My dear rescue horse, River, before and after....
I was just advised yesterday that he has been dealing with a displaced hip for...who knows how long??? The osteopathic vet surmised that he sustained an injury at some point in his past, possibly a fall, and been left to compensate for it, which he has done remarkably. My regular vet had not even detected it. High headed and extremely unbalanced, River came to me via a friend who gallantly removed him from a neglectful, and most probably abusive, home. Several hundred pounds underweight and extremely head shy, he was loving and goofy nonetheless. I fell in love.
I am amazed at a horse's ability to sustain the pain and abuse that we, knowingly or unknowingly, inflict upon them. How many horses, reprimanded for behavioral problems, have succumbed to painful punishment for physiological issues? In someone else's hands, my gelding would have been viewed as disobedient, clumsy, had his head tied down, or had a variety of other "remedies" inflicted on him. I have been riding him not realizing that I was putting incredible pressure on this unwell skeletal system. Ignorance. And what strikes me is that there is MORE ignorance than knowledge in the horse field. We have so far to go.
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