When I first bought my horse last year I could groom him with anything. The harshest brush you could think of and he didn’t care. He is a Thoroughbred. However over the last several months he has been demonstrating painful behavior while grooming. He threatens to bite, tosses his head, threatens to kick. I did buy some new HAAS brushes specifically made for greys, and while they aren’t the softest out there, they aren’t horrible. And I don’t even bother using the stiffest brush that is the stain remover because I already know he will hate it. He has been treated for ulcers and scoped and does not have ulcers OR hindgut ulcers. He is an “easy keeper”. I can brush him with a face brush and he still demonstrates this behavior. Is there something else I should be looking for? Vet says he is just pissy but I don’t want him to continue with this behavior.
Because this is a change in your horse’s behavior, I think you’re right to look for some kind of underlying problem to explain why he’s suddenly exhibiting discomfort when being groomed.
What leaps to mind for me is lyme disease. You don’t mention where you are, but if your horse has ever been in an area in which lyme disease is common, for example virtually anywhere in the eastern U.S., it’s possible that he has it. Reactivity to touch and changes in behavior or personality are common symptoms of lyme.
It’s worth asking your vet to take some blood to test for lyme; he should have the Cornell test done because it’s more reliable than the standard “snap” tests.
Good luck.
Or ulcers. Or back pain.
What happens if you palpate his body? Can you find sore places? Ever had an equine body worker work on him? What parts of his body are most sensitive?
He has been scoped and doesn’t have ulcers.
My vet says he has absolutely no back pain. He was chiro’d once last November. Frankly with how sensitive he is to the touch I fear for a body worker of any sort. He is most sensitive on his neck, and his flank. We are in South Texas and I’ve never seen a tick anywhere.
Well if you are convinced there is no pain and no reason then my only suggestion is wash him a lot, and use a very soft brush sparingly.
An exploratory session with a body worker would be interesting. Warn them in advance and make sure he can’t bite them. I bet they find something useful.
Yes I do want to get him another chiropractic appointment. His vet is also his chiropractor. I was planning on getting him done when I took him to get his coggins and x-rays in May but the need to scope him outweighed the chiro aspect. Now that that is clear I plan on doing chiro and following up with massage. He also has 2 new saddles that fit so if it was a sourness developed to his previous saddles it’s still too soon to know.
I agree about body work/massage. It obviously could be a lot of things - Lyme/tickborne is a possibility. Arthritis or muscle soreness, etc. How is he going under saddle? Any changes there?
The other thought is that this horse is sensitive and sick of being groomed. How often/how long do you groom? My sensitive TB mare will tolerate grooming if she’s in cross-ties. But she doesn’t like it; it tickles her or is downright uncomfortable. When loose she will actively avoid any grooming, while my other horses will practically fight for who gets to be groomed first. Therefore, I groom her as little as necessary. She is retired, so it’s easy. And I use soft brushes and mitts.
If you’ve been grooming a lot during the spring shedding season she might just be telling you to leave her alone.
If his summer coat is thinner than his winter coat he may just be more sensitive/ticklish.
If at all possible find a chiropractor that is certified to do acupuncture and can do massage using the traditional CHINESE methods along the Meridian lines. It DOES make a difference:)
I have one horse who can’t stand to be brushed with anything, from his back to his tail and down his hind legs, when his old sacrum injury goes wonky.
My other horse used to have environmental and food allergy allergy issues to where he did not like to be brushed, until I got his allergies under control — without using any sort of prescription drugs from the vet, that had only succeeded in making a nut job out of him.
I love and respect my strictly traditional vets but they don’t know everything. I really love & respect my vet/chiro who took the hollistic route after vet school and is more well versed in acupuncture and Chinese medicine than any 100 vets within 100 miles of me:):).
best wishes getting your horse’s issue resolved as you are correct in knowing something is wrong that wasn’t wrong before:)
I used to be able to do a standard thorough grooming. Now I basically just do the saddle area and that’s it. Under saddle he has been having a little bit of difficulty bending left. Otherwise he is okay and normal. I body clipped him during the winter and in the beginning of spring. I don’t think I could get away with doing that again especially now. He is 7 and sound.
He has something wrong, somewhere, regardless of what your traditional vet says.
If you can’t hunt down an equine chiro versed in Chinese medicine/acupuncture, call around to training barns (any breed) in your area, or your small animal vet clinics. Sometimes small animal clinics do know of people who work on both large and small animals:)
My current equine chiro now only does dogs and mostly agility dogs. Except for her own, she stopped doing horses years ago but agreed to come back and do my remaining two on a monthly basis because she knew they wouldn’t kick her head off.
if you care to post what state and which side of that state you live in, maybe someone can give you a chiro/acupuncturist referral:)
So when did you buy him? Did he have a PPE before you bought him? When you say “last year” it could mean 6 months ago or a full year ago, where you’ve seen the horse in every season.
It’s hard to tell without seeing the horse. Again, my mare will tolerate grooming, and in winter with a full winter coat, she tolerates it better than summer. And in spring she likes getting rid of the itchy shedding coat. If I used those examples and compared to giving her a full grooming in the summer, I might think it’s a change of behavior but it’s really a physical difference in her coat/comfort.
I’m not trying to discount the possibility of a physical issue. And it could be both. I’d definitely think about tickborne illness as a starting place.
I bought him last August and his PPE was unremarkable except for a -5 degree palmar angle on the right which has since resolved. I feel like his vet would have said something or tried something since she spent almost 2 hours with us in May. I will definitely get her to do a chiro session on him, especially since he has been a bit stiff going left, and the left side is the side I groom first and get the worst reaction out of. I fell off of him over his left shoulder a while ago, maybe I made something out of whack for him.
ETA - When I did his first Nexium treatment in February this behavior seemed to diminish but came back after weaning off of it. He is completing a second round of Nexium and is also on PP Gastric Support and the symptoms are bad. My vet had me put him on the gastric support because while he didn’t have any active ulcers he did have some yellowing and keritinization but nothing she thought would cause this reaction. He also had one bot fly growing on his stomach and she treated him for that.
I would worry more about being stiff to the left and less about grooming.
Focus your diagnostics on what’s wrong with him under saddle.
I doubt falling off on the one side made him stiff. It is more likely you fell off because that is the side he drops his shoulder or maybe he spins the other way to his good side.
Get a good lameness vet and a good massage person with a good eye.
It is unusual for a horse to be fussy groomed on the neck. Usually they like that and groom each other neck and withers. Usually if they are pissy its about barrel and belly.
”‹”‹”‹So you might want to think about diagnostics in neck and shoulder. My most recent massage practitioner said neck pain can be caused by saddle fit.
I bought the HAAS brushes for my grey TB. The Schimmel was fine during the winter, but a definite ‘no’ now he is in summer trim. I have to be careful how much pressure I use on him. I just chalked it up to the finer coat.
Just thought I’d share that I groomed him in the barn aisle today instead of in a stall and he was an absolute saint. He gave me none of his usual antics. Can a horse really develop a hatred for being groomed in a stall? Is this a fluke? I haven’t gotten him to the chiro yet.
The horse could feel trapped in the stall, or he could feel that he should be allowed to be undisturbed in the stall.
I noticed that if I put the mechanical hackamore on my mare in the stall, she always tries to bite chin strap like it’s a bridle bit going in. But when I put it on her in an unfamiliar place she just lets me slide it on like a halter. Absolutely they can develop behaviors that are linked to specific places.
Some horses just hate to be groomed…
My horse suddenly developed similar behavior. This horse used to be so sweet and would fall asleep while being groomed and then he progressively became a jerk. He would try and bite me (like seriously bite me) if I touched him, if I groomed on his sides or near his flanks he would try and kick me, his ears were pinned, etc. The vet couldn’t find anything physically wrong - we thought lyme or ulcers. He does/did have mild EPM and sometimes that can cause nerve issues, so the vet recommended Lysine.
Let me tell you, after about 4 weeks on Lysine, the difference was AMAZING. He’s back to his old self.
I would highly recommend a lyme test. If that’s negative, and you say he’s already been scoped for ulcers, I would try some lysine for 4-6 weeks to see if that makes a difference.
I think I’ve figured it out. I tried again this morning grooming him in the aisle and once again absolutely no issue. The behavior change also coincides to when I stopped grooming him in the aisle and started grooming him in a stall. He hasn’t peed in the aisle way so far so good! I’d rather deal with peeing in the aisle versus him acting rude in the stall. Thanks guys!
