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A newly published, “catalog” of equine discomfort behaviors could help veterinarians, researchers, stable managers, and owners “speak the same language” when it comes to recognizing possible signs of discomfort in horses, according to researchers in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Based on 35 years’ worth of observations of thousands of horses going through various states of health-related comfort and discomfort, the new ethogram with more than 70 entries is a veritable “dictionary of discomfort in horses,” said Sue McDonnell, PhD, an equine behavior specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, in Kennett Square.
“What sorts of things do horses do when they’re uncomfortable?” she said. “That’s what we aimed to define in a more or less complete inventory list, to make sure people really understand these discomfort behaviors.”
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Swelling and pain in the upper jaw between the eye and the ear might indicate an infection in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) area. And it’s possible that the infection initially started as a middle ear infection that moved down into the TMJ, researchers recently reported.
Veterinarians can use standing robotic cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) of the head to detect these simultaneous infections and, in some cases, can treat them through standing arthroscopy, said Kyla Ortved, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVS, ACVSMR, Jacques Jenny Endowed Term Chair of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.