From: Allie
Dear Jessica, I don't know what I would do without you and HORSE-SENSE. You've saved me from making all kinds of really awful mistakes with my horse, and you've made me a better horsewoman. I don't understand how you can get into the souls of people and horses all over the world, but you do it so well. Please don't ever stop helping us!
I'm having a problem with a horse I'm leasing for my daughter. She's eleven (the horse is eleven, my daughter is fourteen). She's a really nice mare, part Arabian and part Thoroughbred, and she's a nice mover and very well trained. But she's very sensitive, which is about what you'd expect! And she HATES to be paste-wormed. Her owner did it just before the lease began, and she says she'll come out and do it again if we can't get it done, because the mare is hard to handle.
I don't really want to do that, because it involved three people and a twitch, and because Baya wasn't all that bad about it, she just kept turning her head away until her owner yelled at her and hit her, and that's when she got really upset and then the owner got two other people and the twitch. So I don't want to have her owner come out, and I don't want to do it like that myself! What I'd really like to do is change the mare's reaction to the whole process. Is there some way I can do that, and change her attitude about being paste-wormed? If you say that the twitch is necessary, we'll go ahead and use it, but I'm hoping that you'll have another idea. Baya will be due for her paste wormer in three weeks, do you think we can change things in such a short time?
Thanks for all your help!
If you're willing to spend some time working with Baya, I'm sure you can turn her attitude around. Here's what you can try, but first, here's the equipment you'll need.
For you: heavy shoes and your riding helmet. Even if Baya is basically a sane and quiet mare, and even if she was calm until the humans started to get rough with her -- a very good observation on your part, by the way! -- if she has been de-wormed forcefully in the past, she may make sudden movements to avoid anything that looks like a big plastic syringe, and just in case your toes are in the way of a stamp, or your head is in the way of a head-swing, you'll want to be protected. Oh, and wear something that can get really messy, like an old sweatshirt. ;-)
For Baya: nothing. You're going to do this in her stall, and you aren't going to use a leadrope or even a halter. There will be nothing for her to pull against and no restraint for her to worry about.
For the process: a large jar of plain applesauce (not the chunky kind), and a big plastic syringe with the tip cut off so that the hole at the end of the syringe is about the size of a pencil eraser.
Fill the syringe and go visit Baya. Show it to her -- you're not going to sneak up on her -- and put one hand on her nose, about where your bridle cavesson would go. Push the plunger in a little, so that applesauce oozes over the end of the syringe.
Now try to get the end of the syringe into her mouth, very slowly and quietly, from the right side -- horses are usually handled from the left, and she already knows to expect bad things when there's a syringe coming toward her mouth from the left side. All you need to do is get a little bit of applesauce into her mouth, ANYWHERE in her mouth. Then just stand back and let her calm down and think about the taste.
Now do it all again, and again. Take plenty of time, back off whenever she gets too worried, keep talking to her, and get more applesauce into her mouth whenever you get the chance. After a little while, she should be much less worried about the syringe, because none of the usual things have happened: nobody yelled at her, nobody hit her, there wasn't a twitch, and you didn't gang up on her with two other people. You're friendly, you're talking to her nicely, you haven't tied her up, and you haven't forced her to hold still while you shove the syringe into her mouth -- and the applesauce tastes really good. So with all that going on, you'll be able to get a little more applesauce into her -- then just pet her and leave. Let her think about it all, and then come back the next day and do it again.
NEVER yell, NEVER hit, and NEVER try to force the syringe into her mouth.
After a week (at most), she'll be looking for that syringe and opening her mouth for it, and that's when you can begin to teach her that standing quietly with lowered head and open mouth will result in a mouthful of yummy applesauce.
On de-worming day, you'll have TWO syringes: your applesauce one (and the jar of applesauce) and the one full of deworming paste. Give her a few syringes of applesauce, and when she's very relaxed about it, put the paste syringe as far into her mouth as possible, so that she'll swallow it all and not taste it! Then follow up with a few more syringes of applesauce. Instead of resenting the paste de-wormer, she'll barely notice it, and she'll still be looking for her treat.
Just like everything else we do with (and to) horses, de-worming is a process that we can teach them to accept calmly, or it's a process that we can teach them to fear and fight. I'm glad you prefer the first option. It's less dramatic, but it's horsemanship in action. And now that I think of it, real horsemanship is always low-key, quiet, and slow -- never fast or loud or dramatic. That's something to think about!
Jessica
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