Equine Chiro came this morning

I had an equine chiropractor out today. That lightend my wallet nicecly :P But I really liked Dr Judy. I had her check Sadie out and she didn't charge for that. She adjusted Duke first. Our retired guy that was a lesson horse, she kept saying how cute he was I guess he is in a fuzzy teddy bear way. He's the first to start shedding this year. At least its a good sign that he is NOT cushings.

Duke has a bad stifle injury that happened last summer and I figured he might have some chiro complications from that. Dr J found he was very locked up on the left side (its the R stifle.) She adjusted his pelvis and back and neck. Duke didn't like the neck work or the tail pulling for the pelvis but he was happy and licking at how he felt after each step. I told Dr J he is on 3 bute/week and Eq. Recovery for stifle and she said he's doing pretty well to only need that amount of bute. If he continues happy I may try to take him off the bute for my riding season. Then I wont have to worry that I'm going to trigger a positive with Shade from contamination if we should actually be tested. But they changed the rules so that a trace amount should not be considered a violation and except for my stirrer I'm already keeping things separated so if Duke needs his bute he'll get it.

Then Sadie got checked. She was more suspicious than I expected. She loves me rubbing her but she was not sure about Dr Judy. Luckily she didn't need any work and she wasn't really wild, just evasive especially for checking her poll. Judy likes polish arabians, luckily and was pretty tolerant. Next came Grey Moun. I should have got before and after pictures. Grey is sway-backed and having been totally off riding since his tendon bow he was extra droopy. Dr J explained how his conformation sets up the L6 (if memory is right) to get out alignment; and she did the tail pulling on him too. Wow it very noticably flattened the angle of Grey's croup and raised his back at least an inch. I also have homework to do belly lifts and butt scruntches on him to
strengthen those back muscles. I've been giving Grey separate feed anyway with some goop for his tendon so I will be good and do his homework at least for the time being. I am pretty bad about keeping up with things like that or general stretches but if I see results I'll keep on.

Then I brought Shade out. I had warned Judy that Shade might be the wild child to work on, but I was surprised how resistant Shade was to even walk up to where Dr J was waiting. She even kept pausing in chewing her horse treat. Judy elected to skip standing on the block with Shade, since Shade was so suspicious and evasive, luckily Shade did not need much done on her back or pelvis; but she was locked up in her scapulae and apparently it felt good to get release, she was deciding that Dr J was not so bad and she was not perfect but was less resistant for the neck work than the geldings had been, especially the last side. She really liked how much better she felt afterwards. I have homework to rotate her upper front legs in circles when I pick feet (probably more often since I skip feet picking a lot when its dry) and do do belly lifts with her too; but Dr Judy said she is in good shape. She said Shade is nicely balanced in her conformation. Which I knew but its fun to hear.

So I have some happy horses and I am happy that no issues were found and we are not scheduling a set of visits. Dr J said I might want to have Shade manipulated again when she is performing hard this summer. But after the wallet recovers I think I'll schedule Dr Judy back out this spring to give Cindy, CJ, RazzMo and AJ check overs and may have her work on Duke again to see how he's holding adjustments with that stifle. Hopefully mom gets feeling better and will want to have AJ tuned up and they can take some more jumping lessons. Mom was down today -- I guess I understand cuz its the pits to be sick, especially with something causing facial pain for so long, but OTOH I have limited sympathy because I find it extremely frustrating that she seemingly will only try 'western medicine' to try to feel better. ITS NOT WORKING. She thinks she's getting relief from one treatment --faulty bridgework out or antibiotics and then something crops up and she is miserable again. I am trying to nudge her to think about 'alternative treatments' -TCM, chiro, new carpet even; but not very hard because we are both stubborn & I don't want to get her digging in her heels --of course trying to stay on that narrow beam is a bit of stress in itself for me. Thank goodness for the horses.