Needle shy - tips on reducing reaction please

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Surbie

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Unfortunately Arch has become very needle shy after being jabbed by a vet into what I had warned them was a very sore area and to be avoided. (that vet no longer treats my horse)

He is quite explosive about it and very strong. I've been flung about today trying to get vaccinations and a blood draw done.

He used to be rock solid with injections. Is there anything I can be doing to reduce the reactions in future?

My current vet is at the yard fairly regularly for other horses, so might be amenable to doing a bit of (paid) desensitisation.

I've looked at clicker training on youtube and that might be an option, though he is fine with me pinching and prodding. It's vets in particular he is boiling over with.
 
Clicker training. He might be fine with you poking and prodding but train him to be fine with every micro-step of the process (having the skin pinched, having the feeling of a needle - you can use a pencil - against his skin, feeling a pinch against his skin while smelling alcohol, etc) and then ask other people (first people he knows, then people he doesn’t) to follow the same steps with him, with you holding him, and then get the vet in to do some sessions with you and him, following the same process.

I think Lucy Chester covers your area. Might be worth getting in touch with her.
 
My youngest mare hates the vets and needles. I think it’s the smell and I can pinch her skin etc etc but she just knows when it’s the real thing. Now she is in a bridle and twitched. My vet in Scotland never had a problem injecting my other two but since changing vets they ve become more reactive..I suspect one vet had more experience than the ones now jabbing them.
 
Thanks @stangs - that is the sort of process I was thinking about, but I hadn't broken it into the micro steps you have. Lucy Chester is just down the road, thanks so much for the suggestion. I'll definitely follow that up.

@Midlifecrisis it's such a disappointment when a bad experience lodges so deeply with them. I will twitch if need be for mine and the vet's safety, but I'd like to try getting him past this.

To be fair to him I also think he's more reactive than normal at the moment with the grass flushing furiously where we are. Our fields have gone from brown to a very lurid green in what feels like moments!
 
Quite a few of my local vets have done a clicker training course with Gemma Pearson. It's made such a big difference with many of my clients' horses. I definitely agree with stangs- clicker might really help your horse (and your vet). Let us know how you get on 😊
 
Baggs my 20 year old is needle shy after a vet completely ignored my advice for taking things slow and practically daggered him with the bloody thing (think Vampire Diaries daggering a vampire type action and that should give a good enough picture of the hell poor Baggs had thrust upon him suddenly!) xx

Safe to say a very strongly worded complaint was lodged against said vet and they no longer treat my horses!

With him, I have him in his rope halter (which I only use for groundwork and for when the vet visits) and a nice long line so that I/ the vet can get out of the way of any flying hooves etc. I also arm myself with treats and arm the vet with treats to give too. I did some clicker training and found that it really helped, so it is deffo worth a shot with Arch x

This is what I do with my vets (I voluntarily pay more for my vet visit when they involve injection(s) as the time taken is longer and there is the risk of Baggs boiling over and being bargy, despite the rope halter) :

When the vet arrives to give him his injections, firstly we just stand and chat about life and how things are going. This gives Baggs the time to sniff the vet and check things out, which results in him taking a breath to relax. Then we work towards the vet stroking Baggs' neck/chest area where they will be injecting, whilst chatting to me and chatting to Baggs. Following that we do a dry run of an injection with no needle present (sounds completely weird typing it out aha!) and lavish lots of praise for when he is a good boy. Then we go in with the exact same steps but this time with the injection rather than it being a placebo injection. Throughout each step, providing that Baggs is happy, he gets a treat as a reward and slowly over time we've been able to do two or three steps before giving him a treat. This however has taken years and there is only one vet who can skip the above and go straight to giving him an injection (although she rarely does so unless she's pushed for time) x

With Baggs I find it is the smell of the vets that tends to put him on edge - it's a chemically type smell that seems to really irritate him....

Another idea would be to get the vet to pop over, say hi to Arch and then give him a treat/some praise and go away again - that way building a positive association with the vet. Then you can work your way up to the vet doing a bit more each time - so the next step would be the vet to say hi, give Arch a pat or stroke on the neck, treat/praise for being a good boy and then walk away xx You can then build up to it in slow increments and be able to watch Arch for signs of anxiety/stress xx
 

^ This is the way I generally do it.

A lot of times it may well be with just me holding the horse and the owner outside the stable, as 1) if they're really bad/explosive to inject then I only have my own safety to be concerned about, not the owners, 2) some horses seem to find that less threatening - maybe less like they're being 'ganged up on', and 3) then I am in charge of the treats, removal of 'pressure' etc, because generally I know when I want to reward the horse (i.e. not when it's rearing up, more when it stands still and relaxes). I'll usually pass the leadrope round under the noseband of the headcollar so I have a little more say on them being able to spin on me, which makes me feel safer.

Patience will generally win out with most horses. You can often tell when owners of needleshy horses have done their homework - be that clicker training, desensitisation as per the video above, etc - and it is much appreciated!
 
Really nice video. My mare is getting a bit needle shy because of so many blood tests and a different younger vet.
 
At one point I had to inject my poor Exmoor daily in the rump for antibiotics with a thick needle. I would massage the area very roughly, then lightly thump the area to be injected. If your horse likes a massage gun, that would be even better (at the time I didn't). Do that routinely and on the day of vaccs, do the vaccination immediately after removing the gun from the area.
 
I had a pony that was dreadfully needle shy, and he would react very violently.
I went through the desensitization work, but what REALLY worked for him was my vet would arrive, stand by his head, but ignore him and just chat to me, she would have the syringe drawn up ready, would pick up his hoof like the farrier, and hold it, while sneakily injecting with her other hand. He never reacted, my vet was amazing.
 
Yes - put a towel over the horses head a few times and give it a carrot. Then it’s used to not seeing anything and won’t know it’s going to be injected. Given the amount of times you actually need to inject a horse as a routine, you don’t need to de sensitise for something that’s so infrequent
 
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