So I may be late to the party, considering it’s 2025 and I just finished listening to this 2020 New Year’s resolution episode, and yet here I am… Better late than never, right?

So I’m an average Jane horse owner with an extremely special mare that I’ve rehabbed best I could from an adductor muscle damage causing atrophy in the said muscle and fibrotic myopathy. For two years post rehab, she was my best mount, me taking her out almost daily (movement was the key for her). Then she got worse. And worse. And so I was devastated and in despair, convinced she couldn’t bear weight on her “bad” leg. After all, she got so bad her hind end was twisting laterally to the left, RR stretched outwards.

Then I discovered Dr DeClue’s podcast. First clue re her condition I got from one of the earlier episodes re following the pivot point. This little mention as well as following the tight/restricted side led me to a new realization: her RR leg is fine and the true issue lies within the musculoskeletal system.

While I haven’t, so far, being able to pinpoint the area, this episode just encouraged me to make another major step towards understanding what’s going on: apparently, all I had to do is use “Dr Google”! Small little thing I didn’t consider doing before, despite being younger and tech savvy (which was also possibly the biggest reason I didn’t do it or even think of doing it before as I know better than to trust Google). The advice I got from this episode as a horse owner plus Dr DeClue talking about using Google and doing the research pushed me to bite the bullet and do it.

So I googled “horse leaning laterally in the pelvic area” and voila! I now have a term for it – sidewinder – to call it, do further research on and to use my under developed critical thinking skills. The sad/unfortunate part is there doesn’t seem to be that much out there and what is there says it’s hopeless.

Yet it doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. I have one tough and resilient horse and my horse has a one dedicated and stubborn b**ch.

Thank you, Dr DeClue, for your very informative and interesting podcasts. I plan on listening to all of them. After all, I’m not even halfway through, yet I’ve already picked up a lot from listening to you and learning from you.

P. S. one fun fact: main research out there, but of course, is by Dr Sue Dyson among other veterinarians.