As the title of this blog suggests this is an approximately 6 minute video on Teddy's encounter with the Equine Dentist today. It's his first dentist visit while I have owed him and it's my first experience with an equine dentist ever. This video is half educational - for those who are seeing a equine dentist at work for the first time, and half entertainment - because it's my punk horse Teddy after all!
In typical Teddy fashion it started badly. Peter Lane (the dentist) was approaching Teddy without me there. Peter wasn't doing anything to him 'dentist like' other than introducing himself and attempting to give him a face and gum massage, he wouldn't have had time to do anything as I was gone about a minute. But surprise, surprise, Teddy freaked out and rear up, and up, and up until he flipped right over on his back! Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was getting my video camera at the time so didn't capture it on film.
When I returned to the paddock Teddy was running around in a state. Thankfully he wasn't injured. After he had ran a few laps Peter approached him calmly and got hold of the lead rope without Teddy protesting at all. I thought Peter was excellent. I could tell from that approach that this man knew horses and the way they think. That kind of skill is a great thing to witness.
To prevent any further attempts to flee we took Teddy over to the cattle crush area and in the small paddock that surrounds it. Teddy was secure and appeared to have calmed down.
The whole file-in-the-mouth dentist work took about 30 minutes. When Peter got to work Teddy started off fine, as the video demonstrates, but about 3 quarters of the way through he got fed up and started fidgeted and getting shirty. Nothing too dramatic though.
Through everything that happened Peter was impressive. He was calm and sensible, he didn't get into the macho 'domination of the horse' thing, and he used a number of great calming techniques on Teddy that worked well. He was also happy to engage with me and the camera and answer all my questions; the latter is always a good sign in my book.
If anyone in Victoria is after a equine dentist I would recommend Peter Lane. If you would like his details just send me a comment below.
Until next time, I hope you enjoy the video.
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