Jose & Rugged Cliché "Royal" - 08-01-2010

My name is Jose and this is my 14 year old quarter horse Rugged Cliché (Royal). He started headshaking a few years ago. The first year it wasn’t so bad but as he got older the headshaking got worse and worse. He is a really sweet horse so I knew there had to be a reason for his disturbing behavior. He had all the symptoms for Photic Headshaking: the hiding in the shade, the sneezing, the shaking of his head when there was a lot of sun, flipping of the upper lip and it only occurred in the summer months. When he is stressed he purses his lower lip and that is a sign to me that I can’t ride or put him in the field or anything. I had a vet to look at him.

When we put a Blindfold on his head the symptoms disappeared. Also when I checked him at night there were no problems. We tried to give him Cyproheptadine but that had no effect. And obviously I couldn’t put a blindfold on during the day. That’s when I found Guardian Mask. Now with the guardian Mask it’s going a lot better with him. On a cloudy day I can ride indoors but when the sun is out I have to leave him in the stable. His symptoms are far from gone, but at least it releases his stress a little bit. When the summer days are extremely warm we put him in the field at night but even at sunset the light can be too much for him. So Rugged Cliché and I can’t wait for the summer to end.

I wanted to ask you if there were any other things I could try to reduce his symptoms?

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