8. Any person lawfully engaged in the art or profession of farriery.

A simple strikethrough of Section 6(8) in the American Veterinary Medical Association’s (AVMA) proposed Model Veterinary Practice Act (MVPA) has raised a multitude of questions in the farrier industry. The most common of which is, “Why propose the elimination of the farrier exemption?”

According to the AVMA, the exemption isn’t necessary because the work of farriers is well established.

“The proposed removal of ‘farriery’ from the exemption section of the MVPA is in no way an attempt to ban farriers from working independently or require a veterinarian to be involved in shoeing a horse,” Michael San Filippo, the AVMA’s senior media relations specialist, wrote in an email to American Farriers Journal and others. “Rather, it is an acknowledgment that farriery exists well outside of the definition of veterinary medicine and does not need…