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EQUINE DENTISTRY - WHERE'S THE DRAMA?

    Isn't there enough drama in our lives?  Between the world events, politics, your favorite TV  show, and getting the kids off to school, how can we cope?  Then there is the drama in the barn.  Should I go there???

    So why would you call a professional to work on your horse only to have worry or regrets afterwards?  Yet we have all experienced this and not just with our horses.  We all have an expectation when we ask professionals for their expertise.  Yet over the years I continually become disappointed.  This stems from a range of reasons from unethical behavior to shear incompetence.  

    There may be another reason for disappointment, confusion, or just an uneasy feeling when a professional works on your horse.  Some equine professionals have a foundation of either their practice or the procedure based on one or several beliefs that may not be the same as other professionals in their field.  Add to this confusion is the plethora of information on equine care including deworming, lameness, nutrition, and of course dentistry.

    Here is an example just for equine dentistry.  At Equine Dentistry Without Drama™ we believe that the only reason to float teeth is to remove all sources of pain located within the mouth.  Other equine dentists focus on the physics of jaw movement as the primary concern.  These two different beliefs create confusion within the industry as well as with the horse owner.  This leads to the horse owner looking for something else to place their trust in rather than understanding the principles of the procedures.

    Again, we as buyers of a service want to believe in the professional doing the work.  I believed in the accountant I hired one year but that trust led to a $13,000 bill plus and an IRS audit.  Bad taste for every accountant since.  Or how about the office manager who embezzled me?  Both of these individuals talked the talk but were definitely bad for me and my business.

    So with confusing reasons to float teeth and maybe either no experience or a bad experience with an equine dentist, how can you tell if things are right?  Certainly it is hard to check the job inside the mouth.

    Over the years I have found two things to help.  First is to trust my gut feeling.  If it doesn't feel right then I stop.  Secondly I look at the results.  For us there is nothing better that the horse showing gratitude immediately and the owner calling the next day saying their horse is immensely better on the bit or chewing hay.

    We just started work at a farm with a lot of horses.  They had another equine dentist that made all the drama one could imagine.  Here is a list:

    •    over drugged every horse
    •    hung their head from the ceiling
    •    "pools of blood" at the work area
    •    advised no riding for 14 days after pulling wolf teeth
    •    pictures of the oral cavity before, during, and after floating
    •    full set of dental x-rays
    •    worked on only 6 horses per day
    •    a bill of over $500 per horse
    •    our review 20 days later showed the upper left edges were missed consistently
    •    3 horses (stallions) he determined needed no work.  They had extremely sharp teeth.

    The manager of this farm tuned in to her gut feelings and asked the man to leave.  She wasn't comfortable with many things she was seeing.  And that was before she knew his bill (arrived a week later) or that he had missed areas or that he was afraid of stallions.  This took a lot of courage even for a professional manager because he was a veterinarian specializing in modern equine dentistry.  Many novice horse owners may not have enough experience to get the gut feelings into a warning mode.  On the other hand, for others, this experience may be exactly what they want reminding them of the advances in human dentistry.

    At Equine Dentistry Without Drama™, we feel that in every endeavor with the horse from teeth to trailer loading or grooming to leading, there should be as little drama as possible.  We feel that you as a horse owner should not have to be worried in any way for the safety or treatment of your horses.  You should be confident that your money is well spent with confidence the job was completed to the satisfaction of the horse.  We should be a member of your team that cares for your horse, not the star.

    When done, your horse should be relaxed showing gratefulness by licking lips, lowering head, advancing towards us hanging the head out the door asking for affection.  You should either be smiling or have left to do other barn things confident in our care.  When you pay us you should feel that it is money well spent.  You should feel able to contact us afterwards with any concerns and feel like you were treated special and not just a number.

    We at Equine Dentistry Without Drama™ know it is how we would want to feel after our professionals come to our barn.


Equine Dentistry - Where's The Drama? by Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.