An interesting thing happened last night when I gave Max his quarterly dose of wormer. Normally, I look upon this process with some trepidation since Max dislikes it and he is not shy about making his opinion known.
Well, last night I put a halter and lead rope on Max and the tube of wormer in my back pocket. I stood to one side next to his muzzle and as soon as I took out the worker, he began to shake his head and then try to back up. Finally, he backed up some more and then reared.
Needless to say, this was a potentially dangerious situation and I was ready to duck out of the way- quickly. In a final effort to assert control, I jerked on the lead rope and growled at Max and yelled a few obscenities followed by a "NO!".
What happened next really surprised me: he immediately calmed down and the actually bowed his head and submitted. Well, I guess all that stuff about being the alpha horse and such really works!
The next I did was to give him the wormer and I then spent some time rubbing his muzzle and mouth with the wormer tube to get him de-sensitized to it. I also praised him, gave him a pat on the neck and when everything was done, gave him a carrot.
Hopefully the lesson stuck and next time will be a bit easier. It certainly was very instructive and I learned a bit about the equine mind. Basically, he was wolfing me and I called him on it (naturally I was ready to roll out of the way if it didn't work).
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