Vaccination Day

Wednesday was vaccination day and we are happy to have that day done and over with. The day itself is never that bad, but of course there is always the possibility that it could be awful. We’ve explained before that the biggest issue on days like vaccination day is dealing with the runners. We always use the term runners to refer to the horses that decide to run away after they have evaluated a situation and decided they do not want to participate in whatever activity happens to be going on. Typically this means we are catching horses for the farrier, or for teeth floating, or to give them a bath, or generally anything that interferes with their daily routine of doing whatever they want whenever they feel like it.

Jason and I always have a strategy meeting before days like vaccination day. Essentially we try to guess who is going to be a very determined runner and have them already caught and waiting when the vet arrives. That way they do not have a chance to survey the situation and make a run for it. This also means their running does not tip off the other horses that something less than ideal is happening and they might want to also exit stage left. It is very easy to predict certain runners, but there is often a horse or two that surprises us and decides to be a runner when they have never done so before.

Before vaccination day I make out a master list of what horse is receiving which vaccinations, who needs to have banamine administered with their vaccinations, etc. Jason, myself, the vet and the vet tech all have a copy of this list to refer to as we are working.

On the morning of vaccination day we halter each horse during the morning feeding. It is easy to slip halters on the horses while they are eating and it makes much easier to catch a runner when they already have a halter on. Then we put the horses that we expect to be the worst runners in stalls. Yes, we take all of the fun out of it for them and totally ruin the one positive experience they could have on a vaccination day. Undoubtedly we are truly awful people in their eyes.

The day went quite well and we were wrapped up and the vet was driving out of the driveway by mid-morning. The weather was perfect, sunny and 80, we only had to chase down 2 runners, and Jason and I were so efficient someone who did not know us well would be conned into thinking that anything we decided to do always went as planned.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

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Levendi napping with Hemi hanging out