Hello everyone, June 1st I took in 4 horses from a texas kill pen. One gelding “Diego” is I believe a 20 year Quarab…He has ERU in his right eye.
Diego is a very nice boy, easy to handle,stands nicely for fly boots, fly mask, and his twice daily eye ointment.
The problem is when I try to pick up his feet he panics and runs backwards, the first time we tried to trim him, it was a no go, the second time, I used dormosedan on him with no effect. My farrier is coming 3rd week in October. I have been using a boat hook to try and get him used to lifting his feet with some minor success. I like the boat hook; it keeps me and Diego safe. Should I try sacking him out with a rope?
I’m very puzzled by this behavior because he so good and calm with everything else.
Thoughts / ideas?
Try clicker training. Make it a positive thing vs forcing it. Unless his feet are in dire condition I’d spend more time getting him comfortable with foot handling.
You can also try trazadone to help if Dorm isn’t. I much prefer it when it’s anxiety or fear based trauma.
Use a lead rope to pick up his leg. That’s how I taught my mustang to tolerate hoofcare. You can safely let go if you need too.
It could be a pain related response, my older pony who has some knee arthritis will do this. Maybe ask the vet about some bute or banamine before working on his feet to see if it helps with the behavior.
I would also try bute in case it’s pain. Dorm gel takes a while (45 minutes plus) and I have one horse that needs a full tube, half did nothing. Not sure what you gave or how long you waited.
Another suggestion if you try dorm again - do it IM. The gel has to go under the tongue and if it gets swallowed it does nothing. Also agree to make sure you’re using enough and waiting long enough. For my mare I give it a full hour.
My pony took almost a full tube and a true hour. At 45 minutes she would be bright eyed but right at a hour it hit like a train.
Using a rope can be a big help. I don’t know why it works as well as it does for the horse, but I’ve had one for whom it was a huge benefit. Another option is to get your vet to give some Rompun before your farrier gets to work. It will get the feet done, if this is a current pressing problem. Then you can work on the training situation afterwards, so that next time this won’t be necessary. Good luck!
Maybe his feet hurt and it pains him to stand on three legs. Or maybe his feet hurt at one time and a farrier lost his temper and got after the horse and now the horse has bad memories of having his feet picked up. It will take patience and first try to determine if this is a pain issue.
Thanks for the idea.
yep, I got it under his tongue, but went with the suggested weight dosage, he might need more.
Not sure what you mean by this, but no.
Unless the feet are really really bad, the slow methodical, do a little every day way is the better way, always.
Do you pick his feet? Is he bad for that, or only for trims?
Agree and I would not start by rewarding him for lifting on his own, rather than click/reward for letting you pick it up. Soon, you can use a voice cue and ask him to pick it up on cue.
I posted this in another thread. It’s a good source of information on a variety of problems with hind end soundness.
I can’t pick up his feet. As soon as I try, he panics and runs backwards.
What diagnostics have you been able to get done wrt pain issues?
X-rays?
Were his feet bad when he came from the auction/kill pen?
When he objects to having his feet picked up, do you hang on or drop his foot? If the latter, you have taught him that running backwards is the “correct” response to having his feet picked up.
Does he pick them up before panicking or does he just fly backwards when you ask?
Based on what you’ve said, I’d grab a dressage whip and tap tap tap the leg until he gets annoyed and picks it up. Stop tapping when he does, give treats for really nice ones (calm, no flying around). I would repeat this until it’s routine. If he’s flying backwards I’d just follow him, still tapping until he picks it up in a more meaningful way. (Note that tap does not mean whack - your goal is to be annoying, not aggressive)
Then, I’d add a rope on the leg to get a bit of a hold. Make it a U so that you can let one end go and it releases if he panics. Ask with the whip, hold with the rope for a fraction of a second, release, good boy.
Build from there with longer holds.
After that, I’d flip a muck bucket over or use a low mounting block or something and teach him to hold his foot up there. Again, build from a fraction of a second and go from there.
Sounds like he’s been muscled around, and it takes 2x as long to retrain than to train, but be patient.
I also agree with adding some pain killers to see if that resolves the issue, or at least helps.
As per our vets, Rompum is known to have horses break thru it and able to kick very fast and hard while sedated, be very careful!
I’m not trying to be arguementive, just want to learn; but I don’t think his reactiveness is pain related. All 3 of his gaits all appear to be normal.
