reillyshoe wrote:While painting my bathroom today, I listened to the entire argument presented by farrier Jim House toe the Arkansas legislature. ..................
Perhaps we should separate ourselves from the other acts to better explain why farriery is not the practice of veterinary medicine. Changing one state practice act at a time would help our collective cause.
We do not need to get into the topic of licensing. We need to explain why we are the only option to fulfill the role of hoofcare expert to the people making the laws.
By saying ONLY option, does that infer that we exclusively are to retain authority over cases pertaining to the hoof?
(I watched the entire thing as well, and was disappointed because I thought House and those with him made an excellent case.) Do we practice veterinary medicine and call it farriery, or do veterinarians practice farriery and call it veterinary medicine? Searching for a clear definition only muddies the water, and if we cannot define it, then how can the public? Wikipedia's definition of veterinary medicine- "Veterinary medicine is the branch of science that deals with the application of medical, surgical, public health, dental, diagnostic, and therapeutic principles to non-human animals." I would say that what we do as farriers daily could fall under this definition. Do we not apply therapeutic principles? And whether we officially want to call an opinion a diagnosis, or not, we are often put in a position, to accurately identify problems and treat them appropriately. The definition of diagnosis-"Diagnosis (from ancient Greek διάγνωσις = discernment) is the identification of the nature and cause of anything." Few of us need someone to confirm that a horse has a quarter crack, toe crack, has foundered, or has an abscess, or many other things. What is obvious is obvious. To say that we do not diagnose, is to say that we would daily have to pretend that we have no idea what we are looking at and also have no idea what caused it and no idea what to do about it. Even wikipedia cannot define farrier without using the term "veterinary medicine", "A farrier is a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming and balancing of a horse's hoof and the placing of shoes to the horse's foot. A farrier couples a subset of the blacksmith's skills with a subset of VETERINARY MEDICINE to address the care of the horse's feet." it goes on to describe the work of a farrier, saying;
"If the animal has a heavy work load, works on abrasive footing, needs additional traction, or has PATHOLOGICAL changes in the foot, then shoes may be required.
Additional tasks for the farrier include dealing with injured and/or diseased hooves and application of special shoes for racing, training or "cosmetic" purposes. Horses with certain diseases or injuries may need remedial procedures for their hooves, or need special shoes."
Remedial procedures? Special shoes? Injured? Diseased? Pathological? Veterinary Medicine? further, read about our history
http://www.horseshoes.com/advice/ryan1/thsofttr.htm . We have rolled over and given up the reins. To "explain why we are the only option to fulfill the role of hoofcare expert to the people making the laws", we need to define "expert", because not every farrier fits this description. This argument would be made much stronger if there was a standard which those to be included as "experts" have attained. Call it what you like, but as long as the vet has it and the farrier does not, the vet will have the upper hand, and the farrier will have his eroding freedoms.