Heart Equine

08/20/2025

I learned so much this week and got to connect with so many great veterinarians and chiropractors !!
Grateful for this community of inspiring doctors 🩷🙌😊

08/20/2025

DID YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU CHANGE HOW YOU USE YOUR BODY YOUR HORSE MIGHT ACT DIFFERENT ??

If you know people in the industry that are constantly putting themselves out in the world to be educated and learn new things, sometimes hard things, then you can bet they are also being constantly humbled.

‘How are you so damn good at everything you do Dr Showmaker ? ‘
I asked, wondering how one person could continuously blow my mind.

‘I don’t have kids’ she said. She then went on to explain her absolute devotion to the truth and to the animals. The name of her clinic Always Helpful Veterinary Services 😊🩷

I cried a bunch this week. Between the emotional releases from the Alexander Lessons to the humbling observations of foundational stuff I had been missing about the use of my body I felt sad and frustrated and had to let go of those unhelpful feelings.

My horse LOUIE had been right when he had been telling me over and over,

‘You’re not doing it right’

One of those ‘things’ was around how I had been working with him and his feet.

As my teacher, LOUIE is uncompromising, thus his absolute greatness in this role. 💫
You can be sure that if he won’t work with you easily, there’s a reason - so far, it’never been him !!

After watching Dr Shoemaker work with unstable dysfunctional, often not effectively shod horses for three days I was convinced that I, not the horse, owned THIS problem.

Can’t wait to get home and try out my new knowledge with LOUIE !!
But first a Qi Intensive Retreat in the NY Catskills for more ‘work’ on myself.

AND watch this space for some awesome NEW (cheap too !! ) offerings from the folks at POSTURAL REHABILITATION !!

08/19/2025

WHY ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE ??

This week I am so grateful to spend time with my Postural Rehabilitation mentors - Dr’s Judith Shoemaker, Dr Karen Gellman and Alexander teacher Elizabeth Reese.

When I first took these classes back in 2009/2010, I was stunned to find we were spending SO much time on our own bodies when I was there to learn to work on horses !!

‘Think about your own body the horse will take care of itself ‘ said Dr Shoemaker

What???

As it turned out, I had terrible stability in my body and this was really affecting the quality of my work. By having an unstable body and trouble organizing it for smooth and harmonious movement I was inadvertently sending signals to the horse.

What was it saying ?

‘ I am not safe, I am not stable, if I pick up your leg you might not be okay, if I touch you I might put you off balance by leaning on you too hard. I cannot manage my own body how can you expect me to manage yours ?? ‘

Any surprise I was struggling picking up feet ???
Any surprise that the horses wanted to move away from me when I approach it ?
Any surprise I needed to ground, take a breath, and organize MY body to have the horse find me an acceptable dance partner ??

Alexander technique teaches up how to organize our bodies for movement. I never would have believed that working on MY body could make such a difference in the ease and quality of my work.
I have taken this lesson to heart over the last fifteen years have studied with Alexander and other movement teachers.

This mornings session went over how we push and pull against the ground to create spinal extension and flexion.

I discovered I had been doing this backwards !!

My method was creating stability with a brace and one of the places this was showing up was when I was picking up things,

Could this be why I struggle so much when picking up my horses’ feet ??

When I did it correctly I went onto a huge emotional release and felt a level of relaxation in my back I haven’t felt for a long time.

How cool is that ??
Take care of yourself to take care of your horse !!

08/19/2025

Wisdom

08/17/2025

WHY DOESNT MY HORSE PUT THEIR HOOF DOWN ON THE PAD ?

Or

WHERE DOES PAIN, INSTABILITY AND MOVEMENT INTERSECT ?

One of the easier ways I find to collect data on the ‘health’ of the horse’s hind end is by watching their response to standing on a proprioceptive pad.

Why do so many of them ‘toe touch’ and not want to extend their leg and push into the pad ?

1. Is it pain ? Does it hurt them ?
2.Is it mechanical ? Does the leg not extend ?
3.Is it safe ? Will the leg buckle if we bear full weight on it ?
4. Are the muscles and nerves that create the leg extension off duty ?

My perception is, that it’s varying combinations of the first three which leads to the fourth.

Rehabilitation of normal gait patterns in the hind end for me will now depend on restoring the sleepy pathways, mitigating the issues that caused their disuse, more use of the new pathways and less use of the old.

For me this looks like more exercise of the muscles that extend joints and less that flex them.

How about you ?
What are your favorite ways to train, stimulate, exercise the extensors ??
I mostly use pads for this but A LOT of my work is figuring how NOT to flex !! Once the flexing is decreased the extensors can start to shine 😊

08/15/2025

The ability to stabilize through extended hip joints is quite literally the key to the kingdom of staying sound while doing athletics

08/14/2025

AMA
My Answer

“These 'gadgets' provide sensory input to the this part of the horse and brings his awareness to it which activates different nerves and muscles and will often 'animate' a lazy gait. They can be very effective at changing how the horse moves but we have to think about that to know if its right for 'our' horse. For me, this causes the horse to 'flex' his leg more, possibly both faster and higher when they feel the stimulus. Although we may think this is good because the horse is picking up its feet can you think why that might not be good also??

It might not be good because it doesnt necessarily activate the 'springs' it just activates the 'pull'.

If your horse has stability and strength issues this might not be the best 'gadget' to use.”

08/14/2025

OPRAH’S BACK AND A SHORT STORY ABOUT MUSCLES

It’s incredible what a couple thousand shocks can do to help fire up spinal postural muscles. My 22 year old mare, Oprah, is here demonstrating her treatment.

Once activated, the postural muscles help to stabilize the spine. This will relieve the pain caused by muscle spasms of the overworked mobilizer muscles that had gotten a memo they needed to do both jobs !
Mobilizers do a terrible job when acting as postural muscles !!
But if the postural muscles are sleeping what’s a mobilizer supposed to do ??
It contracts
It holds everything together often too tightly
It saves the day !!

But there’s a cost
Mr Mobilizer is fast twitch
He can’t hold out forever it’s too exhausting
He goes into spasm
You feel pain no medication can touch

Hey look here’s the practitioner come to fire up those sleepy postural muscles !
Yay says the mobilizer I am so tired !!
Where have you been Mrs Super effective postural muscle with your slow twitch capabilities and stamina for stability over time ??
I was sleeping she said
No one ever wakes me up because they think I don’t matter. I’m not big and handsome like you

Both my aged minis have shown significant improvement in their demeanor, posture, gait and behavior for trims since since treating their backs with my new CS PRO VET shockwave. I really love this machine ! So quiet and effective, super easy to use.

08/14/2025

Really excited about this conference!!

Email from Learn from the experts and make new friends.   Laurie McCauley, DVM, DACVSMR (Canine), Director of Optimum Pet Vitality Lectures: -Beyond Surgery: Integrative Approaches to Prevention and T