Well considering the OP calls the horse a disobedient witch in the title, wrote numerous essays on how it can’t be physical pain, and took this long to actually scope the mare are you surprised?
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@CupOJavaa I do hope you take some time to consider and reflect on all the people who have failed the horse in this situation.
Because you consider her a “disobedient witch” she lived with a belly full of severe ulcers for far longer than was reasonable. Despite the refusal to see her disobedience for what it was–pain!–she was still incredibly generous and stoic a whole lot of the time…which actually shows her to incredibly kind and willing.
You failed her. The trainer failed her. The vet failed her.
It happens to a lot of us. Hell, Denny Emerson just wrote a whole book about it. It’s far easier to blame the horse rather than push back on the vet when the vet says the horse is crazy. It’s far easier to blame the horse when the trainer says the horse is crazy. But as an owner, it’s YOUR responsibility to push further and advocate for the horse. Because you know what? The horse is nearly NEVER crazy. Crazy is a cop out.
So you finally scoped the horse, and found a reason for all her “crazy” behavior, which is great. But use this as a learning experience and don’t just blow by it. This horse was desperately trying to communicate something. A belly full of ulcers is incredibly painful. There’s also risk of death should they perforate. This should be a pretty sobering event to you.
I don’t doubt that you’ll come back with a verbose reply about how I’m wrong. That’s fine. But I have great hope that you’ll think about this more deeply in your own time, away from here, and learn from this. Reframe how you think about your incredibly kind and generous mare. Listen to her next time when she tells you something is wrong. Stop BLAMING her. Advocate for her. And remember that lessons we refuse to learn from repeat, generally with more profound outcomes.
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Nothing in this pedigree suggests difficult… if anything… the opposite…
Hope she gets an upgrade in care and compassion. :no:
Do not forget, you need to change the management if a horse has ulcers. Treating will do little, adjust management. She sounds miserable in her current arrangement and will continue to get ulcers with or without Regumate.
Any time a horse is perfect on the ground and downright disagreeable in work, you should suspect pain… glad to hear you scoped but I hope now you reconsider that an animal that doesn’t want to work with you, is telling you something and isn’t a disagreeable witch for trying to communicate with you.
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I’m new to the tread. It sounded like ulcers from the first post. One of my horses is back on ulcer treatment. He absolutely hates any leg pressure on his side. He also is a mental wreck.
My horse stresses over any change - trailer somewhere and he goes off his feed. He stresses and fence paces. He will trot in place in a stall. He gives himself ulcers by stressing himself out, refusing to eat. He will take one bite, pace, take another bite, pace etc. Hard to keep weight on. I keep food in front of him at all times. He always has hay and I’ve added alfalfa pellets in his stall to nibble on all day.
I’m hoping the ulcer meds will improve things for him, but he often does this to himself. Mentally anxiety is tough to deal with.
A horse like yours is not trusting of anyone but it’s owner and needs kind and consistent handling from other people until it learns to trust others. Acting up for others is a trust issue or an evasion tactic. Calling the horse names is negative thinking - we all do it at times but it is a bad habit to get into. Changing your thinking to more positive thoughts will make you a more optimistic person and improve your mood. Look how far your horse has come since you got her.
Now that you have a diagnosis, take a look at your management. Do you know when the horse is going too long without food that it is developing ulcers? I know my horse stops eating when he gets anxious about something in the environment. Whether that be strange people or neighbor kids playing, something bothers him and he reverts to old behaviors. He is much improved at home, but travels poorly.
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^^This. They need to be 100% before you get on. And you can never be too quick to go back to groundwork if you find an issue that needs to be fixed. They can blow up all they want on the ground, but if you are standing there pointing to send them left, they can turn absolutely inside out and you will still be standing there pointing to send them left when they are done. If you tried to ride through it, there is a great chance you stopped putting pressure on them because you had to hang on, and therefore, you just reinforced the bad behavior.
Ulcers or no ulcers, the horse has learned bad behavior, and will still need training to be a good, solid citizen.
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Agreed. Lots of horses have ulcers and don’t explode, bronc and try to dump their riders. I would not assume that the only issue is ulcers. I would also not assume that repro is/was the cause unless blood tests show something abnormal.
Of course I would treat for ulcers, and I might consider Regumate. But I would probably treat for ulcers for 30-60 days before starting Regumate so you can evaluate the results of each change independently. If you start them at the same time it will be hard to know whether the behavioral issues are hormonal or pain, or both. Or training. Or all 3. Or something else.
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There are plenty of horses that do get upset and difficult to ride with ulcers, but yeah, 100% on the bolded part. Frankly, with what we know about this history, it sounds like this horse has a chronic, likely difficult, subtle lameness issue. Pain causes the ulcers and the problems under saddle. Neck neuro stuff, high hind suspensories, old pelvic fracture…or another one of those things that’s tricky to see and very difficult to diagnose.
Those horses often don’t get treated unless they luck into a brilliant vet or their owner really goes to the mat, insisting something is wrong. I hope this one finds a good path forward.
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Unfortunately, as the vet said, there is no way of telling if the ulcers are new ones or “left over” from treatment months ago. However she displayed none of her typical symptoms of ulcers until a week and a half ago and was very well behaved and relaxed in work, moving willingly from the leg, and enjoyed going out on our hand walks (I like to take her for walks through the neighborhood and woods like a dog) for weeks. Which makes us think these are new ones and is what led the vet to suggest these reoccurrences may be cyclical. Weather changes are her kryptonite. She became symptomatic last fall and this spring (the most recent treatment) and with the weather leveling out I had hoped we would be in the clear for another laid back summer. Last summer she had no reoccurrences of ulcers. Though, thinking about it, it very well could be related to cycling during those seasons too… I finally scoped because I wanted to be sure of what we were dealing with: thankfully (if you can say that) they are in the nonglandular region like I had, er, “hoped.”
Your horse sounds much more outwardly anxious than mine - but who knows what she internalizes! She is actually very relaxed from day to day in her “safe spaces” i.e. her stall, field, and the general barn area. She has absolutely no vices, does not pace or paw, and spends all of her time split eating and napping. She could not care less if one of her buddies is pulled out to be played with. She will always be a little spooky, that is in her blood. She notices absolutely everything and is one of those that will definitely blow and side step past a jacket thrown over a fence or a fallen log in her path that was not there the day before. She is always better under saddle away from home than she is at home (more to look at to keep her forward thinking mind busy). And she is very willing on the ground - so much so that I have to be mindful of when and how I ask her to do things so as not to take advantage of that by making her do more than she is ready for. No matter what she is anxious about or afraid of she will walk by it/over it/through it for me, which is not always fair. I work to teach her to relax through the things that concern her because otherwise her whole life is basically being forced to do something she does not want to do. What a way to live!
For example we came across a downed tree in our path through the woods a while ago. A huge tree, no safe way over it, so I picked the best looking side to go around. Well the suddenly fallen tree was enough to have her wide eyed and snorting anyway and now she was going to have to walk through mud (change of footing - another kryptonite) with a little water and past a giant bush/tree thing she could not see around. I know I could have pointed her through it and just pushed her right on by and she would have scooted past with her eyes rolled back, every muscle tensed up, nose blowing, but we would have gone by. But what is the point in that? It took 20 minutes just to get her through there and back to the point she did it basically on her own with her head down to sniff curiously. One good look is never enough for that gal. I think enough days of something like that - a brand new question that interrupts her predictable routine - is enough to give this horse an ulcer.
We have unfortunately battled the dreaded ulcers before and her lifestyle and routine are as good as it will get for any horse. She eats a little bit of TC Senior but I think I might pull that again because I am just highly suspicious of the soy and molasses otherwise she gets no commercial grain, has absolutely the best timothy/orchard mix hay available to her 24/7 (think 13.99$ a bale, tested cries), has a stall that she can go in and out of as she wants with access to a 6 acre field with good grazing available. She has a small, stable herd which she is in charge of at my home, a very quiet facility so none of the buzzing of a busy show or boarding barn with new faces to see every day. And she does not travel much at all (or at all, currently).
Thanks for sharing and I hope your boy feels better with meds as well! I think you are right, my mare misbehaving for anyone but me is absolutely a trust or evasion tactic. Hell last summer I handed the lead rope over to the vet tech to do the trotting during one of my obsessive lameness evals and she got “big.” You know the “big” I am talking about…she grew 5 inches because I left her in the hands of someone else and stepped 10 feet away. She craaaaned her neck out and down to gingerly sniff at the girl. As teenage-novel worthy as it sounds for her to be so single-personed, it actually worries me that she is this way which is why I will continue to work at it after ulcer treatment. Sure, she might go most of her life only being handled, held, or ridden by me but I really do not think this does her any justice. Any day something could happen to me and I might no longer handle her for a length of time. In her current state, two days with someone else as her primary caretaker would definitely give her an ulcer.
Agree, I am still not convinced that there is not some pain somewhere. I had a vet out nearly monthly last summer (twice was my usual vet, once was the boarder’s vet who had never seen her before, for a “fresh” pair of eyes) and after her ulcer flare last fall I finally called the best known lameness vet this side of the east coast. He is well known for handling the “NQRs” and is not in my area plus he travels as far as Florida so scheduling with him can be tricky. Nothing. Mayyybe she was a little sore right stifle but not even he recommended anything. Plus, I had her stifles radiographed and ultrasounded not even a year before so he thought chances of an injury in that time since without my knowing it was really slim.
This mare is not the least bit stoic, she is often described as one who “tells you how exactly she feels.” Which I really appreciate about her! So until she “tells” us, we are grasping at straws (is that the right analogy here?). We are going to keep her from cycling for the summer and see if she has an ulcer flare this fall. Fall and spring sucks for her, I always thought it was weather-related but if turns out to be cycle-related then that would be an easier “fix” short of me becoming Zeus.
Your plan of action was exactly the vet’s. We decided however to start ulcer treatment and Regumate together this time. This is not her first run with ulcers so I am (unfortunately) familiar with her symptoms. She was ulcer-free all summer last summer even with a few field trips (maintenance dose of UG used) and did very well those months and had a lot of progression; granted, this is not to say she was free of her bouts of witchiness, people, we are still talking of an issue aside ulcers here, which are very recognizable. So the vet felt it was an acceptable move to try and treat both the ulcers and the potential cause of the ulcers (and maybe subsequently the behaviors) at once.
Then she showed symptoms in the fall (October?). She was treated for 60 days (was symptom free after the 28 day mark but continued another 30 just to play it safe) and remained symptom-free up until her symptoms returned again this spring. Like clockwork. She was great again and symptom free for almost two months (I keep a journal for her, will have to check) until this second spring-flare-up. I had hoped once the weather leveled out we would be ulcer-free again this summer as the weather changes are really her kryptonite. She turns into a ball of nerves in cold rain, temperature fluctuations (hot to cold), that sort of thing. The vet and I decided that we know her symptoms well enough that we know what does work for her (GG) and what we are unsure of (Regumate). Only time will tell - I am really hoping we can prevent more ulcers this fall by finding out what causes them seasonally.
I will update when we “know.”
If anything, this thread does serve as a reminder that Regumate is over-used in the sport-world as a crutch-fix for “miserable” mares, when usually, the reason the mares are miserable is because of physical issues unrelated to hormones or their ovaries…
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@CupOJavaa you know what you find when you scope a not-at-all-stoic horse that’s been complaining of ulcers? Nothing. Or pinholes. You know what you find when you scope a stoic horse? Grade 3.
You seem really devoted to this “this mare is just SO DIFFICULT” mythology, but what you describe just doesn’t show that at all. Your posts show a kind mare, who is desperate to communicate something is wrong with her, and she’s in pain. Rather than listen to that, you call her crazy. You let your vet call her crazy. You let your trainer call her crazy.
I don’t think you’re willfully negligent, although that would be one option, since this horse has been all but screaming at you that her belly hurts, and you ignored that for a loooong time. You were insisting at the start of this thread that there was NO way that she had ulcers, but now you’re calling her a horse that tells you everything? That doesn’t line up at all. I think you’re so wrapped up in this “crazy mare” mythology that you’re just NOT SEEING what’s in front of you. It seems that you really like owning a crazy mare. There’s a definitely Black Stallion vibe to all this.
You know that old trope “the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results”? It’s fits here. The vet’s called her nutty and yet you keep having him back out to check her. Why? He thinks nothing is wrong with her. Do you just enjoy the validation from someone who thinks she’s difficult? When a professional checks out on your horse, that’s when you find a NEW one who’s interested in looking further with you.
It’s weird that you’ve apparently not seen any of the research about how the language we use impacts how we view things. There’s a whooooole lot out there about it (One, Two, Three). So you calling this horse a disobedient witch does indeed impact how you view her, and how you treat her…as this thread definitely shows. But you breezily laugh that off. Why? I’m asking that rhetorically, and don’t expect an answer, but you should really do some soul searching about your relationship with this horse, because the way you view her is hurting her.
From the sounds of it, this horse needs a full workup at a large referral center with the most talented diagnostician in your area. I’m sure people here will help you figure out who that is.
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@Simkie You’re my hero!!! Thank You for saying all that! I only wish I could like your post 1,000,000+ times!
I’m so sad for that poor mare
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You know it very well could be hormones as well. I have one mare who is like riding 3 different horses depending on where she is in her cycle. She is very dead to the aids when she is seasonal and she will aggressively go after other horses. I often resort to carrying a whip and putting a shank on her, just as if she were a stallion. Out of season, she is lovely to ride, responsive and sensitive. Her reactivity level varies hugely depending on her hormones. Some rides she is completely non spooky and quiet, other rides the world is out to get her.
I did have her ovaries checked by ultrasound because one spring she was miserable - kicking at other horses while in season, really uncomfortable, and excessively spooky. The vet said she had multiple large follicles and it would be easy to breed her if i wanted. Then suggested Regumate.
Now as for Regumate being over used- in the wild, mares would be pregnant every year. It would be rare for them not to be bred. An unbred mare being used for performance, just isn’t really a natural state for a horse. Because they aren’t bred, the reproductive hormones are going to keep cycling during the breeding season- which is very distracting and uncomfortable for the mare.
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