Akkalia1
Well-Known Member
Anybody had a horse that was a real problem for injections? Mine is Particularly IV injections but any really. She's had to have 'the stabber' after not allowing her annual vaccs and just last week was unwell (initially concerned it was grass sickness but then seemed to be a gut infection) and the vet tried to take blood. Got the needle in the vein after shielding her eye but then struggled to get anything connected. Managed a tiny bit of blood which was enough to run biochemistry but not haematology. He then couldn't get near her to get antibiotics injected into her. Tried a twitch, didn't work. Vet was not very happy understandably. She then wouldn't eat her oral antibiotics and the vet left me feeling that she was going to be difficult to treat and that we could send her to vet hospital to get antibiotics into her but said he felt guilty for sending down difficult horses :/ Thankfully I managed to make it into a paste and syringed it into her.
She's an anxious horse who is always suspicious of anything happening to her. She had a stay in the vet hospital last year for investigations and got quite stressed when they tried to get a line into her. They eventually managed but had to get a behaviourist to work with her.
I've tried pinching skin with her to de-sensitise and poking her with a pen lid and she will accept that after a while but then when a vet comes and actually attempts to stick a needle in her, she says no.
Is there anything I can do - work with a behaviourist?? Short of turning her into a pin cushion, it's very difficult to desensitise her to actually getting injected.
It's so frustrating though as if she needs treatment again she's so very difficult. And even annual vaccs and sedating for teeth is painful. I usually have to give her a tube of sedalin before teeth visits but even then the vet can't get it into her vein and has to inject the muscle.
And my ultimate thought is what if she needed put to sleep - it could be awful
She's an anxious horse who is always suspicious of anything happening to her. She had a stay in the vet hospital last year for investigations and got quite stressed when they tried to get a line into her. They eventually managed but had to get a behaviourist to work with her.
I've tried pinching skin with her to de-sensitise and poking her with a pen lid and she will accept that after a while but then when a vet comes and actually attempts to stick a needle in her, she says no.
Is there anything I can do - work with a behaviourist?? Short of turning her into a pin cushion, it's very difficult to desensitise her to actually getting injected.
It's so frustrating though as if she needs treatment again she's so very difficult. And even annual vaccs and sedating for teeth is painful. I usually have to give her a tube of sedalin before teeth visits but even then the vet can't get it into her vein and has to inject the muscle.
And my ultimate thought is what if she needed put to sleep - it could be awful