My mare, Sparrow, recently had a cut on her pole that was stitched up. She is very, very sensitive around her head, and not just around the cut. Are there any ways to let her calm down about her head? My vet said that she will eventually become less worried, but I want her to feel happy around her head sooner rather than later.
Is the injury near the bridle/halter path?
You might try clicker training; it can get positive results really fast. I had to treat a nasty head gash on a horse of mine who is a head shaker, and uber sensitive about his head. I used lots of carrots and rewarded often, and gotter done!
It is pretty close, but not close enough that the bridle would rub/touch it.
TRAIN.HER.
Is the cut healed yet?
I had a horse who came in one winter night with a frozen ball of blood on the outside edge of his right ear. Another horse had bitten him (don’t ask me how, but it appeared that the other horse closed teeth on my horse who promptly tore his ear out of the other horse’s mouth) and a sliver of flesh was curled into the frozen blood. Which I discovered when I cut the blood off. Anyway, he was understandably shy of anything touching that ear. He’d never been the least bit headshy before, so once it had mostly healed I stopped making allowances and reminded him that it was not a problem. He was back to normal in a week.
