COOPERATIVE CARE

“Cooperative care involves training an animal to not only tolerate handling and husbandry procedures, but to be an active, willing participant in these experiences. [...] One of the most important aspects of teaching cooperative care is that the animal is allowed to “say no.” They can indicate using a non-aggressive, safe behavior that they want the procedure to stop. Teaching a duration target behavior is a vital foundation in cooperative care – not only does it help to keep the animal still, but we teach the animal through the process that if at any time they break the target position (lift their head, etc.), then the handling procedure will stop.” The IAABC Journal

Here is Hank who when adopted was very adverse to handling, at the vet. He voluntarily puts on his muzzle, enjoys wearing it and cooperated with his lovely vet Thea for his vaccinations.

Astro below is terrified of being handled. Doesn't let anyone cut his nails, can't really get vaccinations and won't let the vet look at his sore paw. But he is lucky as his mum is super committed to get him confident and comfortable with being handled.
First she taught him a sustained chin rest and then we met again, so I could show how we introduce the first handling; here of the legs. Now mum and dad are working at home together; in this session they are introducing the syringe for vaccinations. WHAT A SUPERSTAR ASTRO IS!!!
The way it works: Astro gives permission to the handling by resting his chin. He knows that he can take his chin off anytime and any handling will stop immediately. How empowering!

Update: Astro has been to the vet for some fake injections. Next Thursday he has to get a real injection. The vet was very impressed with the technique. They have seen similar but not as effective. Astro was like a completely different dog. His mum says the training "has actually been life changing. Even this early on, I'm confident taking him to the vet now and the vets are so much more relaxed around him too. He loves his training. He didn't want to stop even after his appointment had finished and they were closing haha. Thanks so much!"

A huge shout-out to the guys from Marshall and Pringle Kaiapoi who helped Astro so wonderfully to prepare for this real injection without muzzling him or holding him down on the table. Astro did fabulous! He moved at the end of the injection, taking his permission away. Luckily the vet was done and reacted perfectly.
The first "injection" was a fake one, one of many to help Astro prepare. The second one in the video was REAL. It is hard to prepare him perfectly for the real one as we can't inject a needle every time. But I think his dad's face tells it all. Those guys couldn't be more proud!