Please take a deep breath. Excuse me, I said could you take a deep breath please? No, stop nuzzling at my backside. Could you please just take a deep breath?

This might be a typical one-sided conversation a veterinarian would want to have with one of his or her equine patients (highlighting a slightly different meaning to the word patient) when attempting to evaluate the respiratory system. This is the point where veterinary medicine becomes an art in an effort to get the patients to “tell” you what they are feeling (and cooperate with a few basic diagnostic aids—like taking a deep breath) when you don’t speak their language. One of my favorite veterinary professors (Dr. Francis Fox) always said, “If you want to know what’s wrong with the animal, just ask them.”

This, of course, requires that you have made an effort to learn the language and have powers of observation attuned enough to see the pertinent information. With respect to the respiratory system, the language includes the rate and character of breathing, the “position” of the upper airway—head and neck and, therefore, the nasal passages, the junction between them and the trachea (wind pipe), and the trachea—and what the rest of the body is doing during each breath. You should note that most of this information can be acquired without even touching the horse and can be evaluated from outside the stall. In addition, a veterinarian will listen to the lungs with a stethoscope while the horse takes a deep breath, generated with the use of a simple kitchen plastic trash bag. Because I have yet to have a horse take a deep breath when asked, the plastic bag is placed over the nose until the animal is very short of breath so that when the bag is removed, the horse breathes deeply. In addition to greatly increasing the lung sounds in all areas of the lungs, the “stress” of the bag can elicit hidden coughs. Also, the horse’s inability to breathe into the bag for a normal period of time and/or the horse’s not recovering quickly after the bag is removed are more subtle signs of respiratory disease.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or “heaves,” also is called broken wind. The disease primarily affects the airways or bronchi and is somewhat similar to human asthma