So today I sat up at my barn for over two hours waiting for the farrier to arrive. I never received so much as a phone call, and she never showed! Everytime we schedule a time, she makes me the last stop of the day and never gets here on time!
I expect someone who has experience with horses to understand how frustrating it is to pull in the horses, pick their hooves, and have them stand for there for two hours! Its not just Farriers either, I know many trainers( including mine) who arrive late constantly. Punctuality is very important, especially when you have a few 1200 lb horses that need to cooperate. Anyone else had this happen to them lately?
My farrier now as I said before has been doing this for 28 years and he knows his clients,sometimes when we are making the next appt he will tell me"ohhh this is a group is bad,i will be late" so I tell him do them go eat luch then come out,just call when your leaving to go eat so I have an idea" and it finally works out really well. Now if only I could get everyone else to be as considerate all would be well in horseland!!LOL
I'm lucky with my farrier, dentist, vet, and trainer to respect me as much as I respect them and trying to be on-time (or give me a call about emergency). BTW, I have NO problem with running late because of emergency, and "late" for me anything more than 30 mins (because there can be traffic, etc.).
However I had a vet who was 2-3 hours late every time (NO calls about running late). Even if I was scheduled 1st time in morning and there was no emergency. After I had to take the whole day off work several times because of that I just switched to the different vet. Much happier now.
I have anybody coming out to the horses call me 30 min before they plan to be there. It saves me waiting around. I tend to confirm the morning they are due out that they are indeed coming out to me - saves the risk of somebody not showing up.
At work, our vet, dentist, blacksmith are on time without fail... I think they are scared to death of the boss lol. I have yet to see any of them late, if they are to be in for 3pm, they are there at 2:50.
Well My farrier is great he has only been late a handfull of times and has called me every time to let me know.
My vet on the other hand I am not particularly fond of. I only call him when I really have to because I have heard of some terrible things that have happened due to his treatment. He is the only large animal vet in my area though.
I waited for over 2 hours for him to arrive one afternoon, though he has never been anywhere near ontime even first thing in the morning. I could understand an hour or so outside of the organised time or if there was an emergency. When I called to ask if he was still coming because it was pretty much dark outside. I was told that he was getting his car fixed and it took longer than he expected.
Even though when he showed me it was cosmetic, nothing to stop the car working. I can understand he may not have been able to organise for any other time but he had organised to come to my place at the same time and what really got to me was he didn't even call me just to say look I'm running late. I didn't need a reason but he acted like I had all day to wait around for him.
Then I got annoyed because he basically billed me twice for the call out fee just called it two different things.
My farrier had the other side of this problem. He'd show up and people wouldn't even have the horses caught up. With the distances he covered his days just went from bad to worse. And cell reception here is pretty iffy, so calling ahead wasn't often an option.
He solved it by only seeing horses at his place. Then if he got held up because of a customer, those in line waiting would put enough pressure on the offender that they would either shape up or stop wasting his and everyone else's time.
Not really an issue I've ever had a problem with. My farrier is usually early, like I am scrambling when I get there because he's already set up, although he is comfortably getting horses out to start without me.
Things do come up. I've owned my gelding for 9 years (he's 9, do the math ) and had him out on a 2 month lease to my former trainer and got him back a week ago and he needed a trim, I called my farrier and he came out as soon as he could (the next day) and my usually sweet, very easy gelding was fussy and cranky. Apparently, being handled almost exclusively by kids 6-12yo did not sit well with him. We patiently worked with him, and it only took about a half hour, but he is usually done with him in 15 minutes or less as my boy is so easy and just a barefoot trim. Once my gelding realized it was his old buddy Doug he was a happy camper.
There are no shortage of farriers around here, but there is a MAJOR shortage of GOOD farriers. The good ones do not need us, they have wait lists and turn down clients all the time, but we sure need them. If my farrier wanted me to kiss his feet every time he came to shoe my horses, I would. Just sayin
My vet is usually on time too, especially an appointment planned well ahead. I know that things come up and usually plan that they might be late. I try to be accommodating, because they will be when needed! Whenever I've had a horse that needed an emergency call, they were right there. One time I had a clinic appointment for my mare's leg and my barn worker forgot and turned her out in the neighbor's pasture and she had somehow gotten stuck on the otherside of a creek and I had to wade into the creek to get her, and had to swing by my house and change so I was not wearing wet pants and shoes in 40 degree weather, they squeezed me in to the appointments even though I was almost 2 hours late.
Love my vet and farrier. I've told both of them they can never retire!!!
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