6am – I get up early to attend to my four horses. They all
live out 24/7 on a track and are fed ad-lib forage. I’m allergic to hay and
have been trialling them on haylage but after 4 weeks it’s clear that it isn’t
suiting them. All four have lost some of the concavity in their soles and one
of them has developed really soft frogs which are prone to infection despite
daily scrubbing. I’m amazed how much of a difference it’s made but it’s
unquestionable: my lot all grow better feet on soaked hay.
8am – Set off to meet Lucy armed with my essential flask of
tea – you never know how long it might be to the next cuppa in this job so best
go prepared!
9am – Our first client is a small native type who has been diagnosed
with PPID. We watch him walk across the stony car park and he walks over the
stones happily. I trim his front feet and he’s an absolute dream; not only does
he pick up each foot easily he actually holds the weight of his own leg which
makes trimming so much easier. He’s an absolute sweetie so we have lots of fuss
and cuddles too, always a bonus. Lucy trims his hind feet as he is a little
arthritic and can find it uncomfortable. I watch as Lucy takes the time to let
him relax his leg to where he finds it comfortable and she trims it there even
if it’s not in the easiest place for her. After trimming we watch him walk on
the same surface again and he’s moving very nicely, a slightly longer stride
than pre-trim. We aim to watch all our clients horses walk before and after
trimming to assess how they are moving and how the trim has altered that.
10am - Our second client has cancelled which leaves us time
to find a cafe and catch up on some admin; booking appointments and responding
to new enquiries. By pure coincidence we find somewhere selling cake.
12pm – Next up is an established client with a new horse. We
deshod him two weeks ago and tend to leave a couple of weeks before trimming.
His owner meets us direct from a clinic where he’s been moving forward and
striding out better than he did in his shoes. Despite this she’s been
‘helpfully’ told by onlookers that he looks a bit short so she’d probably
better shoe him! He has contracted heels from being shod but has all the
makings of really solid feet. Lucy trimmed him and we then watched him stride
out over the stoney car park really very well.
1pm – We have quite a long drive to the next client and we
use the time to discuss feet, trimming, nutrition, my horses, Lucy’s horse and
client horses. You name it and we chat about it as both of us are totally
fascinated by our work.
2.30pm – We’re booked to see a new client with one horse to
deshoe but it turns out to be two clients and two horses to deshoe! These
ladies have clearly done their research which is always a good starting point.
One horse has quite contracted feet that look like they’ve
been squished into too small shoes. They feel solid though and I’m sure he’ll
find his way to rock crunching fairly easily. I used to hear Lucy say to
clients “this foot feels lovely and solid” and not really get it. Somehow I
seem to have picked it up though because now I see other people give me the
same blank expression I gave Lucy. She’s right though, after handling so many
feet you can just feel that some are solid.
Our second new horse is in a bit more of a sorry state. He’s
been through all manner of remedial shoeing and is currently in wedge shoes
with pads. If his feet weren’t in such a sorry state I would find this almost
funny. In order to put the wedges on his heels have been cut very short, so
once shod his hooves are at exactly the same angle as they would have been if
they hadn’t bothered. I presume his pads are to protect his very thin soles,
except I can see knife marks in his sole where someone has tried to carve
concavity into them. Now I don’t need any of my training from Lucy to see that
cutting material off an already thin sole is, at best, illogical.
To add insult to injury (quite literally) this horse’s frogs
are so thrushy they’re almost entirely rotted out. His owner was very upset
that no one had told her this was not normal and needed addressing. It was
abundantly clear that if she’d known she’d have done something about it so it
begs the question of why no previous hoof care professional said anything. It’s
a question I can’t answer, but I can tell you it’s not at all uncommon and to
me it’s a clear sign that those hoof care professionals were not putting the
horse first.
So after much frog cleaning, applying thrush treatment and
measuring him for hoof boots we wrapped his feet in nappies to keep him
comfortable and his frogs clean until his new boots arrive. This owner has a
bit of a mountain to climb, but she’s determined to do what is best for her
horse, and now armed with the knowledge of how to deal with his thrush and keep
him comfortable I don’t doubt she’ll get there. She’ll have some ups and downs
but we’ll always be at the end of the phone and will drop by if she needs more
support.
6pm – We’re in the car and on our way home. After a few
minutes we both start sniffing around and realise we’re covered in thrushy ick
and the car absolutely stinks!
7pm – Arrive home and after a quick hello to my partner and
dogs I go out to feed, hay and poo pick for my gang and take a satisfied look
at their lovely feet.
Once home I reflect on the fact that Lucy and I do have to
have some difficult conversations with clients, usually about their horse’s
weight or thrushy feet, or sometimes behaviour. But one reason I decided to
train with Lucy was her mantra: “The Horses come First” and they really do.
Note: A week after this blog post we went back to visit our
deshoe clients and the lad with the thrushy frogs now has small but lovely firm
clean frogs. It’s clear his owner is putting in just as much effort as we hoped
she would and her horse is reaping the benefits already.
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