Tag Archives: hippotherapy

One Word Photo Challenge: Teal

2 Replies

This week’s One Word Photo Challenge is Teal; a beautiful shade found on the color spectrum of blue, can be found in the pictures posted below.

If you have never known the love of a therapy horse, or have seen the love expressed between horse and rider, then hopefully you can see that and more expressed in the photos.

tealteal4

The ever so patient horse, encouraging the ever so gentle touch from a child with special needs is awe inspiring. Tears well up in my eyes with happiness, as I watch my daughter’s slow movements in her approach towards her therapy horse, Passion, who is moving in closer to my daughter for her to touch.

Horse/equine therapy, also known as Hippotherapy, has been very helpful with my daughter in teaching her to express herself more. Not only that, but it allows her to have a love for animals that she didn’t have before; she had expressed fear when any animal approached her, whether that animal was calm or not.

She expresses a giddy, “Hi, Passion.” before reaching up to brush her fingertips across Passion’s nose. Passion, a gentle therapy horse on Harmony In Hooves Farm, stands up to her name. Her gentle, calm nature would allowing anyone a chance to pet her. Horses can be very therapeutic and just being around her can be very calming.

You can check out my other blog post for more information on how horses can be therapeutic for special needs children.

The following photos is of some artwork pieces found in Bernice Gardens in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

teal2teal3

One Word Photo Challenge: Brown

4 Replies

3

My daughter has been doing horse back riding therapy, also called hippotherapy, for almost seven months now and she really enjoys it. It has helped her out in many ways and has encouraged her to become more verbal, more attentive to her surroundings, plus she gets excited when I tell her that she’s going riding today.

It took her speech therapist four horses, each a different size and gait, to figure out which horse best suited my daughter’s needs (for both autism and sensory processing disorder). Though each horse she’s ridden has been really sweet and lovable, I sincerely love the horse she has now. She’s (the horse) is well taught in being a therapy horse, she’s smart, and likes to take part in some of the games we’re playing, such as puzzles, she likes to look at the puzzle board with us.

Since this week’s one word photo challenge is brown, I’ll share a few pictures of some of the horses around the farm where my daughter rides.

 

horse10horsin1pony2pony1

Weekly Photo Challenge: Window

3 Replies

Around here, windows are our favorite thing. It’s a looking glass to the world outside. It seems that my daughter and one of her furry friends spends a lot of time looking out the window. This weeks photo challenge is about windows.

Here are two of my favorites that has to do with windows. The first picture is of my daughter and my parents cat, Eight Ball, both sitting next to one another, looking at the window. When I first snapped the picture it was a time my daughter was making a break through with her autism. She was terrified of most animals, still is, but not as bad as she was before.

After several sessions with hippotherapy, she has shed this fear of animals and starts to move in closer and closer, sometimes close enough to touch, but only for a few seconds or more. This picture was the first time she sat so close to a cat. Eight loves to come up to her to be petted and will sit next to her until she gets up and leaves.

The second picture is of Eight Ball. I just love the double image. He is such a wonderful, loving cat.

Image

Image

Weekly photo challenge: Beginning

3 Replies

Image

The beginning of a new friendship

Since my daughter started doing hippotherapy (therapeutic riding) this past summer, she has a new found friendship with each horse she rides. Though in the picture she is seen leaning in to kiss a horse named Peaches, she usually rides another horse named Gilly.

Hippotherapy has helped her open up more with her confidence in horses and most other animals, as well as helped her open up with her speech. Up until the age of three she had barely an eight word vocabulary, whereas most kids that age has three times that many words in their vocabulary.

Hippotherapy helps keep her calm and relaxed to the point where she can use that energy to focus on other things, such as seeing the world around her and telling us about what she sees. When she isn’t riding, she is mostly focused on one thing and has to have help in redirecting her attention to something else.

Now that she is four years old, she has started talking more and is using actual sentences. She still babbles a lot, but it is the effort in trying to say what she has to say that counts.

I’m still here

Leave a reply

I have not abandoned my blog, nor you, my followers. It has been a rough few months in my household, between my daughter and I passing head colds and the stomach bug back and forth, I think we’re both on the way to recovery. I swear that if only I had gotten sick more often as a child, I would not be getting sick as often as I am now. Though with my daughter’s weak immune system and being in daycare, I guess it’s only natural that I catch whatever she gets.

This week is the last full week of classes. Next week is all about finals, finals, finals. I have filled out my graduation paperwork, as I have one more semester left until I get my Associate’s Degree. Then I am off to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where I will be working on my Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology. I am already looking forward to getting away from the basic freshman, sophomore classes and taking the real classes that have to do with my future career.

As soon as I am done with this semester, and on winter break, I will be picking up the slack on my writing. I have started working on a children’s book on hippo-therapy. I’m anxious to have it completed soon. I think I will be looking for a different publisher though. I just have a few issues and complaints, mostly with shipping and distributing, but other than that, the rest of the team is great. It’s still hard seeing my book out there under someone else who shares the same name as me. I had hoped that it would’ve been corrected by now, but it hasn’t. So, if you see my book Dana’s First Fish out there on the internet, it is me, just not my picture and bio; that’s the other author Jennifer Adams who also writes children’s books. What’s odd is that my picture and bio is on the back cover of the book, so it’s easy to see who the actual author is.

I hope to be back on here writing full time, just waiting to be done with finals week first. Hope everyone is staying warm and having a great holiday season.

Horsin’ Around

Leave a reply

For the past several weeks I’ve been taking my daughter to do hippotherapy every Monday. My daughter rides a small horse named Lucky, who has a calm demeanor and is quite loveable. In fact most of the horses that I’ve encountered at Harmony in Hooves are very loveable.

Image

This past Monday, while my daughter and I were waiting on Lucky to be brushed and saddled, we were approached by a very tall, dark, and handsome fella. No, he wasn’t a human, he was a horse. I was leaning against the railing when he came over and nudged me. I then began to pet him. My daughter comes over to him a little closer and he leans down and watches her closely, allowing her to touch his nose. She walked in a little further and started to pet his leg. She stepped back and started to laugh, as she was enjoying herself. I was just enjoying seeing how well she’s doing in such a close proximity to a giant beast compared to her stature.

Image

She steps in again and pets him on the leg, then reaches up as far as she could, petting him a few more times before standing back and giggles. He leans in and touches his nose to the top of her head and they both freeze. I watch her, curious to her reaction and see her smile so big. He lifts his nose from her head and she looks up at him smiling, then laughs again before reaching up to touch his nose once more.

Image

It makes my heart leap for joy to see the love my daughter has with these gentle animals at the stables. I’ve grown up infatuated by horses, and always find a way to be around them. I share the same kind of love for them as I can see she has. What a wonderful feeling. I can say I thoroughly enjoy our Monday’s together.

Hippotherapy Session One

3 Replies

After a week of having rain in the afternoon, my daughter was finally able to begin her Hippotherapy sessions. I was ecstatic as always to see how anxious she was in wanting to ride. Though, she started the session with a little humor. Her therapist and her daughter, who is leading the horse, already had the horse saddled and ready to go when we got there. My daughter calmly walked up to the horse and started to pet him.

She looked down at the ground and immediately picked up brown clumps asking, “What’s this?”

Her therapist replies calmly, “Horse poo.” I bit my lip trying not to laugh, but at the same time thought oh gross!

She instantly drops the poo and starts wiping her hands on her shirt saying, “Ew, poo! Nasty poo!”

I immediately reach for her arm, telling her calmly that we need to wash our hands now. After she was all clean she pointed to the horse, asking if she can ride. Her therapist pointed out where the horse’s mouth, nose, and eyes were before sitting my daughter on top of the horse. She then learned to make nice, calm strokes on the horses neck and not hard slapping pats.

Image

I watch her ride around the corral in one big circle, before riding off behind a house into a shaded pathway. The lead stopped the horse as the therapist began asking her questions, having her repeat words. Then they played toss the ring on a pole after her therapist asked her what the color of each ring was. The lead then had the horse stop in the middle of the circle where the therapist picked up some flash cards and began asking her what was on each card. This went on for an hour.

Image

After the session my daughter seemed happier and asked if she could ride again. I told her she will, though she would have to wait until next week.

Image

Getting Closer To Animals

Leave a reply

Since I’ve been having my daughter do hippotherapy (horseback riding therapy), she’s been more calm and relaxed around animals to the point of getting close enough to pet them. This is not just horses, but it is also cats and dogs. We don’t have pets here at home because my grandmother doesn’t want them, so animals are not a part of my daughter’s natural environment. But since I’ve been taking her horseback riding regularly, she’s becoming accustomed to animals and is even seeing that they are actually okay to be near. Normally she would start screaming excitedly and try to get as far away from whatever animal she sees. If I am holding her she will try to climb up me to prevent whatever animal from jumping up and touching her.

ImageImage

This weekend I watched her walk up to a horse and pet it without me saying anything to her. She did the same to a couple of cats. One of my parents cats was sitting at a window, looking outside, my daughter sits right next to him and looks outside with him. My daughter even laid on a coffee table next to my sister’s cat and let the cat stretch out towards her.

To some this may seem odd that I am even talking about it, but to me these are the small steps that I have to take in an every day life with an Autistic child. Small steps are even considered giant leaps, depending on what the situation is.

ImageImage

Today, I was approached by one of my daughter’s teachers on how to help my daughter in some of her meltdowns. I was so happy that she had asked me, because I know how she is at home, she is going to be the same way at school. There’s a long list of things I have to instruct people on how to deal with my daughter, that are in her every day life, such as daycare. It’s good to see that she has people at her daycare that are willing to help my daughter and are willing to work with her.

I, as a mom and as a person who was bullied at home and at school, am concerned about my daughter’s future when she starts school. I do try my best to have her ready, but it’s the small steps that are necessary in getting there.

A Ride With Horses, part 2

Leave a reply

I told my daughter that I was taking her horseback riding, she quickly ran to her room for a few moments, then ran back into the living room with her big stuff horse. As I was putting her shoes on her she kept asking me, “Ride horsey?”

Of which I replied, “Of course you can ride the horsey.”

Image

I drove out to Harmony in Hooves in Salem, Arkansas, which is barely a ten minute drive. My daughter was quick to point out all the horses that were out in the fields around us. I took her into the stables where the owner was grooming a horse named, Peaches. My daughter was anxiously leaning out toward the horse, and the owner and my daughter’s therapist agreed to let her pet the horse.

After several hand strokes on the horses neck my daughter leaned in and gave the horse a kiss and smiled. The owner then gave the brush to my daughter to see if she would like to brush the horse. Of course she did. My daughter found this an interesting thing to do. I had to show her just how it was done and she continued for a few minutes without my help.

We then walked into a stall next to Peaches and found a shorter horse named Lucky. the therapist’s daughter was grooming him for another rider that will be arriving later. My daughter kept pulling toward the horse, wanting eagerly to ride. I finally asked if it was okay if she sat on Lucky while they were putting the bridle on, to which they agreed would be fine. My daughter’s face lit up as soon as I put her on Lucky’s back.

A few minutes later we put a helmet on my daughter’s head and let her ride Lucky around, though Lucky was being lead by the therapist’s daughter and the therapist was standing close by should she need to assist my daughter in anything or grab her should the horse decide to take off or buck. My daughter’s a little squirmy or hyper by nature (hyperkinesis), but as soon as she was sitting on the horse she was calm and still. I could tell she was having a good time and greeted me each time she passed me by.

Image

Horseback riding will help her with her sensory input, giving her a calm and relaxing feeling that she seeks. It’ll also give her some security being close to an animal as she usually shies away from most animals. Since riding the other day she took to petting a close friend’s dog whereas she would shy away from him. She even courageously picked up a cat and carried it three feet before placing him down on the ground. She even petted another cat, then leaned in and gave him a kiss.

Image

Riding will also help with her coordination and balance, speech, attentional skills, and most of all sensory integration. I’m thoroughly excited to see that she enjoys riding, as I myself am a horse enthusiast. I’m looking forward to taking her back later this week.

A Ride With Horses

9 Replies

ImageRecently my daughter has been approved for hippotherapy. Hippotherapy is basically horseback riding therapy. Since having my daughter ride yesterday, I’ve already been asked how does having my daughter ride a horse help her? Well, thank you for asking me, here’s the long and short of it…

According to the American Hippotherapy Association, “hippotherapy is a physical, occupational, and speech-language therapy treatment that utilizes equine movement as part of part of an integrated intervention program to achieve functional outcomes.” Hippotherapy can help people in all walks of life. From special needs to the disabled.

I took my daughter to Harmony in Hooves in Salem, Arkansas. Harmony in Hooves is an actual therapeutic riding facility for children and adults. While we were there learning about the horses and the facility, we got to see first hand how the facility works as two of their regular riders arrived after us. One was an adorable little girl with down syndrome and the other with a beautiful woman who was paralyzed. Riding helps both of them as it will help my daughter.

Equine movement – the movement of the horse – will help with posture control, speech, sensory integration, communication, gross motor skills, attention skills, and so many other things, especially security. It can even help with coordination and balance. It can be a big sensory input just from the contact of the horse and it’s movement. Hippotherapy isn’t going to teach riding skills, it is a slow pace riding to help with all of what I stated above.