"While sitting up there I ask him to turn his head from side to side and
I've noticed that he's ok going to the left and will even stay there a while
and sniff my boot (or whatever I'm wearing) but he's reluctant to turn to
the right and will put his ears back and try to nip at my boot and then
immediately turns his head back to the front. I have noticed him doing this
for awhile now while on the ground also but didn't think much of it. I'm
wondering if he has a pain in his neck, back or shoulder, anyone got a guess
as to what might be going on and what I can do? I have the vet coming out in
2 weeks to give the horses their shots and float teeth and all that, is it
something I should talk to him about? He is not limping or anything like
that and tears around the pasture with his buddy like it's nothing, jumping
over rocks, going up & down the hills and acts like he doesn't have a care
in the world."



Hi There Kelly

It is great that you are being so observant as to how your horse is
behaving/responding/reacting etc. It is so important that we are observant
and it often takes time to unravel what may be going on in their bodies.
When they give us messages we can understand to alert us to any problems
this is a great help. Very often it will take processes of elimination
whilst we learn as we go. Sometimes these observations and direct
experiences will lead us to research and educate ourselves about things that
have cause to fascinate us or direct us to discover out of abject
necessity. How to understand, deal and prevent muscular problems is really
worth learning about and it is also fascinating. It sounds like he may have
taxed some muscles during an escapade or two!

Also we can all learn from hindsight. Looking back at a number of your
previous posts it seems to me that Bandit has been indicating that he's
feeling some physical discomfort for a while. I think these posts have
mentioned saddle fit, rider posture/balance and such like. If you are not
riding, sorting out if the saddle fits properly would be worth looking into.
Putting thicker pads or bits of pads under saddles to compensate for the
saddle's lack of fit isn't really a good option in my opinion. Since the
horse has to carry a moving person on top of a moving saddle it is best to
have a good fitting saddle (that fits without a pad when trying it for fit)
and a good quality felt pad that disperses the pressure well.

It will be interesting to hear what your vet thinks when he visits.

Cheers

Sally





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]