Arya Gets Shot ;-)

Don't be alarmed.  The title is punny.  :-)  We FINALLY got around to doing the "spring" shots.  It just never seemed like the right time to do them, between upcoming rides (endurance or group trail rides, and not wanting the horses to be swollen or sore for them) or whatever, but we finally decided to do it last night.

I've given my cats fluids and injections subcutaneously, but hadn't yet given any creature an intramuscular injection.  Luckily (for her and me) a horse is a much bigger target than a cat!

I showed up at Shar's and fetched Arya.  She walked away from me, as usual, then stopped a ways away, as usual, but luckily it happened to be right next to the fly mask she'd rubbed off.  Handy!  So I picked that up and set it aside for later.

I've read that there's less swelling and soreness at the injection site and in the surrounding body part if their muscles are warmed up before the injection then exercised a bit afterward, too, to help spread the stuff around.  So I lunged Arya a bit beforehand.  Shar said something about getting started, and I begged her to wait and let me watch.  The vet had demonstrated how to do it without actually DOING it, so I figured it'd be good to watch it actually being done before attempting my first one.

Shar did it--tap tap tap in the spot you're going to poke, then jab!  Then draw back the plunger to make sure there's no blood (which would indicate you're in a vein, which is a bad thing for pushing a vaccine into), then push the stuff in.  Easy peasy.

So I followed suit--tap tap tap, jab!  Flash hadn't reacted when Shar poked him, but Arya did NOT like it.  She kind of startled and took a bit of a step, but luckily not into me (broken rib!) or on my foot (sandals!).  Luckily, I'd anticipated something like that and wasn't still holding the syringe, so it just stayed there, hanging off her like a tranquilizer dart.  Heh.  So I stepped back to her, pulled back, no blood, and pushed the stuff in.  All done, easy peasy.  Whew!  I massaged the spot a little, but I'm pretty sure she'd long since forgiven me for that little poke (actually, it was a pretty big needle!).

Then I was going to lunge her to let the stuff vaccine work its way into her muscles, and Shar asked if I minded lunging Flash at the same time.  Huh.  I guess not.  They get along great, and they both know what they're doing.  It was in the round pen, so no ropes to tangle up.  When Shar let them both in and I had TWO horses moving around me in a circle, though, I felt like that guy that controls like six or eight horses bridleless and even rides them Roman style.  Ha!  At first they were one right behind the other, but by the time we'd done a few circles, they were directly opposite each other.  But when I signaled them to halt, they both did.  When I signaled them to come in toward me, only Arya did.  Heh, I'm not Flash's person, so why should he come to me?  But no one got hurt, so it's all good.  After the running in circles and getting poked, they got a nice little treat:

Doesn't get much better than that!