Prairie Schooner Equine Services

04/04/2026

A quick follow up

To anyone who feels that the Provincial Veterinary Service (PVS) is the way veterinary services should be delivered in our province, I ask you to take a moment and reflect on what you are supporting.

Is it a free service? No!
Do they charge a fee? Yes, and in some cases, it is above what a private practice would charge for
the same service.

So why is it being presented as a poor use of tax payers’ dollars? The simple answer is “Management” or maybe I should say “Mismanagement”. It has been allowed to become a service to the lucky few. A publicly funded service meant to support N.B. agriculture has become a subsidized service to companion animal owners. Did you know that only 25% of their time is given to actual livestock producers?

The PVS cost N.B. far too much for a service that doesn’t serve all residents fairly. All you who are singing its praises are among the lucky few who can access their services. There are still animal owners and agricultural producers who are being refused access to veterinary care through the PVS.

- New to the Province – Can’t access service
- Retiring and looking forward to owning a horse – Can’t access service
- Things going well on your farm, no calls for a (?) period – Can’t access service
- And the list goes on …

To everyone who has been posting that “The sky is falling”, stop and look around where you live. I bet you all know of a friend or neighbour who has been refused service by the PVS, but instead of offering solutions, you are selfishly advocating for the maintenance of a system that has served you to your satisfaction in the past even though it has left others without service.

Everyone needs to be looking forward, looking for new ways to provide large animal veterinary services to both agricultural producers and companion animal owners (horses, lamas, goats, exotics, even the back- yard cow).

If all of us who are hoping for a better system are quiet, then “The squeaky wheel will get the grease” and improvements will not get made. There will continue to be N.B. residents not able to access a N.B. public service. There will still be animals left without access to veterinary care. There will still be people, livestock and investment leave this province.

So, I urge you all to become proactive and support the veterinarians you know and trust, let them know how much you appreciate their services. Help those who feel committed and connected to you and your animals to feel confident in taking the necessary steps to provide continued, uninterrupted service.

03/18/2026

Well I hate to say “ I told you so”, but here we are in the days after the government has indicated that they will be closing the Provincial Veterinary Service (PVS), and what is the public response;
- How can they be so disrespectful
- Don’t they understand the value of veterinary service to the agricultural sector
- Who is going to take care of my animals

You are all looking at this from the wrong direction. They are not saying the veterinarians were not doing a good job, the issue is that the system has been a huge expense to the province since its inception. It has never been able to provide an adequate level of service at a cost that would benefit all large animal owners or producers in our province.

If you talk to any group of animal owners, you will find that there are several who are not able to access veterinary service from the PVS. This publicly funded, government organization is selectively providing service to the clients that match their ever-changing criteria to qualify. As a New Brunswick resident every livestock owner should be eligible for service. New residents to our province are not eligible, clients who have lived here their entire life and used the service for decades can be denied service if they miss making an appointment within a specified time. To protest and insist that the province continue to deliver veterinary services via the PVS is only going to benefit the lucky few who currently are on their list of serviceable clients. This is unfair and possibly illegal!

Their attempts to fix things always involved more management and fewer boots on the ground resulting in ever escalating cost.

I have heard so many of you say that you have continued to support the PVS because without them you would not have any service. But by doing so you have made it difficult for private veterinary services to exist.

So now we get to the situation I have been trying to explain to everyone for years, the only way to get more private service is to stop using the PVS. To do so at the filp of a switch would produce a period of a severe shortage of veterinary services but the government is suggesting to do it over a period of three years which I feel is an excellent idea. This will allow time for private clinics to gear up to provide a level of service as indicated by good old supply and demand.

You all have your favourite veterinarian, well then get out there and let them know that if they were to start a practice that you would continue to support them. And if they don’t want to be a single vet on their own, well they already work with a team of veterinarians and staff, start a partnership.

Instead of looking at this as a crisis, this should be seen as a Golden Opportunity for the veterinarians working at the PVS to start their own clinic. Build it where they want, work with who they want, do the type of cases they love, expand into areas of their own special interest, get that CE to improve skills in their area of interest. One of the hardest parts of starting a business is to get enough clientele to use your service. Well the veterinarians working for the PVS already have the clients, they just need to open a door!

The other concern that many clients have expressed is that the private clinics will be more expensive. That is just not true. A well-run private clinic could provide the same service for the same price, and in some cases even less, and be a profitable business due to the reduced overhead of the government service. This is then a win / win for everyone. Clients continue to get service from a clinic that can expand to meet demands or provide specialized services from veterinarians they already know and trust, the province saves millions that it can use to help schools, health care, roads … and the local economy of several communities gets an injection if business revenue.

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06/04/2025

In case any one knows someone with horses who may be considering moving to New Brunswick, or has a child who expresses an interest in becoming a large animal veterinarian in New Brunswick, please take a few moments to read the following post .

Government creates a Monopoly to Eliminate Private Clinics

Some of you may remember my post prior to the N.B. provincial election where I warned all Horse owners that if the Provincial Veterinary Service (PVS) was allowed to continue on its current path, that you would be allowing them to establish a monopoly over the provision of veterinary services to horse owners. Well by now I am sure many of you have already received a letter from the PVS (March 31, 2025) outlining exactly how they fully intend to create that monopoly and even worse they have openly stated that they want all Horse and Cattle work.

The PVS has presented the residents of New Brunswick with an ultimatum:
- Use only the Provincial Veterinary Service for all your large animal veterinary needs
- Failure to do so will results in indefinite / permanent withdrawal of all publicly funded veterinary services

These are public services funded by tax dollars of all New Brunswickers, including those who will be denied service if they do not meet PVS’s demands. Given this, I question whether the government’s actions are even legal.

Let me start with one simple quote from their letter:

“The basic eligibility for receiving veterinary services are as follows:
You must NOT already have a VCPR with a private clinic”

Many of my clients use several different service providers. Often, I will be in a barn providing service to one of my clients moments after they have finished receiving service from a fellow veterinarian. I will sometimes wait for the first veterinarian to finish and then after a short friendly conversation, I will proceed to provide my service. I don’t refuse my client service for choosing another veterinarian, even if that service is one that I also offer. That is just the way the world works. Clients deal with several clinics to get preferred or specialized services from different providers.

What we are witnessing here is a branch of the N.B. government working to crush private enterprise and create a monopoly for themselves. They are threatening to deny services to tax paying citizens if they will not accept the government as the exclusive provider in an otherwise private industry.

How can anyone even imagine this is acceptable? Owners of horses and cattle should be able to choose the service provider they feel best delivers the skills they are looking for.
What if you are looking for a second opinion, what if you need a referral? Will you first have to check with the PVS to see if they approve of your choice for veterinary service?

This ridiculous system has been allowed to exist for far too long. It has been, and continues to be, the barrier to the provision of veterinary services by private veterinarians.

This is a publicly funded provincial government Service that should only serve the taxpaying public. How can they refuse to serve any New Brunswick resident, not just the few that sometimes match their ever-changing list of requirements for service?

The PVS struggles to meet the needs of New Brunswickers, and from what I understand, this is largely due to being short staffed. And so, they of course have difficult decisions to make, but the ultimatum threatening unfair denial of service is not the appropriate response.

If they are short staffed they need to work on
1) Recruitment
2) Mentorship - to help the new hires feel more confident, maybe even have them job shadow a private veterinarian skilled in a particular field.
3) Salary – offer a competitive wage
4) Triage – learn how to use existing staff efficiently
5) Co-operation with private veterinarians.

I currently provide some of the highest level of Equine Dental and Lameness services in the maritimes, however, I am tired of watching my clients struggle to access basic veterinary services from what is supposed to be a government service to the citizens of New Brunswick.

The old expression that comes to mind is “If you can’t beat them, join them”. So, I propose to do just that and present my clients with a choice of their own.

I have recommended to my clients several times to contact their Minister of Agriculture, their elected representative for their area, the Premier of the province, or anyone who will listen. Make your voice heard. Unfortunately, very few have followed through – they feel defeated before they start, assuming there is nothing they can do because no one listens.

So now I am making a public announcement: for Prairie Schooner Equine to continue offering service, all barns must show me a copy of a letter they have written to one of the above. I don’t care if it is for or against myself or the PVS. I just want everyone to take a long hard look at how New Brunswick compares to other provinces or countries and decide if you think that the current delivery of services by the PVS is how veterinary service should be delivered to our province.

One last note, if any of you want to go to Fredericton and exercise your right to information I am sure you will find that in a province struggling to fund schools and hospitals, millions could be saved if the province got out of the veterinary business. That’s right, the PVS has been a very expensive, inefficient organization for many years. Currently agricultural producers pay a reduced, subsidized fee for veterinary services. If the province was to end the PVS tomorrow, I expect the government could pay 100% of the veterinary bills for agricultural producers from private veterinarians and it would require fewer tax dollars. It would result in a cost saving of several million dollars and private clinics would flourish in an environment where consumers only payed for quality service from the provider of their choice.

02/19/2025

Never too old to learn, I spent the day at AVC to observe and discuss a dental extraction. I now have a couple more techniques to use for our next field extraction.

06/23/2024

Just another comment on the use of hay nets. “There are nets and then there are nets”. What I have been noticing is that some nets have very tiny holes and they also tend to be the ones with the cable like mesh. I see the horses biting these small hole nets and pulling back on them like they are trying to pinch the hay out of the mesh and often making repeated bites to pull some hay through. And guess what, it is in those barns that I see the horses with the groves on their incisors. Not on all the horses as I said in my initial post, but just another “Heads up” to monitor your horse’s incisors if you are using a net and if you see groves appearing try a different style. The flat strap ones tend to have larger holes and some are even larger than the one example I have posted.

06/19/2024

Just had to share a few images of my wife’s flower garden ( which probably should be listed as a N. B. Attraction). I have to go for a walk through the gardens each day to see what may have just opened. She knows I love poppies with their petals like tissue paper and blossoms that may only last a day if it is windy, but she planted these new colours and they are just too perfect not to share.

05/31/2024

After a lot of thought and seeing the recent unrest in the Equine community, I felt compelled to share my opinion. If you decide to read the attached letter keep in mind that this is my summation of what I see and hear in the halls of the barns I visit. I don’t expect everyone to agree but I would ask that if you read it, please read to the end and just consider the points raised.

Large Animal Veterinary Service in New Brunswick

The letter to follow is the cumulation of a lot of frustration and sleepless nights. I have had to keep a pad by my bed so I can write down the thoughts that are racing through my head making it hard to sleep.
This will be a reflection on my thoughts regarding the delivery of veterinary services by our Provincial Veterinary service. Please note as you read through this that my concerns are not with the individual veterinarians, they are doing the best job they can, given the constraint imposed on them by their employer, The Provincial Veterinary Service, which has been the same mismanaged Public service for over 30 years under both Liberal and Conservative governments.
Over 30 years ago a provincial Veterinary service was established to increase the availability of veterinary services to agricultural livestock producers. The problem developed when they decided to include horses, companion animals, pets of those who had enough money to afford them. That was the beginning of a publicly funded organization providing service to the affluent few who could afford a horse.
I have gone to several, too many, meetings with the administration of the Provincial Veterinary Service (PVS), and never once did I come home and feel they had made any attempt to utilize input from the veterinary community. Not in the next week, next month, or next year. Instead, they continue to go about their business the same old way, ignoring the veterinary community in ways that would result in disciplinary action by the veterinary association for a private practitioner. At one of the last meetings I attended they were actually trying to redefine “Livestock” so it would include horses and then fit their mandate. Only a government organization has the luxury of “Changing the rules” if things aren’t going their way.
My feeling is that if the Province wants to be the provider of veterinary services to all large animals both agricultural (Cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens etc.) and companion animals (Horses; pet sheep, goats & llamas) then DO IT!!! Provide a good service, rather than an understaffed service that has made it impossible for private veterinarians to get established due to the use of public funds paying for all the cost associated with the delivery of their service (heat, lights, hydro, trucks, fuel, secretaries, license fees, etc.).
The government has imposed a service that no one would use if they had a choice. Don’t get me wrong, as I said it the opening paragraph, there are some good veterinarians working for the service and many of you are very happy with your favourite vet, when you can get them. But by forcing out private practice the public has no choice. Believe it or not, I have seen the provincial service buy the same equipment that I have acquired to provide a better service to my clients and when I ask them why, the answer is ‘to be able to Compete”. So now my competition is a publicly funded organization using my own tax dollars to offer a similar service. It makes it impossible for choice to be offered, who can compete with a business that doesn’t have to satisfy customers and exist even when it doesn’t pay for itself.

And now things get really interesting, this Government Funded and Controlled organization has decided that some of you – Life long New Brunswick residents – don’t qualify for service from this Provincial Organization.
Wait, it gets better, under the new protocol if you just moved here and had one of the Provincial Vets out one day before they implemented their new “Triage System” , then you can continue to receive services, but a life time resident of the province who had used the service for 20 or 30+ years and due to a bit of good fortune had not made a call to the service in the last two years , then you are out of luck. A veterinarian will not come to your location no matter how urgent the need. Even though you are paying for the service to exist through your taxes.
How can a publicly funded organization “Pick and Choose” who to serve. I understand they have a staff shortage right now, so does the human medical field. What they are doing would be like the Moncton Hospital refusing services to the public since it has been a couple of years since you were really sick, or maybe our overworked and crowed school system telling parents their child can’t come to school because it has been two years since your last child started.
Sometimes when you are really busy, patients will have a longer wait time, look at the ER room at the hospital, but when a child breaks a leg skiing, or your loved one suffers a heart attack, they aren’t turned away.

And here comes the ironic twist. The public has decided that if that is the game you want to play then so be it. Now owners are calling to have their horses “Vaccinated “so they will qualify as having made a recent request for services. What could be a greater waste of time for a service with limited personnel than to be out doing vaccines. Make no mistake, I am a huge believer in the value of vaccines for animal health, but it doesn’t require a veterinarian to give a tetanus shot. (Rabies is the only exception) How many cow and swine farmers call a veterinarian out to do vaccines of individual animals … very few, if any. They simply purchase the vaccines and administer it to their animals themselves.
Now veterinary staff that is having difficulty to service the demand for situations requiring skilled veterinary services are spending parts of their days doing services that don’t require a veterinarian.

So, what is the solution? There is no easy, quick way out. This system, although it is the only one of its kind in all of Canada or USA, has become deeply ingrained. It should be noted that the rest of this country does just fine without spending public money on a veterinary service. This has been a money losing organization since its inception, costing the province, me and you, several million more than it generates, but people continue to use it for fear of having no service.

But look what it has done. It has kept private practice from developing or investing in the large animal or equine sectors. It has driven away a lot of young new veterinarians, and now in a time of staff shortages no one is happy. Overworked veterinarians are being booked to do routine vaccines while many more urgent calls wait or are told they are on their own.

If the Provincial Veterinary Service just got out of (Quit) doing horses and stuck to doing agricultural animals they might have sufficient personnel to respond to doing what the department was initially established to do … an “Agricultural service providing service to the Agricultural Community”

Many of you may not want to hear it, but you have enabled this organization by continuing to use a sub-par system. I can’t imagine clients calling me back if I provided a similar service. The only solution is to stop using the PVS for ALL Horse work. Yes there will be turbulent times, but private clinics will develop, it may even be a golden opportunity for some of your favourite veterinarians to start their own practice.

05/25/2024

A lot of owners are using Hay nets these days and they do have a lot of benefits. I have seen a large reduction in stabled horse habits since they spend more time extracting their feed from the net, however … I have also started to see a lot of incisors defects in horses whose stalls show no signs of chewing the walls, the bars show no signs of rubbing and the owners tell me they don’t crib on post or feeders. The only thing they have in common is the introduction of hay nets since their last dental visit.
This is not a well designed scientific study, just an observation and a suggestion for owners to monitor their horse’s incisors if you start to use Hay nets. Today everyone has a camera in their pocket so I recommend for owners to take a photo of their hoses incisors before and after a few months of using net.

07/15/2023

Eight years ago after almost 25 years of doing Equine dentistry I took my first course in Major cheek tooth extraction. Then I headed home, bought a couple of tools and scheduled an appointment with a client’s horse that I knew needed attention and with the help of a very competent assistant, Carolyn Train, we were successful.

Now 8 years and 3500 + horses later with a few more tools and with the help of Dr. Carolyn Train another nasty cheek tooth is extracted. Nice to know we have another Veterinarian in our area interested in Equine dentistry.

01/30/2023

Then for the ultimate test, our little granddaughter off to round up the cows in her imagination. Just needed a little leg up on mounting box. 😊

01/30/2023

Then came the day to pick up little “Rusty” from the Repair Shop. The work here was done by Brian Hansen from Heritage Signs, a real artist and craftsman when it come to restoring antiques.