Equest Equine First Aid

Home
Equest Equine First Aid

Equest Equine First Aid Penny Batherson
Equi-Health Canada Affiliate Instructor Trainer
Certified Equi-Health Canada/ Equi-First Aid USA
Instructor Shock. Plus much more!!

EHC recommends that each barn/stable/club have at least
one person onsite who is certified in equine first aid and one person
certified in human first aid! All Equine First Aid courses are hands on with horses and cover:

Pain detection, pain prevention
Lacerations
How to flush foreign bodies out of eyes
Hoof puncture wounds, thrush, scratches, abcess, white line
Digestive emergencies - colic, c

ollapse, choke
Is your saddle hurting your horses back? What's normal and what's not normal for your horse
What your vet needs to know when you call with an emergency

Also - you will receive a first aid manual that includes:

What's Abnormal/What’s Normal (+Vital signs chart),Wounds,
Bandaging, Collapse. Poison, Burns, Lameness, Nail puncture,
Interference, Wrapping legs, Colic, Choke, Eye Injuries, Nose Bleed, Stings and
Bites, Heat Stroke, First Aid Supplies needed...First Aid and More! Course Overview

Through a number of different hands-on and powerpoint demonstrations, students
will learn and go through a series of specific techniques for working with active medical problems a horse may have - from wound care, both pre- and post-vet visit, eye wash, digestive distress issues including colic, breathing issues and common foot conditions horse owners may have to encounter. Prevention is also as important as knowing all the first aid procedures, and knowing a
horse's vital signs is a huge part of this. You will learn, hands-on, how to take a full set of vital signs, so you, along with your vet will know sooner rather than later that something is wrong with your horses overall health condition. Sulis Method

A series of different exercises are introduced to first determine if a horse is
operating under any physical pain. Nearly 60% of all horses operate under some degree of back pain all the time. This is especially true for 80-90% of all school horses. Demonstrations are then given on different techniques to detect pain, stretch, and to assist a horse in relieving tension to prepare him or her for work. In several small groups everyone will take turns practicing all these different techniques with live horses, as assisted and guided by the course instructor. Live Horse Practice

Students will be divided off into smaller groups and given different medical scenarios that require emergency first aid treatment. This will be with live horses. Through these different situations students will find a level of comfort where they feel they can handle any emergency medical situation.

06/02/2025

02/02/2025

15/01/2025

Knowing what to look for and then knowing what to do makes
all the difference!! This is just one of the things we teach in our first aid courses. Contact us today to host a course at your barn.
“Your Horse Will Love You for it❤️”!!!

10/01/2025

Great and important information.

03/01/2025

Contact us today to book a course at your barn.
2025 dates are filling up quickly, don’t miss the opportunity!!!
“Your Horse Will Love You for it”❤️
Call/text 905-868-6997 today to
Book your course.

Check out equestequinefirstaid’s video.

31/12/2024

Happy New Year from Equest Equine & Canine First Aid!!

24/12/2024

Happy Holidays from Equest Equine & Canine First Aid!!!

16/12/2024

Winter tips for your equine friends❤️

06/12/2024

Keep your fur babies warm❤️

05/12/2024

Great info

Comparative neurobiology of horse and human.

Horses and humans are both mammals.
Our brains may not be the same size, but they are almost identical in their structure and function.

Why can our brains look so similar but our behaviours and sensitivity to the world look so different?

The area in the picture highlighted is the prefrontal cortex or the (PFC). Its job in humans, horses, dogs, dolphins, elephants, cats, mice, rats, all mammals, and even birds is to carry out "higher executive functions" such as:

🧠 problem solving
🧠 decision making
🧠 reasoning
🧠 risk assessment
🧠 forward planning
🧠 impulse control
🧠 intention

Obviously, these executive functions are more advanced in humans than in other species of mammals, but this part of the brain plays a pivotal role in higher levels of learning beyond primal behaviours and learning survival skills.

So why aren't we seeing these higher executive functioning skills and behaviours in horses as much as what we see them in dogs, dolphins, elephants and even birds?

Ultimately it comes down to safety!

The latest neuroscience research suggests that when the brain feels unsafe it causes the body to produce stress response hormones and these stress response hormones cause the PFC to go "offline".
This means that subcortical regions of the brain (deeper parts of the brain) such as the primal brain (AKA limbic system, survival brain, flight/fight brain) completely take over to increase the chances of survival.

Feeling unsafe causes the feeling of fear and it is fear that gets this party started.

So behaviours come from two areas:

1. The PFC, carrying out problem solving skills, reasoning, impulse control, forward planning etc. that may be interpreted as "obedience" and "partnership".

2. The primal brain, carrying out reactive survival behaviours. This brain does NOT carry out impulse control, forward planning, problem solving, etc. It just reacts to the world. This brain heavily relies on patterns and consistency. This brain will cause freeze/flight/fight behaviours such as shutting down, bolting, biting, rearing, bucking, kicking, barging, etc.

Which brain is the domesticated horse spending most of it's time in?
It's primal brain!

This is why we don't get to see their full intellectual and cognitive potential because most of the time, domesticated horses are perceiving their world in a fearful way to some degree.

We can help our horses with this!

Feeling fearful is the OPPOSITE to feeling calm.
If we want to help our horses access their PFC then we MUST do whatever it takes to help them feel calm.

☝️ ONLY when a brain feels calm can it slow down enough to develop TRUE confidence. Only when the brain feels confident will it access TRUE cognition (PFC).

☝️ We first need to understand that when we get "bad behaviour" from our horses, it's not intentional or naughty or rude. What you are seeing is either a horse that is just reacting to the fear they feel or they are carrying out their "coping mechanism" in response to their anticipation of feeling fear.

☝️ Try to remove expectations that your horse should "know better".
"Knowing better" implies that all behaviours are coming from the PFC and there should be some impulse control and reasoning. Unless your horse feels calm, they can't access the PFC to "know better".

THIS STARTS WITH YOU!!!

You need to be consciously aware if YOU feel calm first. If you feel calm, your horse will have a better chance at feeling calm. Expecting them to feel calm when you don't is unfair.

The best way to create calmness is to intentionally be SLOW!!!
SLOW EVERYTHING you do down.
SLOW your movement down.
SLOW your talking down.
SLOW your walking down.
SLOW your breathing down.
SLOW your horse down.
If you feel too slow, then you're going slow enough.

Calmness is slow, not fast.

This will help you and your horse to connect and feel safe together.
When the brain feels stressed, the stress response hormones cause the body to speed up.

Stress = speed

We can reverse engineer this process and create a calm mind through slow intentional movement and a relaxed posture.

The by-product of a calm brain is confidence and cognition (PFC access).

Happy brain training 🧠
Charlotte 😊

Photo: Credit: Adult horse (equine) brain, sagittal section. Michael Frank, Royal Veterinary College. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

29/11/2024

Contact us today to host an equine first aid course at your barn!!!
“Your Horse Will Love You for it”❤️
Call or text Penny at 905-868-6997

28/11/2024

Great tips for the cold weather on its way.

23/11/2024

Did you know your horse can catch the flu, too?

While there isn’t a specific time of the year for “flu season” in the equine world, any time is good to learn more about this highly contagious respiratory condition—particularly because it’s one of the most common infectious diseases of the respiratory tract of horses, and recent years have been unusually active for Equine Influenza Virus (EIV) on a global scale.

EIV spreads rapidly through groups of horses in aerosolized droplets dispersed by coughing, and the severity of clinical signs depends on the degree of existing immunity within the affected individual, among other factors (i.e., correctly vaccinated horses are less affected than unvaccinated horses).
Any horse showing signs of respiratory disease (cough, nasal discharge, persistent fever) should be isolated immediately until your veterinarian can determine the exact cause.

To learn more about Equine Influenza Virus (EIV), visit these resources:
https://aaep.org/resource/aaep-infectious-disease-guidelines-equine-influenza-eiv/
&
https://www.equinediseasecc.org/equine-influenza

As always, your horse doctor remains your best source of information. Contact them to learn more about how to prevent this disease through an appropriate vaccination protocol and biosecurity practices.

Address

Opening Hours

Monday	09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday	09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday	09:00 - 17:00
Thursday	09:00 - 17:00
Friday	09:00 - 17:00
Saturday	09:00 - 17:00
Sunday	09:00 - 17:00

Website

http://www.equestequinefirstaid.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Equest Equine First Aid posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Equest Equine First Aid:

Shortcuts

Address
Opening Hours
Alerts
Contact The Business
Claim ownership or report listing
Want your business to be the top-listed Travel Agency?

Country:

City: