’t help things as Amelia wasn’t the most confident rider to start with.

Joan told me that Amelia had used quite a few of the ‘calming’ products on the market for horses but none had the desired result for George, he was becoming more and more spooky, and increasingly unreliable when Amelia rode him.

Joan could see that Amelia was anticipating trouble as she went to ride and felt that Amelia was creating anxiety in George, as her own fears and worries transmitted to him through her body.

It sounded like the perfect scenario for both Horse & Rider to get some Settle Petal under their belts!  George and Amelia started on a course of daily Settle Petal for the next 6 weeks. George was to have a 2 week break from work to allow time for the treatment to start to calm him down whilst he was not under what he considered ‘pressure’. Angela requested that they ask Amelia’s coach to school and ride George for the first few days he was back in work and then the coach give Amelia several lessons in a row to build confidence all round.

Angela also suggested that they had The Horse Herbalist homeopathic formula Stage Fright or the flower remedy No More Fears on hand (for both horse and rider) to help them over the anxiety hump of the first few outings.

After about three months the pair went to another training day which proved to be a positive experience, confidence repaired in both horse and rider.  Amelia has continued her lessons with George working closely with her coach, and both are doing really well together as a partnership at competitions.

Find out more about Settle Petal, by clicking here.

Angela Davison

The post Fighting Fear with Settle Petal appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.

When they brought her home for the first time it was clear she hadn’t been handled much, but Anita and Alison worked on gaining her trust through groundwork and gentle handling.

Then they found Chanel had run through an electric fence – no physical injuries, thank goodness, so all seemed well.

A week later, Alison found Chanel away from her paddock mate seemingly frozen in a corner of paddock.  She’d clearly been there most of the day, and hardly moved.

Another incident occurred where Chanel caught her tail in the electric fencing, panicked, and ran off into the distance, going through the fence again.  Luckily they found her – but she was “frozen” in a the corner of a neighbour’s field.  Again, no physical injuries were found.

They moved Chanel to a one-acre plain wire paddock where she either stood in the corner or galloped flat out to the next corner. Until Anita and Alison moved the trough to ‘her’ corner they had to lead her to the water trough so she would drink!  Her feed trough was about halfway down the fence line, so she’d bolt to the feed, grab a few bites whilst pawing the ground then bolt back to a corner, her heart racing and looking petrified. She was happy for Anita or Alison to approach and handle her. The ladies, particularly Alison, were Chanel’s safe spot.

(Play the video below to see for yourself some of her behaviour before treatment, and the progress she is showing so far.)

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9kgO2T_j6w[/embedyt]

It was heartbreaking for the two ladies to watch, and they were at their wits’ end when they contacted me for help.  They took a hair sample, sent it in, and I did a thorough Hair Assessment to find out what was going on.  I discovered that while Chanels’ adrenal glands and liver were compromised because of the 3 months of self imposed terror, Chanel’s autonomic nervous system had been out of balance for over 18 months.

So the root cause of Chanel’s imbalances had started before Alison and Anita purchased her (and who knows what had happened to her?) but symptomatically nothing had shown except young horse nerves.

Then her first run in with the electric fence gave her another almighty scare quickly followed by the fence seemingly biting her again – all compounding her Autonomic Nervous System imbalance – her flight trigger out of her control.

Mentally/emotionally she was full of fear and doubted herself which made her feel gloomy and unconfident.  The poor thing was in a state! I made an individually tailored herbal and flower remedy solution for Chanel to start the healing process.

Soon after, Alison and Anita sent this feedback to me:

“Chanel is doing REALLY well.  Within days of starting the treatments she was behaving almost like a normal horse – even more normal than before her fright with the electric fence.

She has stopped racing to and standing in the corner of the paddock completely.  She happily grazes anywhere in the paddock and walks up to greet us.  She looks happy and relaxed all the time and only bucks and bolts around with excitement (not terror).  She has even stopped pawing at her feed trough while eating and has long sleeps sitting down everyday.  We have even noticed her lying out flat!”

Thank goodness this lovely mare had such compassionate owners to look out for her.

Chanel is almost at the end of our 15 week treatment program, and continues to improve.  When we retested her halfway through, it was clear to me that her mental/emotional balance had improved enormously. No longer was she holding onto all that fear. She indicated that she loved her environment, her humans, ridden work and free jumping.  These are super shifts in such a short space of time!

Find out more about how Angela can help clicking here.

Angela Davison

The post Trust Your Instincts: Chanel’s Story appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.

Today’s horse is the product of millions of years of evolution, during which survival depended on its ability to sense and respond to the environment in which it lived. This included escaping predators, being able to sense the temperature of its surroundings and identify food. While the need to escape predators may not be a requirement for the modern horse, their physiological response to fear is still to run.

To achieve this the various systems and organs in the horse’s body must be linked so they work together. The adjustment of an animal’s response to changes in the environment and the complex linking of the various processes in the body that this response involves is called co-ordination.

The two main systems involved in the flight response are the nervous and endocrine systems. The first operates via electrical impulses along nerve fibres and the second by releasing special chemicals or hormones into the bloodstream from glands.

From an anatomical perspective the nervous system is made up of the Central Nervous System (CNS) (brain and spinal cord), and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) (cranial and peripheral nerves), and from a functional perspective it is divided into the Somatic Nervous System (voluntary movement), and the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which controls involuntary (visceral) functions demanded for maintaining the overall physiological balance of bodily functions. In clearer terms the ANS is responsible for the involuntary bodily functions of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, digestive system, urinary system, reproductive functions and mobilising the body’s resources under stress. To achieve this it must be in balance.

OUT OF BALANCE

Any trauma, accident, drugs, chemicals, physical or mental abuse, including a horse being put under too much pressure, or an underlying genetic predisposition, which makes these types more susceptible, may cause the ANS to be out of balance.

The ANS of the horse is controlled by two branches:

1) Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) – fight or flight.

2) Parasympathetic nervous system – rest and digest.
The parasympathetic system is in constant opposition to the sympathetic system. It can be likened to two sides of a coin. On one side there’s the fight/flight/let me out of here response, and on the other side the rest, relax, eat, and digest.

SNS dominance

Real or imagined circumstances can quickly trigger the nervous response. When the sympathetic side of the ANS is dominant – on a short trigger – this is when the horse cannot help its inappropriate response to everything or anything. At the highest end of this scale you see a horse in a blind panic, eyes boggling, escaping or trying to, even at the expense of hurting itself and others, sweating profusely, heart rate and respiration through the roof. When in the
paddock they walk the fence.

The Nervous System continued…

The very best of horsemen or women know they have to wait until the adrenalin levels drop and the horse starts to settle before attempting to work with a horse exhibiting these symptoms.

The horse cannot help its response; it is involuntary, as there is an imbalance of the ANS.

Many horses suffer ANS imbalance to a lesser degree. They are regarded as being nervous, highly strung, inconsistent, or said to have poor temperaments. These are some of the nicer things said about these poor souls. Often the best of trainers have problems with horses with ANS imbalance. The trainer may feel like at last they’ve found the key to a particular horse then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the horse falls to pieces again and can’t concentrate on the job at hand. The lesser trainers blame the horse, saying it has an attitude problem, instead of realising there may be a fundamental physical problem.

Stress shuts down digestion

Horses with SNS dominance often suffer from an overly acidic gut, which may be ulcerated; they may not be able to gain or hold condition – absorption of nutrients is poor; they may lack interest in feed. Some horses only show the latter symptom as they internalise their anxiety. This makes it clearer to understand why only treating the gut is often a short term solution for these horses. Classically, using herbal medicine, you are looking at treating the
horse, dog or human for six to nine months to help the autonomic nervous system balance. Over this period you can expect either subtle or obvious improvements as the triggers decrease. If your horse is suffering from anything but a minor ANS imbalance then seek the services of a fully qualified horse herbal practitioner.

AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM – ANS

Divides into two branches:

Settle Petal helps to balance the ANS. Or for an individual approach and treatment plan – send me a hair!

Angela was one of Australia’s first female jockeys before retraining as a Classical Herbalist, Cranio- Sacral and Equine Bowen Therapist. As well as creating a range of Herbs for Horses (go to thehorseherbalist.com), Angela pioneered a unique hair assessment system for horses in the 1990’s and has formulated many hand-blended proprietary herbal formulas to address the core of most human and horses complaints. Angela is also the author of ‘Flower Remedies for Horses, Pets and People’. www.thehorseherbalist.com

courtesy of www.hoofbeats.com.au

Sophie

The post The Nervous System appeared first on The Horse Herbalist.