My Mustang's COPD or Horse Heaves: All in Her Head, Literally

Reyacita, my 5-year-old mustang mare, came to me more than a year ago with a pretty good case of horse heaves. Since I adopted her during the winter, I had to feed her hay. Unfortunately, she couldn't eat hay without heaving. She developed a heave line, breathed heavy, and had this horrible rattle in her throat or chest.

I turned her out to pasture, fed her soaked feed, and gave her an herbal supplement called Eleviv. That seemed to take care of the problem until the grass returned in the spring.

Horse Heaves - The Problem that Wouldn't Go Away
Only, the problem didn't really go away. Whenever I tacked up Reyacita or tried to do any training with her, she would start to rattle when she breathed. The rattle was so loud that people could hear it all the way across the arena. But the rattle wasn't a straight case of COPD, it was a case of nerves.

Reyacita is a Metal horse personality, and this type of horse likes, no needs, to know exactly her job description. Unless and until she knows that, she's concerned that whatever we are about to do might be a surprise. This type of horse HATES surprises. They LOVE routine and doing their job well.

So all spring and summer, Reyacita rattled until I actually got into the saddle, and we started on some familiar training exercises. As soon as we started doing something familiar, she stopped rattling. Then she would spend a few minutes with her head down coughing up this giant green loogie that looked like some sort of science experiment. After that, no rattle, no heaves, no COPD.

If I wanted to introduce a new horse training element, then I had to do it after we did some exercises with which she was already comfortable. Otherwise the rattle would kick into high gear.

Giving Reyacita 2-4 capsules of Eleviv about 30 minutes before I tacked her up helped quite a bit, but didn't totally eliminate the rattle. That rattle continued to puzzle me because it seemed to have more to do with what was going in her head (or with her nerves) than with anything physical.

Horse Heaves: Where it Starts with Reyacita
With Reyacita, the horse heaves start in her head, meaning she rattles when she feels nervous or uncertain about something. I checked in with my vet, and it turns out that, when nervous, Metal horse personality types often suck their tongues into the back of the mouth against the soft palate. This sucking action can cause a pool of saliva to gather back there, irritating the soft palate … and causing that horrible rattling sound!

The reason the Eleviv helps to lessen the rattle is because it helps Reyacita feel more secure and less nervous about her situation. But it never totally got rid of the rattle. So I got curious about how to alleviate that problem.

My vet, Dr. Madalyn Ward, suggested I reach up under Reyacita's jawbone and do a slight adjustment on the hyoid bone. The first time I did this, Reyacita was standing at the trailer, tacked up, and rattling away as usual. I adjusted her hyoid bone, and an interesting thing happened. She dropped her head, coughed a few times, and popped out this oogie-green-loogie. Then she licked and chewed for about 3 minutes, and shook herself.

The rattling had stopped! Wow!

The rattling didn't start again until I led her away from the trailer. She wasn't sure about the day's training agenda so she started rattling again. I adjust her hyoid bone again, she coughed, and stopped rattling. That first day, I had to adjust her hyoid bone about 6 times during our training session. But it got to so familiar that she would stop rattling almost as soon as I touched her hyoid bone.

The second and third days, she rattled progressively less and less. I'm excited to see what happens as I continue to practice this adjustment on her. It is obviously very soothing to her, and she feels reassured when I do it.

Horse Heaves: Confirming My Suspicions
Almost everyone who hears Reyacita rattle becomes mildly alarmed and immediately asks me whether she has a lung condition. They also want to know what I am doing to treat the condition. I tell them about the Eleviv, of course, but because she still rattles when nervous, even with the Eleviv, some people insist that I should put her on some lung herbs or even drugs for lung conditions.

The problem is that the rattling is actually in her throat … and the horse heaves start in her brain, not her lungs.

I decided to test this out by doing a horse training session that looked like this

1. Tie to trailer, feed 4 capsules of Eleviv. Stand for 30 minutes to allow the Eleviv to take effect. (rattling)
2. Load into trailer, drive 10 miles to a friend's arena.
3. Unload at arena and tack up (rattling)
4. Walk into arena and stand next to RoboSteer (no rattling)
5. Walk around perimeter of arena (rattling)
6. Begin doing familiar stretching and warm-up circles at walk, trot, and lope (no rattling).
7. Finish circles and walk around arena on loose rein (rattling).
8. Stand in the heeler's box in the roping area (no rattling).
9. Walk out to center of arena and stand while talking to friend (rattling).
10. Lope fast circles (no rattling).

I don't know if you can see a pattern here, but it was as clear as day to me that Reyacita's horse heaves show up whenever she is uncertain about her job. Any familiar exercise or landmark, like the RoboSteer or loping circles, makes her feel secure. When she is secure, she doesn't suck her tongue into her mouth or rattle.

On the flip side of the coin, any unfamiliar action or location is cause for insecurity, and hence rattling. For example, standing next to the RoboSteer is OK because that matches her job description of "chase the steer." Standing and chatting with my friend while standing in the center of the arena matches nothing in her job description, so she begins to rattle.

But the true test, for me, was the fact that she never rattled or ran out of air when we loped fast circles. If Reyacita truly had a lung condition like COPD or asthma, then she would have limited lung function. However, she is as happy as clam when loping circles and never short of breath. She also doesn't rattle when she lopes. Also, I have tried several lung herbal tonics on her, all to no avail. They made absolutely no difference whatsoever!

Conclusion? Reyacita's condition is ALL IN HER HEAD!

At least, it starts there. The Eleviv is her saving grace because it ensures that she can eat hay without heaving, whether I'm watching over her or not. But when it comes to horse training, I'm realizing that until Reyacita totally trusts me AND fully learns all facets of "her job" she'll probably continue rattle, on and off, for a while.

I'll continue to give her Eleviv and adjust her hyoid bone. I do repetitive tasks with her, and incorporate ever more new tasks to her job description until she feels comfortable. At the point, I'm sure her rattling will disappear forever.

Is This True of All Horses?
Could lessons learned from Reyacita be applied to all horses with heaves or COPD. No. But the lessons could be adapted. For instance, if a horse has COPD, you might try to figure why the horse has COPD. Is the cause mental, emotional, or purely physical? Once you figure out the cause, then you can develop a horse health care and horse training regimen to address the problem. But if you don't address the cause, you probably can't do more than palliate the symptoms.

Do you agree?

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Horse Training: The Donut Man Horse

One of my favorite commercials is the one of Fred the Baker, the face of Dunkin' Donuts for many years, trudging around saying,

"It's time to make the donuts, it's time to make the donuts ..."

I know a horse who is just like the donut man because he needs to do the same thing day in and day out. In fact, he went lame and had to be taken out of training. During his period of prolonged stall rest, he got so agitated that he couldn't "make the donuts," or do his daily routine, that he developed an ulcer and become seriously ill.

Once he healed up from his illness, ulcer, and lameness, all his humans needed to do to keep him from getting sick again was to let him "make the donuts" everyday. As long as this horse got to do some kind of routine every day, he was healthy and happy.

Sound familiar? If you have a horse like this, who craves routine like a drug, then you have a Metal horse personality type. (Read more about horse personality types here.)

Horse Training and the Metal Horse Personality Type
The Metal horse is the reliable ranch horse who does his job as consistently as the Dunkin' Donuts man makes donuts. In fact, the Metal horse so craves consistency and routine that he can actually become ill if he doesn't get. The mental and emotional stress of "something different every day" can literally cause a Metal horse physical illness, especially when they first begin training.

Now this might sound arduous and more than a little crazy, since many people don't have time to train their horses every single day of the week. However, horse training with a Metal horse is not as difficult as you might think.

The key to horse training with a Metal type is to pick one thing and do it consistently. The Metal horse just needs one factor of reliability in his life. It might be as simple as a feeding schedule that functions like clockwork. If you horse lives at home with you, perhaps all you have to do is go out and brush your horse once a day. You can keep the routine simple. You just have to follow it very carefully.

A Horse Training Example
When I first began training my mustang mare Reyacita, she would develop COPD or heave-like symptoms whenever we did something different or new. She would also buck. These were all signals she was trying to send me that the varied training schedule, which worked so well on my playful Wood mare Valentine, was much too stressful for her Metal horse personality type.

I called a friend who had dealt with several Metal horses and asked what I should do. Her answer was simple. She told me that I had to do one consistent "thing" with Reyacita every day, and that would form the bulk of my horse training with her, at least until she came to trust me fully. Mustangs are notoriously wary of humans, and Metal horses in particular have difficulty giving their trust.

She suggested that I pull Reyacita out of pasture every day and simply tie her to the trailer for an hour. That seemed simple enough, so I just that for 14 days in a row. This simple training exercise satisfied Reyacita's craving for routine, and she learned, after 14 days, that she could trust me not to hurt her, and to provide the a consistently safe environment for her.

At the time, I was also feeding the mare 2 capsules of Eleviv per day, which helped her stay out of her "fight or flight" sympathetic nervous system, and stay in her parasympathetic nervous system, which is a horse's normal, relaxed state of being.

Today, when I want to introduce something new to Reyacita's horse training program, I try to follow the same principle of routine. I do the same exercise over and over for several days in a row and give her 2 Eleviv during those days. This principle has worked well with our new roping training.

However, if she ever starts to get panicked, as evidenced by her COPD symptoms, I simply go back to the trailer-tying exercise and give her 2 capsules of Eleviv. By doing this for several days in a row, Reyacita relaxes and "realizes" that all is well again.

If you have a young Metal horse (and you can test your horse here for free online), you may want to employ some deliberately routine exercises to help them stay calm and focused during their horse training regimen. It's a case where going slow helps you go fast later.

Older Metal horses who know their job don't need nearly as much consistency as younger Metal horses just learning their job. Older Metal horses are the ones you can leave in the pasture for months at a time, then pull them up for a weekend penning or roping. So long as they know their job, they don't need any extra help with routine or consistency.

Metal horses are wonderful, tough, hard-working horses, and as long as you treat young Metal horses with careful consistency, they will repay your efforts with a long career of hard work and consistent performance.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader. Also, check out my ebook for wacky horses and humans, or holler at me if you want to know how I fund my horse addiction ... and you can, too!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/ / CC BY 2.0