The results of the recent BEVA survey into injuries sustained by equine vets whilst at work will have surprised no-one. Every one of my colleagues has ended up in A&E at some point with everything from minor wounds to serious head injuries. My personal injury list would probably be typical - knocked out three times, stitched up twice (should have been more than that, but equine vets seem to come from the Monty Python ' 'tis but a flesh wound' mould - if it ain't actually hanging off then it's nothing a self-applied vetrap can't cure), a sundry array of black eyes and bruises. I'd like to think that after all these years I can read horses pretty well - I can generally tell when the explosion is imminent. With most horses I know when to push to get something done and when to tactfully retreat. And if my spider-senses fail me I'm generally pretty quick on my feet and can be out of the stable, whether through or over the door, quicker than you can say 'watch out'. So for every time the hoof has actually connected there have probably been another ten or twenty times that I've dodged the bullet and felt nothing more than the rush of air as the horse's foot has flown past my face.
Part of this is an accepted risk of the job. Horses are flight animals and naturally suspicious of anything out of their routine. I don't see them the 99% of the time that they're quiet, happy and contented just being horses. I only see them to inflict something that they regard as unpleasant - whether that be to put a gag on and examine their teeth, give them an injection, a rectal exam or try to place a needle into one of their joints. I went into this job because I like horses, but the truth is, with a few exceptions, the horses don't like me.
The horses I find easiest to deal with are those in professional yards. Racehorses, hunters, top level eventers. These horses may be seen as flighty and difficult by a lot of the horse world, but a horse kept in a busy regime, given plenty of work and, vitally, handled by professionals, tends to be a fairly easy animal for me to deal with. The last point is the crux. Professional horse people make handleable horses. If every second spent with a horse contributes to the sum of its education then having someone with years of knowledge, experience and intuition in charge of the horse 24/7 is like handing the horse a college degree. These are the people that I'm happy to have as my 'wingmen'. There are 5 or 6 of my clients that I would trust implicitly on the head of a horse I'm examining. They know when to distract the horse, when to be firm, where to put themselves in relation to the horse and when to warn me if they get a signal from the horse that it has reached the limit of its patience. They will also respect my safety and if I say I would rather the horse be twitched or sedated then there is no argument. Vets that work in clinics will have staff to work with all they time that they can have this relationship with (not to mention a set of stock to restrain the horse!). Us ambulatory vets have to cope with whoever is there at the time - and it can be a real lottery.
If you asked me to pick the horse which was most likely to injure me then it would most likely be a cob. I'm going to upset a few owners here but the stereotypical nightmare patient is a 15hh cob (big enough to be dangerous, small enough to be manoeuvrable), probably overweight and probably owned by a reasonably novice middle-aged lady. As a rule these horses have very few ground manners, are pushy, bolshy and have probably never been told off or asked to do anything they didn't want to do in their life. Add to that someone holding the horse who is inexperienced in reading the signals, doesn't instinctively know where to stand and probably won't let you use a twitch and you've got a recipe for disaster.
I use a lot more sedation than I used to. I probably sedate around 60% of the horses I do dentistry on now, though I would like that to be 95%! This is not because I'm scared of your horse or taking the easy way out. It's not even because I'm trying to rip you off for the cost of the sedation! It's because I think it's fairer for both the horse and me and ultimately for you, the client. I can do a much more thorough examination and treatment if the horse is relaxed. The horse has a relatively benign experience and it is consequently less stressful for the client. Plus the fact that I can do a better and more efficient job means that they get better value for money. It does not totally remove the risk of injury (one of the times I was knocked out was by a horse which had been sedated) but it reduces it to what I'd consider an acceptable level.
I do think that a lot of the risks that equine vets are exposed to, especially when treating horses out on yards as opposed to in a clinic, are unacceptable. In my ideal world horses would be regularly handled by a range of people, be taught manners and ground rules in a firm but fair way and clients would be lot more accepting of the advantages of correct restraint and sedation. Until such time I'll keep honing my lightning-sharp reflexes and when I get a bad feeling I'll walk away. I've only got one body to last me my working lifetime and sometimes it's just not worth the risk.
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