Each year, we ask farriers via an exclusive survey to comment on ethical dilemmas that they might face in their hoof-care work. These scenarios were pulled from dozens of responses submitted by farriers in the previous year’s confidential ethics survey.

In this survey, hoof-care professionals shared how they would deal with each of these entirely different ethical situations.

Each of these ethical dilemmas are described in detail here along with a summary on how these farriers indicated they would deal with these troublesome situations. As you will see from the survey results, there are no easy answers for or 100% agreement on these three ethical predicaments.

Looking through each scenario, how would you have voted on these situations?

#1 Ethical Dilemmas At Work

In your daily life, there are times when you are presented with dilemmas that you must answer by the personal code of ethics that guides you. In your farrier practice, you may encounter tough situations with clients and horses that you must resolve by applying your own personal code of ethics? Two examples include being asked to work with an unruly horse by yourself or being asked to trim/shoe a show horse in a way the trainer would like, but isn’t good for the horse. How often do ethical dilemmas happen to you in your practice?