Count Your Blessings

After reading the May/June 2017 “Frankly Speaking” column (“Rather Than Just Talking About It …”) and the article “Treatment for Dealing with Penetrating Injuries,” I suggest that having full-time farriers at seven veterinarian schools is better than none.

For perspective, veterinary medicine schools in Mexico and Latin America are notorious for the absence and ignorance of farriery science and teamwork with farriers.

To combat this, we are fortunate for the efforts by the likes of equine veterinarian Sergio Salinas, farrier Alexi Gutierrez and the International Farrier Academy, EQCOVET annual equine podiatry and farriery science workshop in September, as well as the students, interns and practitioners working at EQCOVET equine hospital near Guadalajara, Mexico.

I’ll encourage some of those referenced here to contact the Iowa State University vet Dane Tatarniuk and farrier Doug Russo from your article so that they can learn about their equine podiatry and farriery science program for the students at the college of veterinary medicine.

— Dr. Jorge Murga, San Diego, Calif.

Benefits Of Technology

In response to your blog post, “Easier Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Better,” I was shoeing horses before cell phones were common. It was fine then. Now, with texting, it’s better. I have some long-winded clients that are more manageable with texting. I can have clients text photos of a hoof, for instance, to determine urgency. A remote client can notify me promptly of…