Horse rearing at dentist and vet

JanetGeorge said:
Because it adds at LEAST £20 to the cost of routine treatment! Vets are generally useless at teeth - and a good EDT rarely needs it. I had one looked at a horse the other day who'd been "done" EIGHT times in a year - always under sedation and they STILL left her needing a tooth removed, treatment for diastema - and she's STILL not right. She was always sedated. EDT just talked to her, popped the gag on, showed me all the problems still there - she was fine!
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In fairness, you can't get exactly get rid of diastema so it's always going to be an ongoing issue.
 
pinning in the corner in our case isn't a multiple person job fwiw, just the dentist and it just stops them fidgeting backwards round the stable ;). Frank usually makes one cob effort to come forwards and if corrected/not able to doesn't bother again and over 13 years we've just worked out what works best for him in these situs. Three EDTs have been very happy his behaviour is not excessive or dangerous. The OPs horse sounds like it is.
 
hopscotch bandit said:
I wouldn't dream of using sedation to make my horse accept the dentist anymore than I would use sedation for a vet or farrier visit. Its something your horse has got to learn to accept as part of its routine.
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Just for the record, my horse isn't sedated for the dentist. I was speaking specifically about the OP's horse, who sounds like it may do someone an injury due to its current behaviour.

Please don't judge people who have horses sedated for procedures that most would think are routine. There are many very valid reasons why certain horses need sedation, and until you've experienced a horse that poses a danger to vet/farrier/dentist/itself, you won't understand. For instance,my horse has issues with both hindlegs, and it is safer for everyone if he has a light dose of sedation to shoe/trim his hinds. I "could" make him stand unsedated to be done, but it would be stressful and uncomfortable for him, risky for my farrier, and not possible to take the time to do his feet properly.
 
Auslander said:
Please don't judge people who have horses sedated for procedures that most would think are routine. .
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Err I wasn't judging anyone. I just said I wouldn't dream of having my horse sedated for anything. In some situations where a horse is rearing and is a danger to others then that it would be preferable to use sedation but not before other methods of restraint or training have been attempted. But some people just sedate as routine without discovering the reason why a horse is reacting like it is or attempting to teach the horse that rearing or kicking or general bad manners is clearly not acceptable when it needs treatment.Most horses with patience, time and firm but fair handling will and should become accustomed to the dentist/farrier/vet but of course there are exceptions to the rule. Its not different to anything else that you encounter with your horse.

An example - horse starts weaving or windsucking. Remedy; put an anti weave grill on the door or a cribbing collar on it. OR keep the horse busier with more turnout, more forage, stable toys, a radio, and try to find out the reason why its bored and carrying out these vices. Probably not the best example, but you get my drift.
 
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hopscotch bandit said:
Err I wasn't judging anyone. I just said I wouldn't dream of having my horse sedated for anything. In some situations where a horse is rearing and is a danger to others then that it would be preferable to use sedation but not before other methods of restraint or training have been attempted. But some people just sedate as routine without discovering the reason why a horse is reacting like it is or attempting to teach the horse that rearing or kicking or general bad manners is clearly not acceptable when it needs treatment.Most horses with patience, time and firm but fair handling will and should become accustomed to the dentist/farrier/vet but of course there are exceptions to the rule. Its not different to anything else that you encounter with your horse.

An example - horse starts weaving or windsucking. Remedy; put an anti weave grill on the door or a cribbing collar on it. OR keep the horse busier with more turnout, more forage, stable toys, a radio, and try to find out the reason why its bored and carrying out these vices. Probably not the best example, but you get my drift.
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but the opportunities to train the horse to accept the dentist are so much less frequent, it's a bit nuts to suggest you get the dentist out every day to teach the horse to put the gag on, open its mouth, stand quietly with its mouth wide open which can't be that comfortable, hold its head at an awkward angle, accept the tools etc... until it will do so happily. The reality is that few people would have the kit to do this themselves... :rolleyes:

Teaching it to pick feet up for farrier, say, is possible for the average owner - we've all got hoof picks that we can tap the hoof with etc so it's a re-creatable situation to put the horse in daily until it learns how to cope.
 
ester said:
pinning in the corner in our case isn't a multiple person job fwiw, just the dentist and it just stops them fidgeting backwards round the stable ;). Frank usually makes one cob effort to come forwards and if corrected/not able to doesn't bother again and over 13 years we've just worked out what works best for him in these situs. Three EDTs have been very happy his behaviour is not excessive or dangerous. The OPs horse sounds like it is.
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Lol at one cob effort! That's Millie in a nutshell... "i don't want you to do this....<barge>"

Kira doesn't give up barging, and without sedation she would be the one on her back legs. She only needs the dose for a doormouse though.
 
We used to use an extremely popular, highly recommended EDT who apparently trained and qualified in a non EU country. None of our horses needed sedating, he was so calm and patient with them! We then had a horse with an issue and called a BAEDT listed dentist and learnt a good few truths the hard way. The previous EDT had done so little actual work that it was no wonder the horses were so chilled - they basically had nothing to object to as the dentist was doing so little and left a horse with horrendously sharp teeth and a shockingly ulcerated mouth!!
Please only use a BAEDT listed dentist for your horse’s sake. I can’t emphasise enough how popular and well thought of our original EDT is - I see people recommending him all the time and I just cringe!!

It’s rubbish to say a horse shouldn’t need sedating for dental work. Some of ours do require sedation and some don’t. One of ours requires sedation as he has such a small tight mouth the gag is very uncomfortable for him. It would be tantamount to cruelty to try to treat such a horse without sedation.
 
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milliepops said:
it's a bit nuts to suggest you get the dentist out every day to teach the horse to put the gag on, open its mouth, stand quietly with its mouth wide open which can't be that comfortable, hold its head at an awkward angle, accept the tools etc... until it will do so happily. The reality is that few people would have the kit to do this themselves... :rolleyes:

.
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SERIOIUSLY stop misquoting me guys!!! I didn't suggest you get the dentist out every day! Blimey. you should work for the Daily Mail. :p

Seriously, you just have to put some work into desensiting them. If they have a problem with the dentist surely you would work on holding their heads, opening their mouths, holding their tongues (as you would when you wormed them - or is it just me that does this?) rub their gums, etc.

Same as you would introduce a rug to a horse for the first time, or a saddle, or a bit or a headcollar or anything.

You can roll your eyes as much as you want at me. :) If you have an issue with your horse you should make it part of your routine so they come to accept it as the norm like they would anything else.
 
minesadouble said:
It&#8217;s rubbish to say a horse shouldn&#8217;t need sedating for dental work. Some of ours do require sedation and some don&#8217;t. One of ours requires sedation as he has such a small tight mouth the gag is very uncomfortable for him. It would be tantamount to cruelty to try to treat such a horse without sedation.
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As I said in reply #35 'there are exceptions to the rule'. Of course there are. Having a horse with a tight mouth as in your description makes sense, if its to the horses benefit. But so many people don't even attempt to see how the horse gets on without sedation, they just go ahead. That was the point I was trying to make. I'd go to the ends of the earth if it meant my horse didn't have to be sedated for something routine as the farrier or dentist. Sorry that's just my opinion.
 
hopscotch bandit said:
SERIOIUSLY stop misquoting me guys!!! I didn't suggest you get the dentist out every day! Blimey. you should work for the Daily Mail. :p

Seriously, you just have to put some work into desensiting them. If they have a problem with the dentist surely you would work on holding their heads, opening their mouths, holding their tongues (as you would when you wormed them - or is it just me that does this?) rub their gums, etc.

Same as you would introduce a rug to a horse for the first time, or a saddle, or a bit or a headcollar or anything.

You can roll your eyes as much as you want at me. :) If you have an issue with your horse you should make it part of your routine so they come to accept it as the norm like they would anything else.
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I'm not misquoting you, but I am interested to hear how you get them to accept rasps being moved over their teeth?! Or perhaps you have a full set of tools as well! that's the main bit that most object to after all, and the bit that is perculiar to dental work which is by its nature, fairly irregular compared to other handling-related events.
 
Auslander said:
Argghh - please stop doing that! It's really not a good idea, as you can do serious damage to the hyoid apparatus, which the tongue is attached to.
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Didn't know that thanks Auslander :). I've always done this when I have wormed without a problem.
 
milliepops said:
I'm not misquoting you, but I am interested to hear how you get them to accept rasps being moved over their teeth?! Or perhaps you have a full set of tools as well! that's the main bit that most object to after all, and the bit that is perculiar to dental work which is by its nature, fairly irregular compared to other handling-related events.
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Look , if you want to sedate your horse for the dentist then go ahead. I just wouldn't do that to any animal of mine. Which is what my original reply did actually say.

Janet George, Cortez and Lauren Bay have also said that they don't choose to sedate. Its strange how you don't direct your questions to them aw well or is it just my bad luck that you have decided to argue solely with me?
 
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But I can do all that? I even have to clear his front teeth with an implement as he has a gap grass gets stuck in, all very well tolerated. He doesn't mind the gag at all, he does mind the strange man (I don't have a great supply of them) and the rasping (I'm not doing that myself for obvious reasons) so it is hard to see why your suggestions would work. Most horses see a dentist every year, due to wear pattern we have usually done 6 monthly, that isn't frequent enough to get many training gains.

As I said the one who is tricky about her head and mouth, is absolutely fine and always has been with dentistry, go figure :p
 
ester said:
But I can do all that? I even have to clear his front teeth with an implement as he has a gap grass gets stuck in, all very well tolerated. He doesn't mind the gag at all, he does mind the strange man (I don't have a great supply of them) and the rasping (I'm not doing that myself for obvious reasons) so it is hard to see why your suggestions would work. Most horses see a dentist every year, due to wear pattern we have usually done 6 monthly, that isn't frequent enough to get many training gains.

As I said the one who is tricky about her head and mouth, is absolutely fine and always has been with dentistry, go figure :p
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Well if its hard to see how my suggestions would work then ignore them. I am entitled to my opinion and that is how I would work with my horse. I don't feel it is fair to sedate a horse when with a bit of time and effort you can de sensitise it.

So if a horse is sensitive about having its feet handled for shoeing then repeated picking up of the feet and hammering them with whatever object you have suitable for the task is not sufficient unless you are prepared to bang some nails in with a hammer as you go along???? COME ON!! It is the same thing you are saying.

Years ago I had a rescue dog who was terrified of the vet. I didn't know this until she went to the vet for the first time and tried to bite the vet when she attempted to look in her ears. So before the next vets visit I ensure that she was absolutely 100% fine with having her ears handled and would spend many evening just stroking them and looking inside and asked any visitors to the house to look into her ears also when they petted her. As a result she was fine next time she had a check up because she was used to the repeated exposure her ears had endured!

My friend had a horse she couldn't plait - he went mad when she went near his forelock so she spent many evenings sat on the washbox wall plaiting his forelock and rewarding him with a sweet when he did good - probably not the best thing to do. So for years after she would plait his mane, and finish with his forelock, after which he would get his reward. Never looked back. Just 2 examples of hundreds I could mention.
 
HashRouge said:
In fairness, you can't get exactly get rid of diastema so it's always going to be an ongoing issue.
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I her case, the diastema was a result of a tooth problem being missed.

My new EDT (when I say 'new', he worked for me as a rider for 6 years before he went into equine dentistry) treated her yesterday. The difference was VERY noticeable when she was ridden this morning. He did 7 other horses - all behaved beautifully, and one (who had its teeth 'treated' by the vet last in September) also had a major problem on the way. One I really expected would play up started by freaking out and within 5 minutes was standing with his eyes back in his head. Doping a horse to the eyeballs is easy for a vet but a horse learns nothing as a result!
 
No I think you're missing the point HB, which is.. all of us can routinely do that stuff, because it's just normal handling which doesn't require any special kit or people to attend.

Few of us can actually mock up the arrival of a strange person, the application of a gag, and running rasps over the horse's teeth. It's a specific thing that some horses really find quite stressful.

I'm more than prepared to spend the time familiarising my horses with other things like shoeing, clipping etc. The one I choose to sedate for dental work stands without a headcollar to be clipped, lifts her feet for the farrier etc. But I can't simulate the dentist in a way that will make the annual visits acceptable to her.

Preaching to the converted anyway, since I have one that I will actively not sedate... it's horses for courses and what I object to is the assertion that all horses can be "got over" all situations and it's just laziness of owners to not sort it out.

There may also be occasions where it would be fairly urgent to get dental treatment to a horse that you don't have time to spend yonks getting it used to the idea (emergency treatment etc).
 
But that is the thing HB, you are approaching it like a training problem and that horses that have issues have just not been trained correctly or thoroughly enough, we are suggesting that isn't true, that these are in fact well trained and desensitised horses.

So what would the next at home doable training stage you would go to for a horse that is happy to have it's entire mouth handled, front, back etc, to the point of poking something between it's teeth every day to clear blockages, but does not like the feeling of a rasp against it's teeth?

Hammering a hoof is very similar to nailing a shoe on, what do you suggest that is similar to rasping teeth?
 
Sedating horses happens. It happens for all sorts of reasons, all the time. I had a TB for a time who probably got sedated about every 6 weeks on average as he kept trying to kill himself and needing stitched back together (or should that be done without sedation too?). It's a common procedure with well studied risks. Given that Granny with a gob-full of gag turns into a lethal weapon as she is the master of the impatient head toss I really don't think a bit of light sedation every 6 months is worthy of any derision or contempt. FWIW I think they can learn to tolerate things while under sedation, as I said before we started needing enough to sedate an elephant for Granny... now she gets a shetland pony amount and is perfectly content. It would be very, very difficult to train the head toss out of her - it's just something she does under little or no provocation. I think it's great that some/many horses can be done without but mine isn't one of them and it isn't something I lose sleep over.
 
I just feel that there is another person involved in the process - the dentist, and if a horse is likely to misbehave, for whatever reason - it's unfair on the person doing the job to expect them to be put at risk. If my horse squished my dentist and hurt her/affected her ability to work, because I wouldn't sedate, I'd feel pretty crappy. It's not her job to help train a difficult horse.

My dentist is excellent at dealing with nervous horses, and gives them all the time/space they need - and she is happy to do horses unsedated. I've got a few who aren't particularly good - and I would rather sedate them, and keep my dentist safe/allow her to do a decent job. It's an annual job, so I don't really feel that it's that important to desensitise horses that aren't accepting of the procedure. For jobs that need doing more regularly, I place a lot more importance on working to get the horse relaxed and accepting.
 
I have 2 horses, 1 is fab for the dentist, stands like a rock, he is happy to do her without sedative.

Newbie had her teeth done in January (first time with me) and she was sedated. Very nervous type and she is a bloody big horse, I didn't even bother risking it - why would I?

Newbie also isn't great for the vet, and it did take 3 of us and about 10 minutes to sedate her. We know for next time to give her a loading dose of sedative into the muscle, let the dentist do the first one while the other is letting the dope work, then IV sedate and do her.

I would be absolutely mortified if someone lost their livelihood for weeks/months through injury because I wouldn't sedate a horse I know to be an issue.
 
It's in a non veterinary qualified EDT's interests to float horses without the need for IV sedation. If you've got to get the vet out to sedate the horse first, you may as well get the vet to do the teeth as well while he/she's there rather than pay for the EDT on top. Though as observed elsewhere, not all (or indeed many) vets are great at teeth.

However, even my genius EDT is happy for me to pop some sedalin in a newbie with an uncertain history, such as the rescue foster ponies.

No one is suggesting that a known difficult horse should not be sedated?
 
Damnation said:
I would be absolutely mortified if someone lost their livelihood for weeks/months through injury because I wouldn't sedate a horse I know to be an issue.
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Gosh I would too and in those circumstances I would sedate. As I said in reply #35 there are exceptions to the rule. Guess my horse must be more easy going that most, bit like me and my EDT to be honest lol.

My original reply was based more on people who routinely sedate for things. Not sure why everyone's taken objection to my reply when there were many others on here that said basically the same thing. It's weird.
 
Because you were the one that suggested it could be overcome with basic training and that the horse has to learn to accept it, implying that those who have horses that are difficult have not completed this, when it seems quite often they have.

I think perhaps what is being missed, having re-read your earlier comments is that we often aren't talking horses that are kicking/rearing etc. As soon as you put a gag in the mouth any movement of the head can become very dangerous for dentist/handler.

My own is a very tolerant easy going sort of beast for pretty much everything in his life, he has to be he's put up with my for 13 years. But he does not like the feeling of a rasp against his teeth and if he were bigger I would expect any dentist to suggest sedation, current dentist if fine unsedated.
 
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Mine behaved herself without sedation, but she will insisted on trying to help. Tilting her head to get the rasp where she wanted then moving her head back and forth herself to rasp it. Unfortunately she didn't appear to pick the same spots that the vet actually wanted to work on. So we sedated her, I've not had her long so no sure yet how it will pan out in future. Gave us both a chuckle though.
 
I have one that stands like a rock for the dentist, albeit with a look of abject horror on her face, but she's fine.
The other one is young, stroppy and opinionated, so it's safer for everyone involved, including the horse, to pop in some IV Sedation when it comes to actually rasping. She's accepting of the gag, but knowing her personality, she won't appreciate being awake to hear and feel a swarm of electric bees buzzing around her skull. I'd rather she remained willing and accepting of the dentists visits, than have a bad experience and attempt to knock the vet/dentist flying every time she spots them. It's taken over a year to get her to stop trying to eat our lovely vet after a major injury requiring 3 months of painful poking and prodding.
 
I have to say I wouldn&#8217;t routinely sedate for the Dentist (or anything really), and have never come across an EDT that has requested this, the guy I use is so calm and quiet that he gives them a good experience. However I wouldn&#8217;t hesitate to sedate if I had a known or suspected problem!

My current horse is as kind and as genuine as they come, but does do &#8216;worried&#8217; very well. He arrived with his first set of shoes manhandled on with little thought given to getting them off and on again. So he has had a lot of homework done over the last 6 months but alongside that he has had a bit of chemical help :D in reducing dosages .... this week he had his first set, hot shod, minus sleepy juice and was in general very calm and accepting.

On a similar note, given his shoeing tendencies, I took the decision to give him 3ml sedalin before his first Dentist. As it was I don&#8217;t think he needed it so will try without next time.

Like most things you need to take an educated decision with the horse you are dealing with at the time, but to state you would never use sedation is really quite daft!
 
I give everything new the benefit of seeing how they are with it first. I chat to my EDT and he always knows if it’s a new one and we take it slowly. If we felt the situation was becoming dangerous, or the horse was very distressed, we would stop and re-arrange a date and I would arrange for sedation (EDT does a yard full, so never a wasted journey). In 30 years I’ve never had to sedate anything, but I know a few people who have and it is for safety as their horses get very upset.

I was a bit dubious about Polly as she is head shy with people she doesn’t know and didn’t like being bridled so I knew the gag might be a problem, but we took it slowly. It took ten minutes to put the gag on, but we kept the whole thing calm and gave her a chance. She was an angel once the gag was on.
My EDT is always keen to give them a good experience if they are new and if it’s a huge job, he will do some and arrange to come back so we can do it in stages as to not stress the horse out. It works for us so we will continue this way, but if I needed to sedate something, I would.
 
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