It's interesting, isn't it, that the person you might most want to comment on the professionalism, qualities or qualifications of another practitioner, is called un-professional or told that they are guilty of 'professional jealousy' if they do say something? They are the MOST qualified to comment. This is something I see on Facebook chat rooms all the time. Let me give you a couple of recent examples.
A world renowned scientist specialising in the physiology of performance horses and a veteran of the Beijing Olympics where the environment was particularly hard on the horses, gave some advice about the best way to cool a horse off after working in hot weather. He talked about the most effective way, the best way for the horse's welfare, being to pour cold water onto the horse and not to scrape it off. Even on his own Facebook page people were expounding the view that warm water was better and must always be scraped off. They were so keen to spout their own personal and traditional view that they were not listening to a word he said even though he had the scientific evidence at top performance level to prove it.
Similarly someone recommended a so-called horse dentist on a local site recently. She felt sure that he was qualified and said that he had told her so. I checked with the BAEDT and BVDA and could find no trace of his name, nor the person with whom he has allegedly qualified. I wrote to both of these organisations to check specifically and it was confirmed that neither were qualified. This was backed up on the same thread by a leading UK veterinary dentist who works around the world teaching other veterinary dentists and dental technicians. The post was pulled by the administrator of the site and I was called variously a troll, a s**t-stirrer, and a vigilante. I was just telling the truth.
The net result is that advice given by people with qualifications and real expertise is equally balanced with bad traditional and trendy fads or, even worse, they pull away from these sites, so that horse owners are left with very poor advice. In the end it is the horses that pay.
I'm guessing now that I am not working so much maybe I have become an UN-professional, so perhaps I can comment!
Here's another thing. When people ask for recommendations for practitioners, you usually get a list of different people; it becomes like a voting system. The laws of defamation mean that you only get the fors not the againsts. I look at those lists and think oh no, I wouldn't go to them, I know they use two whips when schooling a pony, for example, or I know they have no qualifications, experience or sense. Nowadays, if the person asking is someone I know, I might contact them privately to put them off someone, explaining what I know, but just because someone's name is put forward on a chat forum, and they have several 'votes', doesn't make them any good!
Everything APPEARS to have an equal value on a chat site and it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.
This is what the vet said:
I've been mentioned many times in this thread and I'd rather answer by posting something educational on my own page - but where your animals health is concerned you should vet people who care for them very carefully - XXX is not qualified through any recognised bodies in the UK, and was trained by someone who is similarly not qualified - just because someone is a nice bloke and is respected in whatever type of community they come from does not entitle them to call themselves a dentist doctor accountant lawyer brain surgeon or anything else. There is no law to stop XXX using hand tools in horses mouths (there should be) but he is not entitled to call himself an 'equine dentist' - but then he's not alone - sadly there are plenty of these characters in the UK and all over the world who attend some phoney course or other and print a t-shirt and buy some tools and start practicing a style of dentistry that hasn't changed in 200 years - as for me, I wouldn't want to go to a dentist who treated me like it was done 200 years ago - horses need their teeth filed yes, but they also need proper examinations by someone who is properly qualified - it is very sad that people can't see all the things in horses mouths that these characters miss - I see them all the time - I'll post a video of one such case I saw yesterday on my page The Equine Dental Clinic so feel free to check that out - at the end of the day people have to make their own choices - it's just sad that horses can't have any say in it. Any of you reading this post could buy a bucket of tools and print a business card saying equine dentist and no-one will stop you. I'm sure you're all lovely people and good horse handlers but that shouldn't allow you to go to work on horses.
Right, I'm off to buy a bucket of tools...and a t-shirt.
