Remote Veterinary Restraint and Ionophoretic Drug Delivery Using a Guitar-String Bolas Prototype

Abstract

John LaRocco

Traditional remote veterinary drug delivery systems relying on tranquilizer darts frequently caused unintended injury or mortality to target animals, and required minutes to produce systemic pharmacological effects, creating critical safety gaps for both handlers and agitated specimens in field and agricultural environments. To address this unmet need, this study developed and validated the Guitar-Augmented Utility Capture Holding Object (GAUCHO), a novel integrated prototype that merged the traditional South American gaucho bolas kinetic entanglement mechanism with low-current iontophoretic transdermal drug delivery functionality. Nickel-plated steel electric guitar strings were selected as the flexible conductive tethers, after outperforming conductive composite threads and laser-induced graphene in tensile resilience testing to retain full electrical continuity under high dynamic loading. A modified commercial toy blaster delivered consistent, repeatable deployment of the two-string, 3V coin cell-powered prototype across all trials. Launch performance testing against a 1.2-meter distant static target showed no statistically significant difference between weighted and unweighted electrode pad configurations (two-sample t-test, p=0.664 and t=-0.447), confirming the inherent springiness of the guitar strings alone was sufficient to support stable aerodynamic spin and reliable target coiling. The work demonstrated the first successful proof of concept for a combined rapid remote physical restraint and non-invasive iontophoretic drug delivery system, closing a longstanding gap at the intersection of kinetic capture, transdermal therapeutics, and high-stress flexible materials engineering for veterinary field applications.

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