Week 4: Studying Footage
Emily H -
Welcome back to my blog! I regret to inform you that I was unable to get field work this week. My advisor, Melinda Harllee, got back into town on Monday. However we didn’t connect until Tuesday, and we were unable to work out a good schedule for the both of us. This is unfortunate however it is expected because my experience is based around her clients. And of course, the clients are top priority in scheduling. While this is unfortunate, it allows me to dedicate more time to studying! As one of my goals for this project is to be able to confidently identify structures of the horse’s body, I was happy to have more time to study.
Last week I used the materials that Melinda very kindly has lent to me for the duration of my project. However, I’m going to be honest and say that I did get a little burnt out just reading about the information I wanted to learn. So this week, as I had a little less time on my hands, I decided to watch some videos about equine chiropractics.
The most informative video I watched was an uncut recording of a chiropractic treatment on a head horse named Ducky performed by Dr. Kiley Kelly. A head horse is a horse used in a roping team and is ridden by the “header.” The header is responsible for roping the steer’s head. Ducky’s treatment started with checking pressure points and stiffness. He had the most stiffness in his hips. To tackle this, Dr. Kelly adjusted his pelvis, it was restricted which means Ducky doesn’t have his full range of motion available without discomfort and pain. The goal of adjusting his pelvis is to restore motion in the vertebra, improve blood flow, lymphatic drainage, range of motion, and muscle comfort. During Ducky’s treatment I noticed sensitivity in points that are typically seen on a roping horse. Such as, tightness in the left shoulder and right side of neck. These are typical as many roping horses are worked to the left more than to the right. Which means that some muscles are worked more than others, therefore causing an imbalance and furthermore tightness and discomfort.
Thank you for joining me this week, I apologize for the lack of field work as it is more exciting. I hope to provide a more exciting blog next week!