How Do You Adjust a Horse?

How do you adjust a horse?  This is a common question I get from people, especially from people foreign to the equine world.  

I get it though, it’s a big animal and it would be tough to visualize enough power to move a horse.

The thing is an animal chiropractor doesn’t adjust horses, an animal chiropractor adjusts joints.  

A horses vertebral (facet) joints that we target are not large, much smaller than my hand.

If the force is applied specifically to the joint than the amount of pressure needed is not that much.

Is it more than say the pressure a chiropractor would need when adjusting a human? Yes.  But with knowledge of equine anatomy and working with the horse rather than against it, the amount of force need is really not that much.

So if you ever wonder how does an equine chiropractor adjust a horse, they don’t! They adjust the joint :)

Lame horse? Are you seeing the full picture?

Obviously there are many reasons why you can have a lame horse.  But sometimes treating a specific area only will get you your horse so far.

Your horse has four limbs for a reason.  When an injury affects a certain limb the other three limbs must work overtime.  Not to mention the stabilizing musculature that will be sent into overdrive.

Correcting the area where the injury occurred is absolutely necessary but looking at the rest of the compensatory issues while they are current may help to prevent future nagging injuries.

After any injury I recommend having your horse checked and corrected before this becomes the new normal.

At the end of the day your horse is not just a machine.  It is more than a sum of it’s parts and must be evaluated as a whole.