After all, your vet actually is human. Your vet is not a guardian angel. Your vet has no magic power. Your vet is an incredibly hard working human trying their best to diagnose a creature who can no speak. Do not expect miracles.
Your horse can't talk, but your vet can. Did you listen to your vet when told that your horse is dangerously over weight, fed too much sugar and given nearly no exercise?
Do you even allow your vet to tell you those things?
When your laminitic horse, who weighs three hundred more than it should has to be put down, do you tell people that "the vet did not even try to save it!"
Has your failure to train and control your horse created an animal is a true danger to the vet?
Do you get your horse care information from "people at the barn" or even worse, from social media for opinions on things like the effectiveness of diamataceous earth?
Where were you in the second grade when the teacher tried to explain the difference between facts and opinions?
Do you control your emotions while the vet is trying to make a difficult diagnosis or do you expect your vet to also be your grief counselor and emotional support?
I am a horse owner so it is my responsibility to stay up to date on medical issues involving my horses. The reality is, when I am confronted with a horse in serious distress and I am utterly at loss to know what the problem is, I have to recognize that there is a substantial chance that the horse is going to die. Of course, in such situations I immediately have the vet called out.
I hope for the best. I do not expect miracles. If one happens that is wonderful. If not, I would never dare complain that the vet, "did not do something." Over 1 in every twenty foals in a 2015 study died during the first 30 days of their lives. Do you think that vets should have always been able to "do something" to prevent these deaths. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/equine/downloads/equine15/Equine15_is_Mortality.pdf
And keep this in mind--the vast majority of colic cases are idiopathic. (That means no one, not even your vet, can figure out what caused the colic attack).
Our vets are The Oaks in Smithfield, Virginia. They do spectacular wok and have never once disappointed me.
Perhaps that is because I only ask them to be vets, not gods.
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