Thursday, May 7, 2009

Tanamara - Eye Injury

I glossed over it yesterday, because there was a whole lot going on in the writing side of my life. But Tanamara has injured her eye, and is being confined to her stall.

It's going over like a ton of bricks.

I tried to treat it myself, Monday and Tuesday, I got the swelling down enough to tell that I needed a vet. She beat me up pretty bad, yanked me off the ground twice. I was feeling very discouraged, until the vet and his assistant did no better.

I had him shoot her up with tranquilizers. Safe, fast, effective - well no - she fought us anyway. It still took three of us.

What's a small middle-aged woman to do?

Break out the clicker and the treats.

With the help of my sister, we got to the point where I could touch Tana's face in less than an hour. The 'training' held up an hour later, when with Dad's help we got the salve in her eye.

No tranquilizers!

What did we do? Clicker training is based the dolphin training. All treats, no tricks. Look here for the definition: Wikipedia on clicker training

It works, when I have the time to apply it.

No comments:

The Enthropy in Travel

Oh the pretty cabins! Pretty, pretty cabins! I'm gonna travel to a national forest and stay in a pretty cabin with all the fun things a ...