15/06/2025
Session 14 with Tigo - 6/14/25. Iâve been super busy with my day job and not able to get out to the barn to work with the horses, but I finally had some time. I needed to deworm the horses and decided I would work with Tigo on the syringe. The first time I ever brought out dewormer, he knew what the tube was and had a very strong âfightâ response before I even got it close to him. He had the same reaction to the vet, the potential for getting an injection, and his oral sedative. The vet described it as a âferal defensivenessâ where he turned to them ready to fight for his life to keep them away. He came to me with shoes, and my farrier said there was no way they had gotten shoes on him without sedative, so we know heâs likely had some experience with oral or injectable sedatives to get some things done with him. Since then, I havenât shown him a syringe and have done feed through pelleted dewormer, and emptied syringes onto his grain. I had to establish trust and a partnership with him before I tried to work on this issueâI needed him to not see me as someone who does thing âto himâ that he needed to fight, but as someone he does things with and wonât force him. I started by introducing him to the sight and smell of the dewormer with a fence in between us just in case he wanted to strike out at me. When it was clear it was safe and he knew he could move away from me if he hated the idea that much, I entered the round pen. In total, this session took just under 16 minutes from the start of this video and I cropped out the 3 minutes I spent working with him on the lead with no whip, reminding him of his shoulders, my boundaries, and getting him to use his âthinkingâ brain. I spent time just showing him the syringe and then petting him with my syringe hand where he couldnât see it, moved to scratching his face with my syringe hand where he couldnât see it see it, then went to using our âtouchâ cue to touch a calm pausing muzzle and released the pressure by petting him where he couldnât see it, to then moving to where he only got scratches when the syringe was on his face. In the end, he volunteered to investigate and put the syringe in his mouth himself three times: the first I didnât do anything and praised him, the second I pushed a little of the apple flavored dewormer out for him to taste, and the third time he took all of it. I would have been completely fine putting it in his feed, but I love when a horse offers something themselves. This is something weâll work on moving forward so he is less weary of it, but Iâm super happy with how quickly this turned from a ânoâ to âlet me try it.â Good boy Tigo!