In May 2006 our 22 year old pony got both back legs caught in sheep wire and her rump torn with barbed wire as she struggled to get free. Judging by the “poohs” on the ground, she had been there for some time before being found and cut free. As it turned out, all her cuts and tears, although extensive, were superficial but the trauma and tightness throughout her whole body continued on through the summer months. She pottered about with her three companions barely moving at more than a snail’s pace, standing bolt upright and tense as the wounds were dressed daily.
Shortly after this incident, I took part in a Level One course and on returning home decided to try a BBB on the pony to see if it might help. By this stage her rump was like 2 concrete blocks with gorge lines of missing hair where the barbed wire had etched their marks. At this stage I should mention that about four years earlier I had taken an Equine Touch Level One course and had used the pony as my first (and only) guinea pig. So badly had the experience gone for us both that I never “practiced” again – she ripped down a wooden fence and gate in her efforts to get away from me (and I was only putting in the lower energy blocks). This so destroyed my confidence that from that moment on I gave up before I had even started! I hasten to add that this incident never swayed me from believing that ET worked, more that it convinced me that I should not be the one to perform it! Thanks to Heather McReynolds coming to the yard over the winter of 2005-06 to work with one of our other horses, I had been inspired to have another go.
I worked in a corner of the field with the pony and this time, rather than taking off like a bat out of hell, she stood, head lowering, eyes closing, totally oblivious to her companions prancing about. An overwhelming sadness engulfed us both and I cried openly on her shoulder as I felt the awful pain and panic she had suffered a few months earlier. Even though there was no skin slack to perform the butt shots or any of the other hind quarter moves I completed the BBB and finished with TMJ in floods of tears! After we finished, she stood sleeping where we had worked for, I’m sure, half an hour or more before shaking and moving off to join her friends.
During the next few weeks, she was offered further BBB sessions and each time she stood, head lowered, obviously enjoying the relief and freedom the process was giving. On one occasion having done the hindquarters and moving on to the shoulder, she walked off, did a complete U turn and presented her hindquarter to me as if to say: “More here please!” On yet another occasion whilst offering ET to one of her companions, she came up the field and, pushing in, stood beside me waiting her turn!
By the end of the summer her concrete rump had softened like a pin cushion and she was back joining in the shenanigans of her companions. The experience of ET this time round had managed to wipe out the traumas of the past for both of us in more ways than one and I can only encourage every single horse owner to discover for themselves how ET can change the bond you have with your horse forever.
A happy horse once more.