I did the desensitizing every day for weeks, then less frequently.
Don’t mean to hijack, but having one injection thread might be useful in the future.
Here’s where my use of the needle desensitization protocol is breaking down. I can get bare needles in his skin. I can work with him to tolerate that well and not just barely, and I could get him to tolerate having an ‘armed’ syringe on the end of that needle if I worked at it more. But the stage where he really blows up is the fluid injection itself, and there’s an infection risk to giving him a gazillion injections during desensitizing. (I should add, this pony is infamous for figuring out all the vet techs’ ‘tricks’ after the first use, and coming up with new evasions the second time we try them). I live 3 hours from the nearest vet and she is way overloaded with work, so avoiding infection risk has to be part of the plan.
Any suggestions for getting him over this without risking a bunch of injections? Or at 3 hours from a not always available vet, is it just better to use the Dorm at annual injections and during the rare need for other injected meds? At this point I have Dorm and training to use it, and live at a hospital where the empties can go in the sharps container.
FWIW, my horse used to be a nightmare with needles. He was a nightmare about anything “out of the ordinary”. i did a ton of general desensitization and that helped. What helped the most was general “desensitization” to “foreign” experiences. He used to be upset because he didn’t see the vet much, didn’t know him/her, didn’t know why he was being poked or prodded. Luckily, my vets are a husband/wife team and are very good and FAST with jittery animals. I have never seen a vet get a jugular puncture on a freaking horse as fast as the husband (he works on cows and other livestock). That said, my horse is getting MUCH better with injections as time goes on and he realizes that if I say things are “OK”, they’re going to be OK. My vet gives him a treat after each injection/puncture now, and he has made huge headway in tolerating being poked without moving around.
[QUOTE=HorsesinHaiti;7963291]
Don’t mean to hijack, but having one injection thread might be useful in the future.
Here’s where my use of the needle desensitization protocol is breaking down. I can get bare needles in his skin. I can work with him to tolerate that well and not just barely, and I could get him to tolerate having an ‘armed’ syringe on the end of that needle if I worked at it more. But the stage where he really blows up is the fluid injection itself, and there’s an infection risk to giving him a gazillion injections during desensitizing. (I should add, this pony is infamous for figuring out all the vet techs’ ‘tricks’ after the first use, and coming up with new evasions the second time we try them). I live 3 hours from the nearest vet and she is way overloaded with work, so avoiding infection risk has to be part of the plan.
Any suggestions for getting him over this without risking a bunch of injections? Or at 3 hours from a not always available vet, is it just better to use the Dorm at annual injections and during the rare need for other injected meds? At this point I have Dorm and training to use it, and live at a hospital where the empties can go in the sharps container.[/QUOTE]
Don’t know if this will help, but make sure that whatever med is being injected is room temperature. If it’s still cold from the fridge, they can feel that. Also, if he has ever been injected IM with Banamine, this may cause a burning sensation.
HinH, what kind of treats are you using with your desensitization? Peppermints seem to trump everything else.
My horse was afraid of the vet/males. I have a very kind vet. He said it not inject him in him stall. We tried that and he was worse. He felt confined and didn’t have an escape or way to get away.
So we take him out into the hall way. He approaches his side and starts to scratch his neck while we talk/ignore him. We bring out a pail of grain which he focuses on and doesn’t even know he has gotten his shots. This was a gradual progression. Every year he just got better.
Like others mentioned I had an issue with a specific vet which brought out the worse in him. He’d corner him in his stall stick his neck with the needle and had him rearing till it fell out. He was just rough and we ended our relationship.
Try dealing with the pain of the needle stick by icing the spot to numb it or apply topical local anesthetic to the injection site to numb it.
I did it daily - but just a tiny amount of time each time. I did it mid-winter so a good time to train other things.
I would groom her and randomly, (so she didn’t begin to think NEEDLE TIME) start at least one and maybe 2 steps previous to the one she finished with the day before.
And I really did break it down to “open alcohol bottle”. If no reaction? Treat. Wave alcohol bottle around so she could smell it: no reaction, treat. If she reacted, even a raised head, pricked ear. Back to the tack room with the bottle and go back to opening it.
It took about 6 weeks. Sometimes she could get through 2-3 steps in a session, and there were a few triggers that each took a 2-3 days to get through.
