Intuitive Touch

I watched a neat DVD today. Intuitive Touch for horses from Animals Healing, Inc. It went through bodywork and acupressure. The body work they describe is very similar to the Reiki I use. They start their sessions with therapeutic scratching. I found this very interesting, and since it was a nice day, decided to do a little experiment.

I went out to the barn and found Astro and Tango sleeping in the warm sun. Scottie was still in his stall. So, I approached Astro, who promptly got up. I scratched him a while, starting at his withers, and going up his poll to his head. When I went back down, and across his back, he took several steps backwards, which left my hand on his head again. Ok, guess I know what he wanted!

Tango is very cool and allowed me to scratch him all over while laying down. He loved it. He was stretching and bending his neck all around. The DVD explained that when scratched this way, they will naturally move in ways that enhance the area by stretching it. He even 'popped' several times. Astro actually did that at one point too, and kept bending his head around, and his neck kept popping. He did it until the popping stopped. Pretty cool.

So now it was Scottie's turn. He's a bit more edgy, so it takes a bit more for him to get that he can be relaxed. Finally, I would scratch his poll, pretty hard too, and he would lower his head and yawn! This is a big deal for him because we still work on head lowering and ear touching issues. We went on like this and he must have yawned about 30 times!