I have a story about massaging a particular horse; as has become my habit, I stopped by the stables to massage a couple horses Saturday, and while I was there, one of them (Clark) suffered a cut above his left eye from the hoof of his pasture buddy (Henry) as they were romping about. The cut was serious enough that the vet was called. In the meantime, Clark was cross tied to prevent him rubbing the wound, so I decided to do some gentle massage around the poll area, thinking the force of Henry’s hoof to be significant enough to give Clark a very big headache.
Immediately, Clark started releasing by chewing, and twisting his lips all around and snorting. I did this for about 15 minutes, and then I just gently stroked his neck until the vet arrived. The vet gave Clark a mild sedative, and during the cleaning, and stitching procedure, Clark’s head rested on my shoulder – this was about a 45 minute procedure, during which time I kept talking to him and stroking his neck and poll area. He was then taken to his stall, where he was closely monitored. I stopped by Sunday to see how he was – the swelling had gone down and he looked fine. I massaged him for a little while and he released more stress. He didn’t seem comfortable with an over-all massage, so I didn’t push it. The techniques I used were all from Jim’s video, and the Reiki I used in conjunction with the massage I learned a number of years ago and find very effective. I learned horses could get headaches by reading Jim’s blog on-line, so thank you, as a result, I could bring Clark some relief.