Felony now in Okla. for floating teeth

[Sandra L.]

I am wanting to let everyone know that as of Nov. 2008 it is now a felony for an equine dentist to do any type of work on your horses in Okla. They want only a licensed veterinarian doing this.

There is a politician involved. That goes without saying. State Rep. Brian Renegar D-Okla. authored the bill. He is a vet.

What this means is the horses will suffer, because some vet thinks he is loosing some money. The vets around here have no equipment to work on a miniature horse and they do not have the knowledge on properly floating teeth or anything that goes with it.

I know from experience. 2 yrs ago a horse in my care started getting bumps on his face above the nostrils. I called the vet, he even looked at the horse. He had no clue, suggested I call OSU and get him to the vets there. I went so far as to call them. They said they would need x-rays at 75.00 to 100.00 each and could not give me an idea of how many. Minimum for them to look at him was 250.00. Some months later we found an equine dentist, not a vet, took one look at the horse and said he had retained his 3 yr old caps. He popped them off and the horse was fine.

AMHR Nationals will not have an equine dentist this year, unless ya'll will band with me and challenge this law.

I have tried to talk to vets about Lazy N Little Man and his new false teeth, they do not want to hear about it. In fact, my vets are mad about it. I can tell you this, when I first got Little Man, my vet saw him and said the kindest thing I could do for him would be dig a hole next to where he is standing and shoot him and hope he falls in it. I am happy to tell you that while there was not a local vet in my area that gave a crap one way or the other over the health issues Little Man had, I did find an equine dentist that did care and went above and beyond to help an old horse.

Little Man has put on 47 pounds since he got his teeth.

I for one do not want politicians telling me what to do with my horses. Dentistry is not the only thing they have banned. What will be next?

Sandra

 

[horsefeather]

I was afraid this was going to happen! It makes me so mad that laws are passed without any input from those it affects the most!

I'll do whatever I can to help you. Luckily my vet has gone to several 'sessions' about mini teeth and has bought the mini instruments. However, I still prefer the equine dentist to do my horses. I agree with you, it's mostly the vets who are behind this. My gosh, they already charge and make a fortune, what will they want next, our blood??

Pam

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

I too was afraid it would come to this.

What are you proposing to do to reverse it?

 

[Sandra L.]

I too was afraid it would come to this.

What are you proposing to do to reverse it?

Ideally, I want to be the one who decides what treatment and who does it for my horses. I resent the state of Okla. for dictating by law to me otherwise. I never had a chance to cast my vote for or against, they made up my mind for me.

I will take my horses out of state to have their dental work done, but they made it hard for me to take them all at once.

This Brian Renegar from Okla. needs to have tons of mail and e-mail from horse owners that are outraged by this law. I will find his mailing addresses and post them when I do.

Tx. has equine dentists that are suing the state over the law. Several states back east have ammended the law to accept qualified eq. dentists.

It is a fact that the squeaky wheel is the one that gets oiled. All of us need to band together and do some major squeaking.

 

[whimsical]

I recently just read an article that the Texas equine dentist have just now been granted a hearing in court for the Texas Board to respond to their actions. I hope the equine dentist come out victorious.

I believe if that happens it would stop these other states from following suit.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

[email protected]

Contact Information:

Representative Brian Renegar

2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 326

Oklahoma City, OK 73105

(405)557-7381

I will be contacting him.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I've been looking through the state site for this bill or something like it, and cannot find it. I may not know how to use the site properly, so I will wait till Monday and contact my local representative to find out what is going on before writing any letters.

http://www.gov.ok.gov/index.php

 

[Riverdance]

I worry about that spreading to all of the states or that Carl will give up his practice. Where I live no one is trained to do Mini teeth. My vets have offered, but they charge over $100 per horse, even if they end up not needing the work.

With 45 horses I would be broke all of the time.

Carl will go through my whole herd and just charge me for those that need the work.

I am afraid what will happen is that Mini's throughout the country will end up not getting the dental care they need. I am just so tired of our country being run by idiots. Either they want the money or the prestige.

 

[mizbeth]

Can the Institute of Justice help you in OK? They are working for Carl in Texas. If you need contact info email me and I will give you the attorney name and email address that I spoke with. I also have several letters/emails that I have used regarding this issue, and copies of letters of many others that have supported Carl in Texas. You are more than welcome to use them, alter them, get ideas from them.

Yes, most Vets here refer you to equine dental practioner. The DO NOT have the equipment to do them, NOR do they want to make the expediture to get them and then or course NO KNOWLEDGE of what and how to do it. I have stories to share of my own with Vets doing teeth, so just email me if you want to hear them. Most do not want to make farm calles either, they say they can make more money by working out of their office. This is a QUOTE BTW. Can you imagine loading up 30 horses to take to a Vets office, this is just my small farm. Gee I wonder how many trips that would be to get them done????????????????? I guess I could load them a big cattle hauler and take them and oops if they don't all have coggins for transport, since that is another issue not too well understood either.

Good luck!

Beth

Added:

Yes, the fee for Vets to do teeth (and not too well either) is upwards for 100.00 each.

What I am noticing here in Texas is they are trying to say that what a equine dental practioner does is "invasive". NOTHING that any of the equine dental practioners that I have used is "invasive" by any stretch of the imagination. I looked up "invasive proceedures" in the wikopedia and included it in one of my letters. Invasive proceedures would be a violation of the Veternary practice and invasive means just that, cutting the gums, surgery, skin etc., prescribing or using controlled substances without a license would also be a violation. That would be the same as an Registered Nurse prescribing medicines for you to take, the prescription must come a licensed MD, DO etc. I am sure this bill can be countered. Is there a Representative that is charge of Agriculture or is it this guy you mentioned? Luckily we have a Representative here that uses a Equine Dental Practioner who has proposed a bill that will exclude Dental Practioners from the Vet law. Same as farriers, AI, and others are excluded now. Since the man mentioned in your post is a VET that pushed this bill through, I am assuming he thinks that what Dental Practioners do in regards to treatment and care is the same proceedure that he uses. (The Vet). He must know or learn to know that is not the case at all and that no violations of a Vet Act are taking place. Heaven help the farriers if he thinks that! They will be next.

 

[Genie]

Maybe the care of teeth could be called something else, like "the person is a dental specialist".

It's like hoof trimming, many of us are self trained farriers, and some people are just as adept at some minor filing on teeth, for the rough edges.

My point is how do you monitor what people do in their barn?

Where has "free enterprise" gone.

I do not think it's government's place in the barns of the country's population who are trying to make a living and contributing to their area in the form of shopping, paying taxes, keeping the local tack stores in business and the local mills.

If we are abusing our animals and not providing proper care then I am all for government (law enforcement) intervention.

If we are simply doing all we can for the health and happiness of our stock, then let me be the farmer and you look after the difficult challenges of running a country.

 

[Bess Kelly]

I am happy to say that VA has laws that allow equine dentistry....it requires certain training, documentation of work which is peer/vet reviewed, an exam, and certification. We also have some pretty good and aggressive animal cruelty laws in place.

Anyone looking to move? Our State Equine Board is alive and well. Plus good weather, nice land.

How's KY handling such dental works? With the horse population there, I would think the owners have had a handle on it but, maybe not......hey, look at TX !!!!!

 

[Sandee]

Someone said they will follow this and post the bill that is THE OFFENDER. Please do as we want the emails to look professional so they are not cast aside as coming from a bunch of loonies!

This is upsetting as my vet bought the tools to work on the minis but she really doesn't know what she's doing! When she looked at my first horse she thought she'd just file the points down and a cap popped out. "Oh," she says, "guess that takes care of that one." I mean she didn't even realize it was a cap until it came off!!!

Carl does my horses at Nationals and I rely on that very much. He's SOOOO good with them. He's pulled a broken tooth, popped caps etc. and my horses have never even bothered to move away from him.

I say this as I had another dentist come to my place from out of state (hard to find dentists as everyone knows) and this guy used an electric thingy to take off points and said to realign teeth meeting. By the time he was through my horses didn't want me or, the next time the vet came, her to mess with them. They hated the electric file (whatever) and my old guy even tried to rear and strike at the man several times and all he had done was points reduced.

If I could afford to "keep" Carl, I just move him here - but hey, no one in their right mind moves from Texas to Wisconsin.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I called the State office today and found out the measure has not been filed yet. Probably next week. The receptionist said she will notify me when it is filed so I will know the exact language and what committee has it. If Renegar's constituents contact him, perhaps he will not file it after all.

 

[Becky]

Apparantly, there is a law in Oklahoma that went into effect in November regarding practicing veterinary medicine without a license. It is now a felony. You can read about it here. DVM Magazine

 

[mizbeth]

Thank you Becky

"It's a hot issue all right," says Gregory M. Dennis, legal counsel for the Kansas Veterinary Medical Association (KVMA) and the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association (MVMA) and a charter member of the American Veterinary Medical Law Association (AVMLA.)

"There have always been characters around doing these things, but now we're seeing more and more horrific damage done to animals by people who have no idea what they are doing."

I have seen more HORRIFIC damage done by a licensed Vet than ever with a practioner! The practioners I know do NOT practice Vet medicine and would not under any circumstances use drugs, medications of any sort, they are so good, effective, painless the horses don't need them. If drugs or surgeries are needed they refer to a Vet.

 

[wildoak]

Good luck. We've been fighting this in Texas for awhile now, and letters to the head of the Tx Vet Medical Examiners Board pretty much get stonewalled. As someone said though, there will now be a hearing to force the Board to justify what they have done, which is to change the interpretation of a law that has stood for many many years.

I could hire someone off the street to come castrate my horses or dehorn my cattle (if I had any

) and it would be perfectly legal. But heaven forbid they float teeth........

Jan

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Just talked to our County Extension Agent. He knew nothing about such a law. but he said he is going to the district meeting tomorrow and the Animal Science guy from OSU would be there. He would ask about this and call me back. He felt as though he would have received some sort of notice about such a law.

 

[Keri]

How crazy!!! And what does this law do but harm the horses???

I had vets do my mini teeth for years. But after moving, I can't find a vet that would perform the task at a reasonable price or who even have the tools. I just found a dental specialist who will do them at $50 a peice and is specialized in it. So I hope this law doesn't cause a ripple affect across the US!

 

[Texasspook]

As far as Texas goes the Texas Vet State Board hasn't listened so I have written my state representatives, as well as Rep. Sid Miller who is introducing a bill to support exempting equine floatation from the Veterinary Act telling them why I support this. I have let all of them know that I have contacted the head of out State Vet Board, Dewey Helmcamp several times, and sent them copies of the letters. This web site helps you find who represents you in Texas: http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/

I am usually a lurker here but this is too important to us as I also use Carl after having vets oversedate and hamburger my mini's mouths.

Thanks

Traci

 

[wildoak]

I hope this law doesn't cause a ripple affect across the US!

If Oklahoma is just now bringing this up, you are already way down the ripple so to speak! It has already been addressed in a number of states with varying outcomes.

Jan