Reasons for using the Vet to give your Norwegian Fjord Horses their shots.
by Brian Jacobsen, DVM
-----Original Message-----
From: bcjdvm@juno.com [mailto:bcjdvm@juno.com]
Sent: Friday, March 05, 1999 12:47 AM
To: fjordhorse@Mailing-List.net
Subject: Shots - Don't shoot yourself in the foot!
This message is from: bcjdvm@juno.com
I have been biting my tongue for several days on this subject of Fjord
owners giving their own vaccinations, but I can't hold it anymore. I
have been dismayed to see how many of you are doing this yourselves.
Some people are going to get toes crunched from what I'm going to say,
but all I can do is apologize in advance.
I wish someone other than a veterinarian would have posted what I am
about to write so it wouldn't be taken as self-serving, but I guess you
have to be a veterinarian to have the knowledge of what I am about to
write, so here goes!
I don't believe it is worth it for 99% of horse owners to give their own
vaccinations. The only 1% where I feel it makes sense is for people like
the OFjords who are three hours from the nearest veterinarian.
I am speaking for myself here, not all veterinarians. The other vets on
the list may not agree, and if not, I welcome them to write in.
Here's why you shouldn't vaccinate your own horses (and it's not going to
be what you think):
1. Keeping your business with the one who really cares about you. When
you purchase your vaccines by mail, you are padding the pockets of
somebody whom you'll never meet and who doesn't care a whit about you
other than getting your business. When you ask your veterinarian to do
it you are supporting someone who has made an investment in you and your
community, someone who helps you further your horse knowledge, someone
who is willing to let your son/daughter ride with them to see what being
a veterinarian is like, someone who is willing to get out of bed to help
you when your horse is colicking, someone who probably cares about you
over and above "just getting your business".
2. Keeping prices down. Do I really mean that? Yes! Traditionally,
the "routine work" a veterinarian did subsidized all the other parts of
the practice. This means the vet made enough money from vaccinations and
deworming that the amount he charged for his time
examining/suturing/treating etc stayed relatively low. Many of you would
be shocked to know that, until recently, your auto mechanic and your
plumber charged as much or more per hour than your veterinarian! Is that
hard to believe? If so, you haven't had major work done on your car or
your plumbing in a while. I say "until recently" because some things
have been changing that are causing veterinarians to have to charge more
for their time.
The deworming income is almost completely gone; Most horse owners deworm
their own horses now. The vaccination income is shrinking as more and
more owners do it themselves. The sales of medicines and pharmaceuticals
was, historically, another good profit center for veterinarians, but now
with mail-order pharmacies increasing at an astronomic rate, this income
will soon disappear too. You can track similar changes in the human
medical profession. They still have the vaccinations because you aren't
allowed to do that yourself. But when they lost the medicines and
pharmaceuticals to pharmacies, their professional charges rose sharply.
If horse owners would keep their money "at home" so to speak, meaning
with their veterinarian, it would actually keep veterinary charges lower
overall. But because we're all more worried now about saving a buck than
we are being loyal those businesses who have served us faithfully for
years, we are going to suffer the consequences by paying higher prices.
3. Good etiquette. Have you ever called your veterinary office to ask
how you give the vaccines you purchased through the mail-order company?
I hope not! Shame on you if you have. Do you call your mechanic to ask
him how to install that part you bought at NAPA Auto Parts? Do you call
your plumber to ask him for tips on how to install the water heater you
bought at the appliance store? I hope not; Those things are the height
of rudeness. Think about how you feel in your business/profession when
someone calls you wanting to know how to use something they purchased
somewhere else, when they could have bought it from you.
4. Not missing out on learning opportunities. When do you think your
veterinarian is going to tell you about the new long-lasting pour-on fly
repellent that will be available for horses this summer? How about the
new injection that helps us time breedings better when we're artificially
inseminating? He/She is going to be much more likely to tell you about
these things when you are doing routine work in relatively non-hurried
conditions. If he interrupted the whole day's schedule to come sew up a
laceration at your place, he's not going to stand around and gab about
these new things that are available. This is not about being rude or
punishing you for interrupting his schedule; It's just about not having
the time to stand around and gab. Last Spring when one of the drug
companies said they would sponsor an educational dinner meeting for 250
of our clients, who do you think was invited? We went through the
Reminder file - the file where we keep records of the vaccinations we've
done and when they are due again. We could only pick 250, and those were
the ones we considered our best clients. Would you have been picked?
5. Establishing a good relationship with your veterinarian. If you ask
any equine veterinarian to name some of their best clients, at the top of
the list will always be those clients who have the veterinarian do their
regular work. You see, there are basically three types of calls that
equine veterinarians go on: emergency and after-hours calls, sick or hurt
animals during regular hours, and routine work calls during regular
hours. The emergency work is the dregs of the profession. Nobody is
crazy about it - we do it because it's part of the job and because we
care about our clients and their animals. The sick/hurt calls during
regular hours are better because at least they don't involve having to
get out of bed or missing tucking your children in, but they still mess
up the scheduling. The routine calls, then, are the most pleasant
because they allow us to interact with our clients in a more relaxed
atmosphere. We get to educate you, ask how your son or daughter is doing
at college, discuss the weather, etc. Yes we would get bored if all we
had were routine vaccinations, but maybe you can see why the routine
calls are generally desirable from a veterinary standpoint.
Taking the reasoning one step farther, the most fulfilling relationships
we develop with clients are ones which involve all three types of calls,
not just the less desirable two. This leads to better service for those
clients. If two clients are calling in simultaneously wanting a certain
appointment time, and one client has us do all their work, but the other
one only calls us once a year for a sick horse or colic or a laceration,
who do you think is going to get their choice of appointment times? It's
not hard to figure out. If two clients call in one minute apart with
emergencies of about equal importance, which client do you think is going
to see the vet first? Easy choice. If there are two veterinarians in
the practice, and one is the long time owner whom everyone wants, and the
other is the new associate whom no one really knows very well yet, which
vet do you think the "good" client is going to get? Again, easy answer.
By now, some of you are thinking, "Well that's hardly fair; That's
playing favorites!" Well, all I can say is, "Life isn't fair; That's
life!" If you have eaten at the same table at the same restaurant every
Wednesday for the last 10 years, and you and someone else walk into the
restaurant at the same time wanting that table, who is going to get it?
It had better be you, right?! Now, I'm not talking about the number of
horses you have or the size of your farm. That really doesn't matter as
much as does the quality of relationship you have with your veterinarian.
Well, did I open your eyes to some things you hadn't realized before? I
hope so.
To those who are thinking I'm picking on you - I'm not. To those who are
thinking that at the center of everything I have written is just greed
and a self-serving attitude, unfortunately you have misunderstood the
whole thing. This is about making a living and taking care of those who
take care of you.
Maybe I'm just a sentimental fool who should have been born 100 years ago
when loyalty and a job well done meant something. In any case, Thank You
to those of you who return your veterinarian's investment in you by
allowing him/her to vaccinate your horses. I hope maybe I've spurred
some of you who don't do it right now to allow your veterinarian to do
what he/she was trained to do - provide comprehensive, caring, and timely
health care for your animals. It is an investment that will pay off.
Brian Jacobsen, DVM
Norwegian Fjordhest Ranch
Salisbury, North Carolina
