Hi all,

   Julie Conway said I could post what she wrote as background on her Gracie, which may make my previously posted reply more relevant for discussion  ;-D:


>>She came to me as Cherokee.  I changed her name to Grace because I thought that someday she would be a horse that anyone could ride and have fun with.

She can be aggressive.  She has bitten people in the past, but only threatens to bite now.  She is aggressive with horses currently (lots of resource guarding).

An example of not liking to be touched:  my barefoot trimmer cannot rest her hand or touch Grace on any other part of her body when she is trimming or Grace will threaten to bite or kick.  Grace has difficulty in holding her front legs up for more than one minute.  She will groan and then rear up to avoid hurting the trimmer.   She threatened our guy that feeds by kicking at him (she did not connect) and threatened to bite (I was not there to see what pre-empted the attack).  When I was showing a friend of mine where I thought Grace was hurting, I pointed to her thorax, and Grace reacted by biting me (actually it was just a pinch - she is extremely accurate).

 I have had the massage therapist out three times and Grace was not reactive.
I have had the chiropractor out three times and the last time he had tried to treat her spine, she exploded in place (meaning a rear with a double-barrel kick). This chiropractor uses cold laser therapy which helps to heal any inflammation. Once he was able to treat her, the reactions stopped.  However, the treatments do not seem to last very long as she is untouchable again other than her forehead.    I brushed her to do some shedding and she allowed it on her left side but protected her right side. The massage therapist and chiropractor both had said she was locked up in her poll and C4.  Other than that they found no other issues.  I have a suspicion about needing to have her liver cleansed as she is extremely sensitive to chemicals or pesticides.

Clicker training:  I have not worked with her in the past 6 months other than doing head down and backing Previously, she was doing some beautiful  at liberty work at the trot with her head down.  She fully engages her HQ
and looks like she is dancing.  She will offer this behavior if there are no other distractions.

I held a clicker training for kids and we all visited Grace.  I thought that she might want to engage and a few of the kids were able to pet her shoulder, but then she ran away.

I'm trying to stay more or less in the moment with what Grace is showing me. There is a lot of past history, but I'm guessing that won't help us much since she's been at our place for approximately 9 months.