What to expect when you book an appointment for your horse:

When you book an appointment with TriCross Equine Chiropractic, I give you the option to trailer your animals to me (skip the travel fee!) or I can make a farm call.

I am a stickler about being on time or early because I value your time, and respect our appointment commitment. A typical equine treatment takes around 20-30 minutes per horse.

Once we get started I will have you put a halter on your horse and we will find a good spot to work on him- if he does better by his pasture buddy, that's where we will stand! The ideal spot is somewhere the ground is level and dry.

I always like to watch your horse trot out on a straight line in order to see how he's moving and see indications of misalignment in his body and how it's affecting him. If your horse is very old, lame, or you are unable to to trot him out it's no problem, I can just watch him at a walk.

Once we're done watching him move and discussing any issues or injuries that you know of, we begin the adjustment process. During the adjustment, I will ask you to aide me in keeping your horse fairly "square" with his head and neck facing forward, and his feet in alignment.

The first step is to palpate your horse's spinal column feeling for misalignment in his vertebrae, and then correcting the rotations with my rubber tool. The tool I use on the vertebrae of the horses back is simply to help me get a very precise adjustment, working on each idividual vertebra at a time- one of my secrets to a great adjustment. The mallet does not hurt your horse in any way, but can startle them a bit the first time they experience it. Most horses are completely calm and comfortable with my process.

The next step in the process is to check for rotation and pronation in the pelvis. I also check your horse's femurs and sacrum at this time. The pelvis adjustment as well as the others in the hind end are made with body weight manipulations only. It's OK and quite normal for your horse to swing around a little during these adjustments.

Once we have the majority of the body balanced and in alignment, we move up to the front and check your horse's atlas, axis, tmj, cervicals, and shoulders.

If your horse's shoulders are misaligned, I will sometimes ask you to put a hand on the opposite side of the horse and support him while he is adjusted. The adjustments made to the atlas, axis, TMJ, and cervicals are slow and steady and most horses are not worried about it, rather leaning in and enjoying the attention.

Following my comprehensive chiropractic adjustment of your horses skeletal system we go to work on the soft tissues, to enable your horse to fully relax his muscles and to feel and move better!

I begin this portion of the treatment by checking your horse's "stress points" - these are 52 points (26 on each side) in areas where the tendons and ligaments come together within the muscle groups that are a great indication of the soreness in your horse's body, and also where we will do the acupressure in areas the horse is carrying tension or pain.

Once we have released the muscle with an acupressure point, I do some targeted massage to enhance the affect.

While massage is not super effective on it's own since it usually does not treat the core problem, massage as an added benefit to a chiropractic adjustment works wonderfully to relax your horse and help his adjustment last longer. Our goal is to build up "positive" muscle memory so he can become healthier, move better, and stay in alignment longer, reducing pain in his body and reducing the chances of illness, lameness, or injury.

One of my favorite parts during a treatment is to see your horse's muscles visibly loosen, and be rewarded with a lot of "licking and chewing" a wonderful indication of release.

After we finish with the massage portion, I will always flex your horse's head and neck both directions keeping the plane of his face flat in order to get a deep stretch in his neck. With some horses, if it's needed, I will stretch out their legs. The final step is getting your horse to put his head down and feel through the nuchal and supraspinous ligament the change in his back. Finally I ask him to back up and use all those muscles while keeping long and low and straight.

I always advise clients to turn their horse out after an adjustment, or take a ride giving their horse a slow and relaxed warm-up. We want your horse to have the opportunity to really feel the difference in his body so that he will move differently and not slide into any old habits caused by pain.

Call or text me today to get on my schedule and treat your horse to health and vitality through chiropractic! Kellsi - 307-630-4559