No…. Charlie has never been to the vet.\u00a0 He would f-r-e-a-k out.\u00a0 I have given him all his shots – one gets used to giving animals’ shots out here, with this lifestyle.\u00a0 There are even some great stories from a generation ago of parents knowing the doses and types of various animal medicines they had on hand (for livestock) with which to treat their children.\u00a0 Some of you can flip out here, I’ll wait.<\/p>\n
So, I’ve given Charlie his vaccinations in his home environment with no stress or anxiety surrounding the events.\u00a0 Charlie doesn’t have fleas or any other conditions so I don’t treat him with any other medication.\u00a0 I have trained him to wear a muzzle in the event that serious veterinary care was ever necessary.\u00a0 And I recommend to anyone with a skittish\/fear-biter or aggressive dog that you take the time to do this!<\/p>\n
I use a coated metal basket muzzle<\/strong><\/a> and Charlie thinks it’s his special treat pouch.\u00a0 He dips his snout right in the basket and wears the muzzle without complaint.\u00a0 I modified the straps – I took off the buckles and replaced them with a hook similar <\/em>to this<\/a><\/strong> so that there’s no fussing around his head to put the muzzle on.\u00a0 One fluid motion while he’s munching the treat in the basket and it’s on.\u00a0 The open work of the basket allows me to feed him treats through the bars and Charlie can drink and vocalize while the muzzle is on.<\/p>\n We spent about a month, perhaps six weeks, working on this last winter.\u00a0 Very, very slowly, every evening at exactly the same time.\u00a0 It was a special, predictable one-on-one time with Charlie that he quickly began looking forward to.\u00a0 First, the muzzle would just be in the room, and he could sniff it and get “brushed” with it.\u00a0 Then, he discovered there were treats in the muzzle and he could dip his snout in the basket and get the treat.\u00a0 Then, perhaps a week or ten days later, the back strap would be held around the back of his head but not attached while he ate the treat.\u00a0 Then the muzzle went on for a very short time, like a minute, with treats after it came off.\u00a0 And then the time he wore the muzzle was gradually lengthened.\u00a0 The key is to go at the rate of the animal, so that the activity (or in this case, the muzzle) is never associated with stress.<\/p>\n This post has taken a tangent!\u00a0 But, not really.\u00a0 The work we’ve done with the muzzle and Charlie’s ease in wearing it provides me with massive peace of mind: if Charlie were wounded and needed a vet to come treat him (I’d pay the big bucks for a housecall rather than taking him to the vet), it’s now possible, and only<\/em> because of the muzzle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No…. Charlie has never been to the vet.\u00a0 He would f-r-e-a-k out.\u00a0 I have given him all his shots – one gets used to giving animals’ shots out here, with this lifestyle.\u00a0 There are even some great stories from a generation ago of parents knowing the doses and types of various animal medicines they had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![this<\/a><\/strong> so that there’s no fussing around his head to put the muzzle on.\u00a0 One fluid motion while he’s munching the treat in the basket and it’s on.\u00a0 The open work of the basket allows me to feed him treats through the bars and Charlie can drink and vocalize while the muzzle is on.<\/p>\nWe spent about a month, perhaps six weeks, working on this last winter.\u00a0 Very, very slowly, every evening at exactly the same time.\u00a0 It was a special, predictable one-on-one time with Charlie that he quickly began looking forward to.\u00a0 First, the muzzle would just be in the room, and he could sniff it and get “brushed” with it.\u00a0 Then, he discovered there were treats in the muzzle and he could dip his snout in the basket and get the treat.\u00a0 Then, perhaps a week or ten days later, the back strap would be held around the back of his head but not attached while he ate the treat.\u00a0 Then the muzzle went on for a very short time, like a minute, with treats after it came off.\u00a0 And then the time he wore the muzzle was gradually lengthened.\u00a0 The key is to go at the rate of the animal, so that the activity (or in this case, the muzzle) is never associated with stress.<\/p>\nThis post has taken a tangent!\u00a0 But, not really.\u00a0 The work we’ve done with the muzzle and Charlie’s ease in wearing it provides me with massive peace of mind: if Charlie were wounded and needed a vet to come treat him (I’d pay the big bucks for a housecall rather than taking him to the vet), it’s now possible, and only<\/em> because of the muzzle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No…. Charlie has never been to the vet.\u00a0 He would f-r-e-a-k out.\u00a0 I have given him all his shots – one gets used to giving animals’ shots out here, with this lifestyle.\u00a0 There are even some great stories from a generation ago of parents knowing the doses and types of various animal medicines they had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailycoyote.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/images.google.com\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/www.allproducts.com\/metal\/kingsnaps\/14-snap_hook-l.jpg&imgrefurl=http:\/\/www.allproducts.com\/metal\/kingsnaps\/14-snap_hook.html&usg=__MJ1blLHW1kWMjhCe5ntUi7hFRQE=&h=579&w=800&sz=185&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=C5kM3ueHbH2NvM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=143&prev=\/images%3Fq%3Dhardware%2Bhook%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1\"){kind=link}