Horse Sense: Evaluating Equine Partners for Therapy

 In this episode of "Animals & Aquatics in Occupational Therapy," our host explores the intricate process of assessing horses for therapy work. From evaluating conformation and movement to gauging temperament and soundness, every aspect is carefully considered to ensure the suitability of the horse for occupational therapy practice. Through insightful anecdotes and practical advice, listeners gain valuable insights into the challenges and considerations involved in selecting the right equine partners for therapy sessions. From identifying deal-breakers like asymmetry and reactive behaviors to highlighting the importance of thorough assessment, this episode provides a comprehensive guide for occupational therapy providers interested in integrating horses into their practice. Additionally, listeners are invited to participate in a five-day challenge to hone their horse assessment skills. Tune in to learn more about the fascinating world of equine-assisted therapy and how to navigate it effectively in occupational therapy practice.

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Transcript

Microphone (3- Logitech USB Headset) & Integrated Camera 0:01

Hi, good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening. Whenever you are listening in. I hope the weather is turning as nice as it is here in New Jersey. And with all the spring weather happening, it's really made me start to think about the horses that we work with when we're incorporating them into our occupational therapy practice. So today we're going to talk a little bit about the star of the show, our horses. Welcome to another episode of animals and aquatics, where we are looking at how occupational therapy providers can incorporate nature-based therapy, animals, or the aquatic environment into their occupational therapy practice. I'm your host. And today we're going to take some time and to talk about horses. Specifically, how do you know that your horse is appropriate for therapy? Now there might be a few scenarios in which you might be assessing a horse. And these can come up in different ways. So you might be assessing your own horse. You may own a few horses and think. I'd really liked to incorporate the horses into occupational therapy. Just not sure if my horses are the right horses for this, and I need to know a little bit more about assessing them to see if I could incorporate them in, or maybe I need to partner with someone else. You could be assessing horses at a therapeutic or adaptive riding center. And if you're contracting with a facility or maybe you're being hired by a facility and you're going to come in and provide occupational therapy services. You may have several horses to choose from. And you may need to take a look at all of these horses and assess them and decide which ones would be appropriate to be incorporated into therapy. You may be looking at horses in an able-bodied riding program. So in this case, we know that the horses are used to lessons. But there's still a lot of questions that I have in mind about whether the horse would be appropriate or not. So I might be looking at assessing horses in an able-bodied writing program. And one more scenario that I've certainly found myself in many times is assessing horses that are for donation, for sale or for lease. And the stakes are certainly much higher. When we're looking at horses that are for sale or for lease, when we're going to be investing money. Into the horse to get started, and we need to know what the potential of this horse is to serve our needs as occupational therapy providers. So what exactly. Am I looking for now, I'm going to wear two hats with this. And part of this hat is going to be from the American hippotherapy, association as I am faculty. And then the other hat that I'm going to be wearing is my occupational therapy provider hat. And the many, many years of experience that I've had and worked with so many different horses. So starting from the ground up as I'm looking at confirmation. I'm gonna take a look at that horse. Right where they're standing and I'm going to look at confirmation. And I attended a really wonderful presentation. That talked about confirmation, not just from that horse sense. So if you have a good horse background, then the confirmation thing really makes sense to you. If you don't have as strong of a horse background. Then sometimes confirmation can be really hard to put together in your head. But when you think about it as posture, Sometimes for the therapist in our, well, we were a therapist hat, right. That can make a lot more sense. So I want to look at this horse's posture. How are they standing? Are they standing in the field? How are they standing on the cross size? What do they look like when they're standing in the arena? Just from a basic, how are they put together? Perspective. Now one of our shortcomings here on the podcast is that I'm not showing you pictures. I have horses and I'm not pointing out what that confirmation looks like and the things that I'd be looking for that I can just assess right off the bat. When I'm seeing this horse standing there. But I can definitely tell you that I'm looking for how the horse carries itself. There's the horse seem to be comfortable and its own body. Are there patterns of tension? And the more you've been around horses or the longer you've been around horses. The more, this is a very sort of sixth sense. Right? I can look and I can, I can just feel into it. But if you're new to horses, then we really are going with the lines and angles and muscles therapy, hat side of things. And either one can work really well. Now, the next thing I want to do is I want to see that horse move. I want to see that horse move. I need to see the horse from the front, from the back, from the side. And a lot of times, if I'm out on a farm call, I can do this really subtly just by walking behind them on their way out to the arena. And my therapist, eyes are going crazy all over this horse. I'm looking to see if they're tracking up. I'm looking to see if they have equal hip drop. I'm looking to see what the barrel swing is. I'm looking to see if they have vertical displacement. Now if all of those things are foreign to you, don't worry. There are ways we can certainly support you in figuring out more about. Assessing those things, when you're looking at the horses movement. And those things are going to tell me so much about this horses ability to meet my client's needs. And then I want to know about the horse's temperament. And we're assessing that temperament piece. Again, right from when we see the horse in the stall or in the pasture. And I want to see is the horse pinning their ears towards the horse handlers. They're getting them out of the stall or as we walk by or do they approach, do they come to us with ears forward and like, oh, hi, who are you? What are you doing? So I want to know right away. If this horse is friendly and interested, or if there may be already a little burnout and sour. I want to see the horses soundness. So again, this is a horse term for our horse people, right? That means that the horse is moving correctly and that they have no apparent lameness or injury. And I want to see this horse move, walk, trot, canter in both directions. So that if it's a pony, like a little pony, right. And I might be too big to get on it, or maybe they have they don't have someone that can get on it. I at least want to see it on a lunge line. And I want to see it walk trot canter in both directions. Ideally, I want to see someone ride the horse in both directions. Walk, trot, canter. To see. What that looks like. The next thing that I'm looking at would be ground manners. And how does this worst react during grooming and tacking up? So often if I'm assessing a horse, I don't want to. I, when I arrive to see the horse, I don't want it to be tacked up. I don't want the person to be riding it. That's usually a little bit of a red flag. If I arrive at the farm and the horses already tacked up and being written, I want to see the horse either ideally like right from the stall. So I don't have to wait for them to go catch it from the pasture. But even if I do see them catch it from the pasture again, that's going to give me a lot of information. I think there can be nothing more frustrating than the horse that doesn't want to be caught. That takes staff or volunteers, 20, 30 minutes an hour, two hours to be caught. It, that, it's just, it's a big burden. On your. Human assets to deal with a horse like that. So even in those cases, we can. Look at those. Ground manner issues. When we're seeing a horse come in, If it's slink spring, like now fly, spray, like how do they react to fly spray? And then the next thing that I'd be looking at is trainability. And I might not be able to see this in my initial assessment, but I'm definitely going to be testing for those things. Each of these areas could definitely be a training course all by itself. In fact, if you've already taken the American hippotherapy, association or aha part one course, you've done some of this work in analyzing horse's movement and confirmation. But you know that when it's a real life horse right in front of you, it might feel a little different. And depending on your level of horse experience and your comfort at looking at horses in this very medical frame work. It definitely is a different way to train your eye, even if you're a lifelong equestrian. Often, we don't look at our horses with this. I for medical quality equine movement. And so when we're training our eye for this, it's really being able to take our equestrian skills and incorporate our therapist's brain and really meld those two together. When we're looking at. Horses and seeing, when we're assessing them to see whether they would be appropriate for therapy. And I'm looking at both the hippotherapy, side. So really focusing on the equine movement that I'm going to be using in my treatment sessions. But also because I serve a lot of clients with mental health challenges, I'm also looking for a lot of that. Relate-ability to the horse. I am looking for a horse that is interactive. That's going to give feedback. That has a personality that will work with the mental health population that I'm working with. And that's why those ground manners also can be really. Even more important to me. Because of the population that I work with. So you might be wondering what the typical process looks like. It usually starts off with a phone call and that would often be from an owner. Who maybe wants to donate a horse or maybe I'm reaching out to a barn or a facility and asking and inquiring about leasing or renting their facility. And so I'm going to be asking about the horses that they have, the height, the ages what those horses are currently doing. Then there's a barn assessment. And so we're going out to that facility. Again, if I'm renting a space, I'm going to be assessing those horses before I've even thought about booking clients and I'm going to go out and assess the horses that they have available and make a yes, no list. Right? So who's on my S list. Who's on my no list. If this is a horse that someone is calling to donate to me. Same thing. I'm going out to the barn and I have a barn assessment, and I have a whole checklist that I'm going through of everything that I want to see when I'm there at that barn assessment. If the horse passes the barn assessment piece. Then there's a trial period. And again, that can be on a facility rental side of things, or that can be on a donation or a sale horse. Yes. Even on sale horses. I like to ask for a trial period. Because it's really important that we have that opportunity to see them. In our environment. So if I'm coming to a facility and I'm renting the facility and that's going to be the facility, the horses, the horse handler, it might include some equipment, or I may be bringing my own equipment. I need to know that those horses are going to be able to accept and work with that. So during the trial period, we're doing a lot of training. We're doing a lot of screening with the props that we may use. We're doing groundwork activities. And again, I have a checklist that I'm going through for each of those. So that way anyone who's working with me is tracking. Everything that that horse is doing. They know where the horse has strengths. They know where the horse maybe needs a little bit more work. So my trainers, my horse handlers, my barn managers, they all know where the horses in the process. This is also something that I can use to communicate with owners. To let them know how their horses doing. After the horse is working through that trial period. We've tested them with props. We've tested them with transfers. We've tested them with different styles of leading. Different types of tack and equipment. Then we're ready to do a mock session and with a mock session, that is someone who is a good, skilled, balanced writer, who is also an excellent actor or actress. And some kids can be really good at this as well. They need to have kind of an understanding of some of the challenges that our clients might present to a horse. So that could be loud vocalizations. It could be tight tone. It could be unexpected movements. And I really enjoy that part. I like to do mock sessions, so we have a horse handler. We have two sidewalkers. We have the mock client and we just go through a mock session. And I don't tell my horse handlers or my therapist, if I'm. Doing this with one of my coworkers, I don't tell them exactly what I'm going to do. I just lay it out and we see how everyone handles it. If that's going really well. Then we try a real session with a carefully selected client. That I know is going to work with me, that doesn't have those unexpected behaviors that is really a good candidate for this horse, the movement it's going to provide. And I can see what that dynamic is going to be like with a client. And then we work towards full integration for the horse working. Now, if this horse has already been in a lesson program, generally this process would take about two months. For a horse that was out of condition. So this would be the person that called and said, Hey, I have this horse that I would like to donate. They haven't done anything in the last few years, but they're out in my field. I think they'd really like to have a job. This process is going to take three to six months. So when we're looking at that trial period, we're definitely extending the time because this horse needs to come back into condition. We need to know that they are feeling good before we make our final assessment.'cause sometimes when they're not feeling so good yet, and they don't have all their muscle tone built back up. They may be really mellow and they might be really easy to work with, but when they get a little more fit and they get a little sassy I want to know that before I've made that final sign off on that paper. So what about failures? I have a few hard nose in my book. That I've seen time and time again. So the first hard, no, for me is asymmetry. A horse that is asymmetrical is not moving evenly from left to right. And. We've tried a lot of things to work with asymmetrical horses. And I'm not saying we tried everything. I'm sure there are things that we haven't tried financially. That's a consideration. What do you have access to? So things like ultrasound, laser chiropractic care magnetic. Supplements, joint injections rate. There's a really, really big list of body care. Types of things that you could try to use to deal with asymmetry. I haven't found a lot of success in treating asymmetry. So if you have an amazing person that you think might be great in treating asymmetries a let me know, and B. Certainly that may give you some viable options. But for me, I haven't found a lot of luck in getting horses that are asymmetrical, even with training and body work to become symmetrical. So for therapy, that's usually a no-go right there. They might be great at. Horseback riding lessons. They might be great at groundwork and equine assisted education, but for therapy, that's a no-go. The next hard no, in my book. Is what I like to call the sit and spin. If you're a horse person, you probably know what this is. So every horse has a move. When they're spooked, when they're scared, that's their move. Like, that's what they do. Some is the like, Spooky place. Right. And they don't move anywhere. Some it's like the bolt three strides, like I'm going to run three shots and then I'm going to like stop and look for other horses, it is. The sit and spin. Right? And so it's like the, oh my God. I'm out of here and they just like, they stop. They, they kinda go down on their haunches and they spin and they're gone. You can't keep a client on. You just can't. None of us are fast in us. None of us are strong enough if that's the horses like signature, scared move, they can't do anything about it. Right. They can't override it. And so I just, I asked what's your horses move when they're scared. And if they say, oh, they usually turn and run. That's a hard, no, for me. So that's that's one. And my last one, you may laugh at this, but as anything too smart. The reason why I say this is because time and time and time and time again, the horses that are really smart. Kept really bored with our work. And when they get really bored with our work, they find ways to amuse themselves. And usually those things are not too amusing to me. So whenever the barn manager says, oh, you should try cookie cookie. So smart. I'm like, That's probably not going to work so well now, if Cookie's only working with me for a few hours during the week and cookie is in a. Show program and is doing writing lessons and trail riding and is on the show team that might not be such a big deal. But if I'm at an adaptive riding facility where there's going to be a lot of volunteers handling the horses, anything to smart as out, because they just, they get really bored. They find things to do. They're clever and creative and it just doesn't work very well. The horses that are not the brightest bulbs in the box tend to do actually very, very well because they don't mind doing the same thing over and over and over again. And a lot of times that repetition is what my clients need. They need that from a motor learning perspective, they need that from a sensory integration perspective, they need that from a trauma informed perspective. And those horses that are okay with that too really well. And they're not looking for things to do with the volunteers and they're not looking for new, exciting things to do. So as we wrap up today's episode, I want to reflect on the importance of assessing the horse before you assume that they're appropriate for working in therapy. There's certainly a lot that goes into this. So, if you want to take a deeper dive, I'm doing a five day challenge on this topic. If you're listening in real time, you can join the challenge. Up until May 20th is when we kick off and you'll be able to join any time throughout that week. So the 20th through the 25th is when we're doing it. And we're going to be going over one of these topics each day in depth, we'll be having. Videos. So you can look at it. We can do it together. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So if you have a horse that you're interested in assessing. And you think they might be great in therapy? I certainly encourage you to join us on this challenge. And work together with us to develop your assessment skills. So thank you for joining us on animals and aquatics in occupational therapy. I hope this was helpful for you, even if you couldn't see what I'm talking about. I hope this gives you a little bit of information. In what goes into assessing a horse that we might be incorporating into our occupational therapy practice. All the way from temperament to movement, to some of the things that are just absolute, no goes. If this was helpful to you, there's now a way to message us. So you can look directly on this episode. And send us a message and let us know. If this was helpful and what specifically, you'd like to know more on. Until next time. Have a great week.