North East Animal Physiotherapy

19/05/2026

What tools does the equine physiotherapist have in their toolkit? 🛠🧰

Balance pads is one example that you might have seen lately ⚖️

Key to using balance pads for physio exercise is what you're trying to achieve with their use. They can help build strength in the thoracolumbar multifidus as well as improve overall coordination, but repetition and duration as well as how often you do the exercise matters. The firmness of the pad is also relevant, and where you only have access to a single firmness of pad we might need to adjust other factors to accommodate that for your horse. This is why we would always recommend having your horse assessed by a professional before adding something like balance pads to your program to ensure the way you use them is going to be appropriate and effective for the individual and what we're wanting to achieve.

Here I'm using them on Evans hindlimbs, but have also shown them used on the forelimbs. A more challenging variation would be to use them on all four legs.

16/05/2026

Our next equine physiotherapy day at GVEH is Friday 22nd of May. Get in contact with myself directly or the GVEH reception to book an appointment now!
Offering full gait and hands on assessment, with individualised treatment based on assessment findings. We utilise a range of treatment techniques including soft tissue massage, dry needling (pictured), laser and therapeutic exercises, as well as provide structured home programs for each horse.

30/04/2026

We do a lot of hands on treatment as physiotherapists, but we're also the experts in prescribing rehabilitation programs. Building strength and control is not only important in rehabilitation, but it's also key to preventing future injury. We can help you get your horse moving better whether for performance or rehabilitation purposes 🐎🐎

20/04/2026

We've still got availability for equine physiotherapy appointments at Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital this Friday 24th April.

Sessions consist of:
- Full physiotherapy assessment including gait analysis, range of motion and palpation
- Treatment tailored to your horse, including soft tissue massage, joint mobilisation, laser therapy, superficial dry needling (pictured here) and strengthening and stretching exercises.

Owners are also given individual homework to do where relevant.

Contact myself or GVEH reception to book!

19/04/2026

🗣 Behaviour is communication 🗣

Our animals can't talk and tell us how they feel, but they do still communicate with us nearly constantly. Subtle changes in their actions can reflect changes in how their bodies feel. A big part of my job as an animal physiotherapist is identifying these subtle changes in behaviour, and helping owners understand and interpret them.

Your dog pausing before jumping into the back of the car, becoming less sociable or tolerant of other dogs or no longer sitting the first time you ask despite knowing that command their entire life. The horse who has become difficult to rug loose in the paddock, who now pins his ears while being girthed or has become increasingly lazy and unwilling under saddle.

Our animals don't just change their behaviour without reason, and they certainly don't choose to act in a certain way just to be difficult or contrary. Next time you notice a shift in your pets normal routines and behaviours, ask yourself why. If you're not sure where that behaviour stems from, pain could be a factor. A physiotherapy assessment can help you identify the cause.

17/04/2026

🐎🐕 Why physiotherapy? 🐕🐎

If you've ever been to a physiotherapist for yourself you'll know that a key part of what we do is dig deeper to find out why a problem is occurring. You might have knee pain while running, but when we watch you move we realise that the problem is actually weakness on the outside of your hip causing your knee to drop in during stance phase. While we might use massage, dry needling or tape at your knee to decrease your pain, we're also looking at your hip to help address the root cause of the problem and prevent it from coming back when you next go for a run.

It's the same in our animals. While a key part of what we do is manual therapy to help alleviate pain, we're not just there for soft tissue massage, joint mobilisions or laser therapy. We're also there to dig deeper. Physiotherapy really differs from other modalities in that we're experts in biomechanics so we can look at the big picture and find the compensation or dysfunction that is leading to pain. Helping to disrupt this pain cycle is key in what we do to not just treat pain but stop it from coming back.

If your horse or dog is regularly showing the same issues in their body, physiotherapy could be what they need to help disrupt that cycle.

09/04/2026

Our first day providing equine physiotherapy at Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital has been scheduled for Friday 24th April. We are aiming for monthly days following this.

- Manual therapy - massage, joint mobilisations
- Electrotherapy - laser therapy
- Superficial dry needling
- Exercise including stretching and strengthening
- Rehabilitation programs

Contact us now for enquiries and bookings!

29/03/2026

Did you know animal physio can not only help manage pain from injuries, arthritis or following surgery, but it can also help prevent issues from arising? Just as in humans, physiotherapy, including manual therapy and exercise, can help maintain function and prevent issues from arising. From working dogs to lap dogs, we're here to help your dog feel their best.

24/03/2026

North East Animal Physiotherapy is excited to announce we will soon be consulting from Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital. This will allow us to better serve the Shepparton area by providing regular equine physiotherapy services out of the hospital itself. Not only will we have access to hospital facilities for assessment and treatment, but this will also foster close collaboration between the veterinary and rehabilitation teams. We're really looking forward to kicking off this partnership so if you have any questions please message North East Animal Physiotherapy.

20/02/2026

Great advice regarding waiting until the first frost has killed off all bot flies prior to worming with a mectin wormer to kill bot eggs within your horses. Companies like WormCheck who offer f***l egg counts are key in having a targeted approach to worming; more effective use of wormers helps prevent development of drug resistant parasites is going to prove really important into the future as there aren't new wormers coming onto the market!

🐴💩📣𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐓📣💩🐴

We’re halfway through February, which means it is nearly March, which means it is almost “autumn”, which means it's time for this annual post, to catch you all before you drench your horses on the 1st of March.

Mid - late autumn is the No. 1 time of year to worm your horses, because it ties in best with breaking the bot-fly life cycle. A bot fly’s lifecycle is 12 months, so treating just once a year will break that lifecycle (and overtime decrease bot fly populations). By mid-autumn/early winter, the entire population of bot flies will be inside your horse, which means you can target all the bots on your property with a single dosage of a boticide dewormer (ivermectin, abamectin, moxidectin).

If you deworm your horses too early in autumn, you will not be targeting all the bot flies as they are often present well into autumn, laying eggs on your horses coat. If you deworm on the 1st of March, there will be bot flies, and subsequently bot eggs and larvae that come after the treatment and will remain within your horse for the year.

Therefore, hold off on the autumn deworming a little longer, if your horses are in good condition. Wait until the nights cool down and the bot flies disappear before deworming – and make sure that the dewormer you purchase is active against bots, otherwise it will all be in vain. If your horses need to be treated now, do so, but make sure you target bot flies again in early winter. The “first frost” method simply means it is cold enough that the bots will be finished. Australia frosts are not cold enough to actually kill any worms in the ground – these need consistent days of below zero temperatures (think Northern European/American winters)

So that’s my bot-fly spiel. Normally I write about strongyles (my favourite), and so I shall of course make a mention of them here too.
I always recommend a mid-late autumn deworming for ALL HORSES because it a) cleans out any bots and b) all horses really should have a strongyle clean out once a year as well. I may be against deworming for the sake of deworming, however that is only if you are doing it 3 or 4 or more times a year.

Strongyles can have a lifecycle of as little as 6 weeks. In addition, at any one point, about 90% of the strongyle population is living on the pasture, not in the horse. Therefore, the concept of using chemical dewormers inside the horse to break the lifecycle of strongyles would not work. At all. So, we chose our annual deworming-clean-out to line up with as many other parasites as possible.

All boticide dewormers are also effective against strongyles so deworming in autumn is a 2 for 1 type deal. You should also consider using a dewormer that also contains praziquantel to treat for tapeworms to get a complete clean out, just in case tapeworms are present. WormCheck does offer a tapeworm specific FEC now, if you wanted to check beforehand to avoid the overuse of praziquantel. (There have been some scary reports of praziquantel resistance in Europe.)

Lastly… wait, second lastly.. this is a topic too complex to get into here, but: this time of year is key for larval cyathostomins, where encysted larvae have mass emergences from the intestine wall, in response to changes in weather (e.g. in VIC as it cools and becomes wetter again). Deworming and removing adult populations of worms can act as a trigger for larval re-emergence, which is also why I often baulk at deworming horses now. The larvae may slowly re-emerge coming into the cooler weather and treating in mid-late autumn may be a safer bet to remove adults and emerged larvae. The research on this is sketchy as best, however these are patterns shown in cattle and hypothetically should translate over into horses.

And lastly (pat on the back for reading this far): just because I’m recommending deworming all horses does not mean I am not recommending FECs in autumn. A FEC will tell you important things about your horses health, and pick up anything odd that may be happening (e.g. a spike in EPG in a horse that is usually a low shedder; this is a sign of an impaired immune system, e.g. EMS, cushings). Doing an autumn FEC will also allow you to test drug efficacy. Autumn should be a key time for everyone to do a FECRT (faecal egg count reduction test), where you get FECs done before and after deworming to make sure that it worked. If you only deworm once a year, then you’ve only got one chance for a FECRT, and you cannot, I repeat, you CANNOT do a FECRT without a FEC before to compare to.

If you’d like to organise FECs and FECRTs for your horses this autumn, check out the website (link on the FB page) for postal submission and drop off points/events.