In early February 2022, EQUUS Magazine published “Rescue Horse Rehab,” a four-part series Stacie wrote on restoring a rescued horse’s physical and mental health, from the first veterinary exam through the foundation training that keeps a horse in a good home for life.
Rescue Horse Rehab: A Four-Part Series in EQUUS
by Stacie G. Boswell, DVM, DACVS-LA — published by EQUUS Magazine, February 2022
- Step 1: Address the horse’s immediate needs — a full veterinary exam the day the horse becomes yours, two to three weeks of quarantine, and the AAEP Care Guidelines for Equine Rescue and Retirement Facilities as the road map.
- Step 2: Tackle immediate health concerns — treating what the exam turns up, starting with the travel-related illnesses that are among the most common problems in recently rescued horses.
- Step 3: Establish the horse’s trust through routine — the behavioral half of the equation: socialization with the herd, and the patience retraining truly requires.
- Step 4: Teach the horse three basic skills — leading, allowing farriery work, and accepting injections: the three skills every horse must have, and where rescue training begins.
“An untrained horse is typically fairly straightforward to teach because he is a clean slate. A rescue horse overcoming past trauma can be difficult to retrain. The memory of the bad experience can stay with him for a lifetime. An untrained horse may need 20 to 30 repetitions to master a task, but a rescued horse may need 200 to 300 repetitions to master the same task willingly and without fear.”
“A rescue horse can be trained for practically any job or discipline. There’s no reason a rescue can’t trot down the centerline of a dressage arena or win hundreds of thousands in prize money running down cows competitively. Don’t be afraid to dream big. Chasing those dreams, however, starts with baby steps.”
The series draws on the same well as The Ultimate Guide for Horses in Need, which is available directly from Stacie or from Trafalgar Square Books.