Dremel Training

Winston is so good about maintenance things like filing his hooves, cleaning his ears and eyes and clearing out his scent glands that I decided I would see how he would react to the Dremel. I would love to get him comfortable enough with it that I could work on his fast growing tusks and when necessary on his hooves.

When he was a piglet we taught him two commands that come in handy for this training. The first is touch which means to touch something with his snout. We started with the Dremel off and did touch several times, then turned it on and did it several more times. He doesn't love anything that makes noise (vacuum cleaner, mopper, etc) but he is motivated by cookies so he played along. The second command is take which means he should open his mouth and put it around whatever you are asking him to take. While I didn't actually let him take the Dremel I did want him to feel what it would be like in and around his mouth. He did very well with it both on and off.

Over the next few weeks we will spend short training sessions getting familiar with the tool touching him while on and we will eventually work up to touching his tusks while its on. We have a ways to  go for sure but I am optimistic with how well the first session went today.