Drugs Eliminate Horsemanship From The Equation
Medication should be given when the horse asks for them. Medication allows the horse to cooperate with a painful procedure. This includes wolf tooth extraction, fractured tooth removal, and occasionally routine floating.
If the horse needs pain relief, medicating the horse allows for the completion of the float which is what you are paying for. This is the ethical use of medication in horses. With Horsemanship Dentistry, about 1 in 10 horses need medication. Half of those medicated are for procedures while the other half is for routine floating. This means that 1 horse in every 20 needs medication to help them overcome their fear of the dentist. This is based on my yearly statistics of medication used over the last 10 years.
The automatic use of medications for routine dentistry is unnecessary. What these dentists were never taught was how to perform dentistry without using medication. While being trained, they were taught that without drugs, only an incomplete float could be achieved. This thought is disproved every day using Horsemanship Dentistry.