Free to Be Equine Services

Free to Be Equine Services Kaiti Elliott is a Multi-Certified Equine Therapist based in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. More info at kaiti.com šŸŽ Contact [email protected]

She specializes in myofascial & craniosacral therapies to facilitate whole being equine wellness.

Do you feel like you aren't doing enough with your horse at this time of year?That is something I hear from almost every...
12/05/2025

Do you feel like you aren't doing enough with your horse at this time of year?

That is something I hear from almost every client throughout the late fall and winter. The daylight is scarce, it's almost always raining, the footing isn't great, energy is low, and there's a million other things to do.

Please know you aren't alone! Most people share the same frustrations, and it is a valid way to feel. You are doing your best at a very challenging time of year to be caring for horses.

So what can you do to help with this problem, especially if you can't magically add more hours to the day or build an indoor arena?

Honestly, for most horses with a species-appropriate lifestyle, it really isn't a big deal if you aren't doing a lot of activities with them right now. If they have friends, forage, and freedom - ie. horse friends to interact with, free-choice forage of some kind, and a large turnout or track system for adequate movement - most of them are just fine without additional exercise every day (although I always recommend at least a once daily check over, visually and with your hands, including under the blanket).

However, it is rare that horses have all three of the Fs covered without compromises of some kind - many horses don't have turnout with other horses that they can touch and play with, or their turnout area isn't large enough for adequate movement on their own, etc.

This is where enrichment is your friend. Finding ways to work with what you have, but getting creative about enriching their environment, is hugely beneficial for your horse's physical and emotional well-being.

You can provide enrichment through food (like offering a variety of feeding stations with different choices of snacks) and through activities (like toys, puzzles, and obstacles). There are so many great resources for this online - search for "equine enrichment ideas" (there are even facebook groups dedicated to the subject). I will link one of my favourite resources in the comments. It takes a bit of effort to set up initially, but these are things that you can provide for your horse to enrich their daily lives, 24/7 - even if you ARE doing activities with your horse daily, you aren't providing them with what they require every single hour of the day. The vast majority of domesticated horses are not getting the enrichment they would have in their natural environment through socializing and foraging.

Horses have needs that just can't be met by human efforts alone. Adjusting your horsekeeping and management to get as close to a natural environment as possible is the best way to ensure that your horse is not feeling any negative impacts from our lack of time and resources, and simply from being domesticated - not just in the winter months but all year round.

Photo by Free to Be Photo

Wonderful clients are my points of light and warmth on these cold wet work days āœØļø The weather this week has been so gro...
12/05/2025

Wonderful clients are my points of light and warmth on these cold wet work days āœØļø The weather this week has been so gross, but it has also been a week filled with amazing people & horses that I am so lucky to know and work with.
Thank you for the cute capture, Sheila!

Many horses I know have recently been diagnosed by their veterinarian with arthritis, especially coming into winter as t...
12/01/2025

Many horses I know have recently been diagnosed by their veterinarian with arthritis, especially coming into winter as the cold damp West Coast air exacerbates their symptoms. It's very important to call your equine vet and get an examination and diagnosis if you think your horse may be suffering from arthritis pain. But did you know that bodywork is also hugely beneficial to arthritic horses? In fact, the degree that massage and bodywork helped to manage arthritis pain for the horses in my care is what inspired me to pursue an education in this field in the first place!

Arthritis causes not only joint pain, but soft tissue pain as well. Joints and muscles are intimately connected through the tendons, the connective tissue that attaches muscle to bone (and allows the joint to move). Pain in the joint has a domino effect on the soft tissues, which become short and tight, further restricting range of motion and bloodflow, and increasing discomfort and muscle weakness. The horse's body also creates compensation patterns in their posture and movement to avoid the discomfort, which then causes restrictions and discomfort in other parts of the body that are now being overused or used incorrectly.
Skilled bodywork addresses all of these issues for arthritic horses by increasing their comfort, their range of motion, and bloodflow and lymphatic drainage, which in turn helps to both lubricate and remove fluid waste from the joint capsule. It also unwinds compensation patterns to allow your horse to move with more freedom and symmetry, which will help to prevent future injuries and excessive wear-and-tear on the joints.

Our horses do so much for us, and even if they live an "easy" life, most horses don't live in a way that is natural for them. Our horses don't roam miles of dry pastureland every day, constantly keeping the joints and muscles moving, constantly grazing, never seeing a shoe or a saddle or a stall/paddock. This is why there are people like me, striving to learn every way that we can to profoundly improve their quality of life in the ways that we have to manage them in their domestic world. If your horse has arthritis pain or decreased mobility due to arthritis, consider what regular equine massage and bodywork can do to improve their movement and comfort level and help to manage the issues caused by arthritis.

Photo by Free to Be Photo

It is never too late to learn something new that completely changes our approach.Working with horses, we are taught over...
11/28/2025

It is never too late to learn something new that completely changes our approach.

Working with horses, we are taught over and over again to "ground ourselves". We are taught methods to ground ourselves, and how to stay grounded when we are sharing space with horses. Most people equate being grounded with being present, calm, and aware, which I think is accurate. I have learned some excellent visualizations and techniques from various teachers and mentors over the years to help me achieve these states.

However, in recent times, I have learned something about grounding that totally changed my perspective, and the way that I approach both becoming grounded and staying grounded. I have always learned and understood grounding as a method to bring myself from an elevated state to a calm state. Connecting to the earth to allow it to absorb my excess energy and keep me present. The thing is, I'm not an overly energetic person. My nervous system defaults to freeze when I'm not grounded - not fight or flight. I don't need to give away energy - I need to gain it!

Guess what? Grounding does that too. As it turns out, my understanding of grounding was too simplified. In fact, true grounding and connection to the earth and the other unseen forces around us does not mean to become less energetic - it just means to find balance. If you need the earth to absorb your excess energy in order to find your own balance, learning to ground yourself will do that. If you need the earth to PROVIDE you with energy in order to find balance, learning to ground yourself will do that too. Finally understanding that I can gather energy from grounding has completely changed my perspective.

In fact, it ties in so well with my understanding of the nervous system in general. While being calm and collected in many situations is important and necessary, our nervous system is still not balanced if we cannot ALSO achieve higher energy states for fun, play, connection, and yes, even self preservation. The same goes for our horses. Don't mistake freeze for calm - in yourself, and in the horse. Don't assume that lower energy is always best. We all exist on a spectrum, not a world of black and white.

11/23/2025

Being a therapist is one of the hardest jobs on the planet.

Itā€™s like being wedged between a rock and a hard placeā€”trying to help within the limits of a system few people truly understand.

On one hand, evidence-based therapy exists because research validates its efficacy. But hereā€™s the catch: no therapist is a doctor. We canā€™t diagnose conditions. We can only evaluate, interpret, and form a working hypothesis based on years of study, experience, and evidence.

On the other hand, most doctors arenā€™t trained in soft-tissue dysfunction from a manual therapy perspective. They may not see what we seeā€”or approach it the way your own massage therapist or osteopath would.

A skilled therapist assesses, evaluates, and treats within the scope of their license. In human therapy, weā€™re legally required to assess and treatā€”but also legally forbidden to diagnose what weā€™re treating.

Do you see the conundrum?

Now add the layer of working with animals. No verbal feedback. Limited data. Owners who mean well but often filter observations through emotion and bias.

We read patterns, posture, movement, tone, and expressionā€”and somehow form a coherent clinical picture from that.

And while we do all that, weā€™re asked for answers. For immediate results. For certainty.

Itā€™s hard enough to find the root cause in a human who can talk to usā€”never mind a horse who canā€™t.

So please, be kind to your therapists.

Most of us are burning the candle at both endsā€”researching late at night, reviewing notes, refining treatment plans, and making ethical, evidence-informed decisions for you and your horse.

This isnā€™t an easy job. Itā€™s an act of service that demands intellect, intuition, and an enormous heart.

If it was easy, everyone would be a licensed therapist. But the reality isā€”itā€™s not.

Iā€™ve been in school and practice for over 25 years and Iā€™m still learning and growing.

Getting a license is just the first step. Dedicating oneself fully to evolving research and practice is a lifelong pursuitā€”one many of us have sacrificed homes, holidays, and sleep for.

This is our passion. Please, treat us with kindness.

When you work in an industry for a long time - especially in a caretaking capacity that requires your blood, sweat, and ...
11/21/2025

When you work in an industry for a long time - especially in a caretaking capacity that requires your blood, sweat, and tears - you run a high risk of eventually feeling disenchanted, unappreciated, and burned out. We all know how common this is for many career paths, and within the horse industry is no different. I have written before about burnout in equine professionals, and how important it is to find ways to mitigate the risk. Our industry loses so many talented people to these issues.

I wish I had the answers, but the truth is that I struggle like everyone else to work enough to make the money I need without destroying my body, to set boundaries and respect my own time and mental health, to advocate for equine wellness and welfare when I feel like I'm just screaming into the void, to remain relevant and stand by my skills and credentials when the newest and shiniest trends hit the industry, to perservere with what I know is right when people want a quick fix, and everything else that comes along with working as an equine professional.

I know I won't be able to hang in there forever doing the job that I do. But what keeps me going when I'm feeling tired, sore, and discouraged is this:
If I am my authentic self, and I live an authentic life, the people or animals who need my work - whatever it may look like in the future - will find me. Doing things that are not congruent with our authentic selves may seem like the right direction when we are faced with scarcity, competition, or pressure, but it never serves us in the end, and it often pushes us further away from our true purpose and what we bring to the table from our unique knowledge, perspective, and experience.

I hope that if you are feeling the same way, that this post finds you today. šŸ’œ

Art by as seen in Uppercase magazine.

Just a little note to my clients that I recommend booking any 2025 appointments as soon as you can. I will be on holiday...
11/20/2025

Just a little note to my clients that I recommend booking any 2025 appointments as soon as you can. I will be on holidays starting December 20th & returning January 5th. This means that there are only 4 weeks left for booking sessions this year - so especially if you need specific days or times, please reach out to book. Thanks for reading & have a wonderful week! šŸ„° āœØļø
Thank you Sandra for the adorable photo!

Don't underestimate the importance of time. Something I have observed about many horse stewards - not excluding myself! ...
11/19/2025

Don't underestimate the importance of time. Something I have observed about many horse stewards - not excluding myself! - is that we have difficulty giving anything enough time.
Particularly when it comes to our horses and their welfare, we want things to improve immediately and if they don't, we are tempted to switch things up. This rarely serves us well because most problems that we encounter in minds and bodies require lots of time to change or heal.

Integration of change - whether it be something we've done to a horse's training, feeding, lifestyle, or physical body - takes time, there is no way around that. If we are constantly changing what we're doing, adding things and taking other things away, we are never allowing for that integration to occur, and therefore lose any long term positive benefit. Novelty and variation is incredibly important for both physical and emotional wellness, but we can incorporate diversity into our equine training and management without giving up on concepts, remedies, or modalities altogether simply because we haven't given them enough time to work.

I have also observed that we all have vastly different ideas of what is considered "enough time". Many people only give things a few months, or even as little as a few weeks, before they give up on them. I see this most often with changes like moving to free-feeding hay, improving hoof balance, giving horses more turnout, improving the quality of the feed, moving to better riding/training practices, and healing trauma (physical or emotional). Sometimes you see immediate improvement with these changes and that is awesome! But usually it takes many months - or more - for horses to let go of old practices and relearn new ones, or for their nervous system to recalibrate, or for new tissues to develop or injured tissues to heal.

Patience is hard but it is necessary.

11/12/2025

Who are we doing this for?

My entire career has been built upon the foundations of helping the horse to be different in their bodies -

Seeing all of the "flaws" and "imperfections"

Observing all of the ways their body wasn't functioning well, all of the possible paths for injury, all of the explanations for *that* diagnosis.

And then curating a path of improvement - dealing out the exercises to make your horse better so you can do the thing you want to do with them.

It's endemic in training - "if your horse is [insert desired posture here], then they will be moving well and that will be good for them."

But at no point is the horse considered beyond a vessel to be manipulated for the human experience.

The appropriateness of the exercise is not considered beyond it being the next thing to do in the formula for "getting horse to do the thing."

And this formula becomes the stick that's repetitively jabbed in the bicycle spokes of horse health -

Because when we consider the body and the mind as one unit, working in synchrony, then we do actually need to consider the horse's mind -

And that consideration needs to go a little further than "if we do this exercise enough, the horse will find it easier, they will feel good in their body and that makes them happy"

Because if the road to get there is difficult, the associations to the work wont be good ones. And whilst the body might come along for the ride, the mind certainly wont.

And here we see the very precarious house of cards we have built. How little our horses are truly okay with. How far we have to back track.

The infinite regression.

But rather than see this as a failure, I want to reframe this as an invitation:

How much joy and fulfilment can be gleaned from doing less?

And doing less is not to be confused with doing nothing.

It's not throwing your toolkit out of the window, it's recognising your horse as a horse.

Instead of sports equipment with fur.

https://www.yasminstuartequinephysio.com/the-horse-posture-blueprint

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