uh-oh, Insulted Farrier

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Linda B. Merims lbm@ici.net


I just went through a similar situation last week.
My farrier's reaction was even more extreme.  He 'threw me out'
and has refused to ever shoe my horse again.  My 'sin' was
objecting to the extensive rasping the farrier's new apprentice
was doing to my horse's foot.  I've been with this farrier for
three years.  I have to truck to him.  He charges a minimum of
$150 for four shoes.  The old apprentice left and the new
apprentice was doing my horse for the first time.  He kept
rasping and rasping and rasping the toe in a way I'd never seen
my horse done before.  I kept quiet until I couldn't take it
anymore (the rasping had gone on so long I was having visions
of blood leaking through the hoof wall) and I finally just
blurted out, "Will you please stop rasping!"

Well, my farrier went ballistic.  "Are you trying to tell
me how to shoe a horse?" he shouted. "He's rasping the way I taught
him to rasp!  I'm not even going to tell you why he was rasping,
you know so much more that I do!  You can get somebody else
to do your horse from now and just see what happens to that
foot!!"

It kind of went downhill from there.  I was careful not to
respond to his fury and not to return his insults, but he didn't
calm down before I left the way I was hoping he would.

The upshot is that I'm looking for a new farrier.

I have no intention of apologizing.  The way I look at it, if
the farrier had been, say, a famous pediatrician and the
apprentice a first year intern, and my horse was a little
kid in for treatment and I was his mom, and I had objected
to what the intern was doing in exactly the same way,
there is no way on earth my farrier's behavior in reaction
would be considered professional or acceptable.


Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
Massachusetts, USA