Meet Julie, trimming in Suffolk and Norfolk

To introduce myself to those who don’t know me already - I’m Julie, one of Lucy’s newest Barefoot South Associates.  I’m based in Mid Suffolk and I’m offering trimming services in Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as parts of Essex and Cambridgeshire.

I’ve had two main passions for as long as I can remember, horses and dance.  The dance seeming to give me a true understanding of the balance, movement and grace that is seen in a fit, healthy horse.  I could also see that some of the horses I was working with didn’t have that same ease of movement as their wild counterparts but, at the time, I couldn’t figure out why.

Then I met Mr Thomas.  

If I’m honest, when I first bought Mr T he was a bit of a train wreck.  The words used in his description should have included; lame, navicular, sheared heels, thrush...you can see where we’re going…

Try as I might I could not get him sound and, to cut a (very) long story short, I stumbled somewhat blindly into the world of the unshod horse.

After many wrong turns, frustrations and research I found Barefoot South and a place where I could learn about diet, exercise, environment and the barefoot trim without it all being a big secret.  It was a bit of a revelation.

I decided that I would train as a trimmer and from then, everything changed – after two years of studying I passed my exams, meeting both the expectations of Barefoot South and the requirements of the Equine Barefoot Care National Occupational Standards.

Having confirmed my status as a hoof geek (I’m always happy to expand on my geek credentials) I want to help owners to help their horses find their balance, movement and grace and go on to do fantastic things – whatever that might mean to them.

Oh, and Mr T?  He’s sound.

I can’t wait to see where this new journey takes me. 



To make an appointment with Julie contact Barefoot South click on this link to our contact form                   

A day in the life of a Barefoot South student

Hi there, I’m Michelle. Some of you will have already met me and others will have heard that Lucy has taken on a student. Well that’s me and Lucy has set me the challenge of telling you about a day in the life of a Barefoot South student, so here goes.

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.

Barefoot Fred - loses his stilettos and turns back the clock

LH - left 14/10/10; right 01/12/10

This is Fred, first met in October.  He used to trip, a lot!.  The hoof care professional looking after him was unwilling to remove any hoof height 'couldn't be done'.

So to start with on 14/10/10 (left hand picture) we removed his shoes.  He stopped tripping after his first post deshoeing trim.  Since then he has been hacking mostly on the road, but also on some softer field and woodland surfaces. 

With two further trims and his own efforts you can see the foot is much shorter.

Buff/orange line - to help me line up coronary bands
Red lines (both the same length) - to check I've sized the pictures properly
Red circle - nail holes
Blue lines (both the same length) - shows the difference in toe length of hoof

His 'Mum' commented yesterday that he is in overall better health, seems younger, happier and more comfortable (to ride) and in himself.  And he is standing so much better too - and he is 'smiling' :-)

We still have to work on decontraction and somewhat dodgy frogs, but not bad for under 7 weeks :-)

Let there be light...... part one

Pre cleaning heel/sole view

Partly cleaned heel/sole view

Partly cleaned oblique view

Remember the previous hoof care professional wouldn't trim this horse because 'there was nothing to take off'.

A different foot to the previous one, bur suitably grotty.......

Can you see how just be cleaning the chalk from the sole that there is a better view of just how much excess hoof wall there is?  For newbies - chalk is dead 'chalky' sole which if the hoof was working hard enough in the right environment would have worn away naturally.  Many domestic horses just don't work hard enough on abrasive enough terrain, so the job of the trimmer is to remove (only) what nature would have taken given the chance.

Pictures post trim to follow.

'Houston - we have touch down.........'

Or bearing in mind the rain yesterday and the fact that Apollo 13 landed in the sea, perhaps that should be 'splash down'.

Remember Fred?  He of the staggeringly high heels that made Victoria Beckham look like an amateur in the stiletto stakes?

Fred has been out of shoes for 12 days.  He is being exercised and is sound, including over limestone chippings.  I have recommended a restricted regime to give him a chance to adjust to his new style feet and he will start a 'foot fitness' programme.  Fred no longer trips.

If you are not an experienced barefooter - don't worry he hasn't worn his feet down to the bone - they are gradually reaching the height and shape they should be.  It will be a while before they are fully restored to full foot health, but Fred is well on the way.  And he is certainly very happy and sound, which is what matters.

More photos over the next week or so.

Hind side view day with shoe day one



Hind side view 12 days post deshoeing





Hind heel with shoe day one



Hind heel 12 days post deshoeing

And the good news is

We have another horse come sound.

As alway no names no finger pointing, just the facts as related to me, so we can all learn and hopefully more horses can lead healthy, productive iron free lives.

So scenario is:

Young, unbroken, furry
Acute lameness, one fore with heat
Diagnosis unclear, but vet and other equine professional advice was to shoe

Carer sought third opinion from an AANHCP member, who (to cut long story short) advised a diet change.

I was called for a visual consult.

Solar before

Heel before

Solar after

This horse was not horribly trimmed, in fact it was by far one of the better 'pasture' trims I have seen.  The heels were not staggeringly high and had a reasonable balance.  But the horse at this point was still lame.

The carer and I talked things through and the carer requested a trim.

One of the things you will notice in the 'before' solar and heel shots is the stretch in the white line.  Not the worst but not 'tight' either.  Once the crud was removed there was evidence of blood in the white line of the sore foot.  So the previous advice to amend the diet was right on the nail (no pun intended).


The trim was completed in accordance with the AANHCP guidelines and future diet and exercise were discussed.

Both I and the owner were delighted when the horse came sound.  And from the feedback I have received he is continuing to be sound over a variety of quite challenging surfaces including the dreaded limestone chippings.

It's the apparently small things that make all the difference - tweak the diet, get a proper roll, keep the heels where they should be.  And none of these cost a fortune.

Contracted tall hooves

Right hind shod six weeks previous

Right hind initial trim

Right hind solar with shoe



Right hind deshod before trim


















Right hind heels



Right hind partially cleaned



Right hind solar initial trim

























































































This is a hind foot from the tall footed horse in 'Tripping'  . To be honest you can see feet like this on most large yards. Now I often read on forums that abc breed is unsuitable for barefoot because of xyz. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that some breeds are particularly unsuited to being shod. Because the challenges seen above seem to happen to them more often. But maybe that is just the luck of my draw.

The second photo shows the side view post initial trim - can you see the quarter scoop (ok it is kind of hard to miss). On some horses it is barely noticeable. This guy needed something more substantial. If a horse needs a QS and doesn't get it then in my experience the coronary band becomes pushed up (distorted) and quarter cracks and bruising can result; depending on what else is going on. When the quarter is relieved the distortion in the coronary band usually drops out quite quickly.

Just looking at the flat solar shots - well again you see this every day - it is accepted as normal.  I don't know many people with shod horses who would really think twice on the initial shod solar view.  I didn't use to(about 20 years ago mind.)

But if you then look at the heel view - now you can start to see that the foot is contracted, the walls are tall and the thrushy frog is getting buried in sole.

The next picture is designed to show you what the foot looks like when just the chalky sole has been cleaned out.  Hopefully you will get an idea of the depth (remember you can make the pictures bigger by clicking on them) and if you look at the far wall in the heel/quarter area you can see that it rises above the sole by a good 1cm (not quite half inch for the US).  We could have probably got more sole out, but I allow the horse two weeks or so to self exfoliate (and for the owner to get used to the changes) before coming back and checking progress and doing any further trimming required at that stage.

Often with these cases the foot undergoes rapid change in the early weeks and usually the horse is just fine, but the owner might get anxious.  It is important that they know I am coming out so that they can ask questions in the flesh.

If you can, try expanding the photo of the Right hind solar initial trim (the last picture).  Look at top left hand side where the nail holes are.  It would appear that two of the nails were inside the water line, this means they were in the white line; ie in the equine equivalent of the nail bed. It happens more often than is talked about.  Don't blame the farriers, it is almost inevitable that it will happen sometimes. (But do blame the habit of nailing things to living tissue.)

On a technical note and for reasons I can not explain (!) this entire trim was done only with nippers and rasp, no knife involved. Although if you saw the state of my wrists you might think that was a good idea! :-)

Does a deviated hoof need shoes?

4th Barefoot trim

Not quite sure how to draft this; I guess it is aimed at people who are thinking about taking the barefoot plunge, but are worried about the consequences.

Re the hoof in the pictures.  I am paraphrasing, but my understanding of the circumstances is this. The carer was advised that the hoof in these photos would be damaged if taken barefoot. It had a deviation and wouldn't be able to cope without a shoe.

The hoof has now had 4 barefoot trims, and typically works over a variety of surfaces 6 days a week, sometimes for several hours.

The hoof does have a deviation, but it is relatively minor and doesn't seem to trouble the horse.  We do take care to make sure the hoof is well balanced post trim.

Q.  Look at the front view and then the solar view.  What would happen if the hoof were trimmed from the top without taking proper reference to the landmarks in the solar view?

4th Barefoot trim - solar view

Recently deshod

Barefoot - know your landmarks

I was trimming a foot the other day and an observer told me I should 'Take a bit more off one side to make the foot symetrical.'. Well I didn't and I wouldn't.

Using a completely different foot belonging to a very kind volunteer I will try and explain why.

I must emphasise that the foot in the pictures is for demonstration purposes only and is not the foot which sparked this post.

The pink lines show the vertical and the green the horizontal planes. I hope you can see where and how the foot deviates from being symetrical.

If this were the foot in question the observer would want me to take off the portion of foot sticking out towards the bottom on the left hand side.

Now look at the solar view below.


The pink line bisects the centre of the foot. The green lines to the left and right are equal distances from the pink line. If (please don't) but if you followed the chop it off to make it symetrical theory then in this picture you would take out the right hand side. (Completely opposite to that suggested by the front view.)

Yes it's the same foot, the pictures are taken seconds apart on the same day.

If I had followed the observer's advice I would have ended up resecting the foot which is of course completely unacceptable.

I'll post a bit more about this later in the week. Questions welcome.

Scotland Rocks

I've just spent a week trimming with Nick Hill from Clover Rose Equine as part of my quest to be a better trimmer.

Great guy and if you are looking for a barefoot specialist in Scotland he is worth a call.

Over the course of the week we visited just about every shape and hue of horse there is. A great learning experience and I am glad I took the time to do it and very grateful for Nick's patience and generosity in sharing what he knows.

Barefoot hoof - building concavity

04 Sept 09 (photos 1 and 2)



07 Sept 09 (left photo - 3) 10 Oct 09 (right photo - 4)



29 Nov 09 (left photo - 5) 23 Dec 09 (right photo - 6)



12 Feb 10


All photos are of the same foot

This foot is an ongoing case study about building concavity.

In photos 1 and 2 you can see that if the walls were trimmed to remove the flare the horse would be walking on her convex sole. But if the flare is not removed there will be a leverage action on the already stretched white line which can be incredibly painful.

The sole is flaking and ready to shed; and we don't really know what is underneath. I prefer in these circumstances to let the horse self exfoliate, but there may be times when this is not possible.

Exfoliating the sole by hand is a highly skilled job. It is important to remove what nature would take, given the chance – but avoid cutting into the hard or live sole underneath.

Excessive thinning of the sole – often associated with preparing a foot for a shoe - can lead some people to think their horse will not be suitable for barefoot. At other times an attempt is made to carve concavity into the sole.

Both of these practices will just make the horse foot sore over rough/hard ground and vulnerable to injury. However if the horse is subsequently shod, the reduction in blood supply means the horse can not feel its feet properly so is unaware of the problem.

However some horses both shod and bare will develop a tin can foot – with a deeply compacted false sole. This should be removed, but it is entirely different from paring or carving the sole. Done correctly the sole will ‘pop’ out in several large chunks.

Photo 3 - three days later the sole has exfoliated quite substantially, but there is still some way to go. You can see the sole is very flat and there is very little depth in the collateral grooves.

Photo four - one month on; there is a little more depth in the collateral grooves and the sole has cleaned up a little more.

Photos 5 and 6 – another 7 and then 4 weeks. The foot has got ‘stuck’. Even though it is winter we do not have enough control of the sugar in this horse’s diet. We start to teach her to accept soaked hay. This is unusually difficult; a) she initially hates it and b) we have weeks of snow, frozen taps and no spare water for soaking. So what should be fairly easy takes several weeks.

Photo 7 – the horse has been on properly soaked hay for one week. If you scan across the sole you can see how it is building a ‘rim’ just inside the hoof wall. Often when building concavity an early step is the hoof putting in a rim of sole that often resembles a pretend shoe.

Provided the foot/horse is correctly managed this rim should build and grow and change until we end up with a neatly concave foot. Only time will tell if I can successfully manage this horse to the next step. But I know we are on the right track because the horse has gone from being footy over stones to quite comfortable.

Flat foot to concavity and some of the challenges

Taking your horse barefoot is both challenging and rewarding (when you get it right). It can also be very frustrating when you make a mistake. But trust me, even the most successful barefooter will have made mistakes. This is especially true in the more difficult environments where the ground is often wet and muddy and the grass grows fast and lush.

This post shows that you can make mistakes and recover and end up with a very sound, very happy horse.

The mare is working hard, on a very low sugar, high forage diet and over the summer successfully completes two novice endurance competitions.

In the last post the first three pictures showed a really tiny Western Pleasure QH foot (as well as others).

This is a hind foot from the same horse as it 'arrived' April '08 - you can still see the nail holes from when the shoes were pulled the previous Autumn(ish)./div>

Slightly bull nosed, stress rings and bruising are signs that all is not well.

An injured sacro illiac, some dodgy trimming, too much sugar and an abcess later the front foot looks like this in August '08.

The sole is on the point of bulging (now why didn't the farrier or the vet point this out?) There is flare, there is virtually no depth of collateral groove (so no depth of sole) and the wall is really thin. When the foot was cleaned you could also see blood in the white line. But I was very inexperienced at documenting things then so didn't know enough to clean the foot before taking the photo!

After 12 weeks of box rest for the sacro injury the horse is still lame. So we move her to a mini PP track and within two weeks she goes sound and shortly after that she is rideable.

Feet are still terrible though and being trimmed in ski tip fashion. See Dec '08 below.

The mare spends a month completely off grass and on gravel instead and has one 'proper' barefoot trim. Jan' 09 left below.

Back on grass PP track. The improvement in concavity continues - you can see the sole getting ready to flake and the back of the foot is looking better. But if you look at the heel bulbs (2nd picture) you can see some odd marks/damage. This was little abcesses blowing out of the back of the heel. It went on for some time and then just stopped.

Then we had a foreseeable disaster; which we only saw with hindsight! The grass grew (bad bad grass), the sole splatted and the mare got horribly bruised.

Then because of circumstances other than feet, the mare spent much of the summer stabled, being exercised 3 times a day and her feet started to heal. In the picture below you can see new concavity spreading out from the centre of the foot. The outer rim of sole is still pancake flat at this stage.

At this stage the mare is working hard, on a very low sugar, high forage diet and over the summer successfully completes two novice endurance competitions.

The left hand picture is of a freshly trimmed foot. You can see the thick wall, tight white line and the wear in the heel area. This foot is on the way!

In the right hand picture you can see here how the sole is naturally exfoliating and exposing new concavity. There is a dirty great hole in her frog where an abcess blew out. You can also see how much thicker the hoof walls is, even with a big roll.

Unfortunately it is possible to make the same mistake over and over again. In the Autumn the mare turns out again which is much better for her socially. There is a struggle with grass management and quite inadvertantly a high sugar product is added to her feed.

Once again the feet splat and she bruises her soles. You think we'd get the message by now :-) This mare can't handle sugar.

The results are felt not just in her feet, which lose concavity again, but also in temperament - the mare looks sad and tired even though she is not working so hard.

Her owner though is both fantastic and dedicated. The source of sugar is found and eliminated. The feet start to improve again.

But as the nights draw in and with a saddle problem the amount of exercise is cut drastically.

Now, I often hear how people are worried they will wear their horses feet to the bone. Well actually, if you manage your horse well the problem is actually the reverse. This horse's feet have been stimulated to the extent that they grow so fast the owner can't wear them out fast enough. And then when the exercise reduces you can get the problem as seen in the next picture.

This foot looks like it's trying to emulate the 'tin cans' I worked on in the States. Just because it's gone short of some wear. The sole is in reasonable nick, although the heels are getting long.

We trim the foot and as it adjusts to less wear the growth slows. By the next trim, we have lost the tin can effect, but the heels are on their way to the moon. The horse has developed thrush and the foot is starting to contract again.

You can see the stress rings from the sugar the mare had in the Autumn. The wall is really thick and I've put on a fat roll to enable her to break over properly without suffering mechanical leverage on the flare.

The owner has strict instructions to work the horse much harder, on a variety of surfaces, where ever she is comfortable. I know the owner has the dedication to put in the work.

But there is the rub - unless you are keeping your horse on a PP track with a variety of surfaces it takes a lot of exercise to give the horse hoof the stimulation it needs. Most people don't actually ride enough :-) So far from restricting the amount of exercise you can give your horse, you will probably need to give it more.

You will also need to manage your horse's diet and environment really carefully, with attention to detail and a consistant approach.

A few people have horses or conditions that make it really easy. But that kind of luck is as rare as hen's teeth in the UK.

As you can see from this video - the mare is very sound on gravel and if you can slo mo it you will see she has a solid heel first landing.

A pasture trim is not a high performance barefoot trim

This has been an incredibly hard post to complete. I've wept buckets throughout because the horses to which the hooves belong are especially dear to me, even though they are not necessarily my own.

Each of these horses has suffered unnecessarily because of human ignorance (and butt headedness).

And having thought about it, and reflected on all the evidence to hand, I have come to the conclusion that when farriers complain about barefoot trimmers taking 'their' business, they have only themselves to blame. If my local farriers were able to do a good barefoot trim I would never have had to learn how to do one myself.

But maybe it's really the farrier bodies that are to blame? My own ex farrier often complained that the farrier training syllabus, exams and competitions all focus on how to make/fit shoes - not how to trim a foot. In one three day farrier competition they may only do three feet. Heck in 3 days they should be able to do close to 40 times that amount and still do a good job.

The following pictures and information are all drawn from my personal experience. It's not scientific 'hard' data, but it may be more reliable than the stuff about climate change :-) At least I know the source and I have my hands on the evidence.

~~~

I used a farrier to trim my first barefoot horse for around 10 years. It was the same farrier who supported/encouraged me to keep my horse bare when I was facing much opposition and I will always be thankful for that.

Took me a while though (years) to figure out that the farrier's enthusiasm was running ahead of ability. I did a lot of road mileage on my mare and didn't realise that it was the self trimming which was working rather than the stuff I was paying for.

It was when I became involved with another laminitic horse, with poor feet that was not self trimming, that the flaws really started to show.

Look at the pictures below - do you see what I mean? The really tiny foot was not my farriers fault - it had been made that way by the not so wonderful practice among the western pleasure community of wanting tiny feet on their big buttocked horses. They would probably support chinese foot binding too.

But the practice of taking off huge chunks of the toe underneath (solar side) to effectively put a ski tip on the foot is all down to my ex farrier.

The second picture shows how the 'raw' edge of the trimmed foot hasn't been dressed. The third shows how the contracted foot has 'sucked in' at the quarters - look for the dark shadow running the full length of the quarter from coronary band to the edge of the wall. Its not well illustrated by these pictures but the coronary band is doing weird things too.



The fourth picture is the same horse months later. The farrier is still at it - ski tipping. But almost worse is the flare which has not been addressed. Huge opportunity for mechanical leverage (where the laminae get torn) and when this happens its very painful - imagine tearing your nails off the nail bed and you get the idea.

The 'ski tip' is also shown in the same farrier's trimming of another horse (fifth picture). It's not a good picture but you can probably still see what I mean. Another error is leaving in the deeply compacted false sole - you can see its been scratched and chipped at. The frog is very thrushy and has been packed out with dressing and lint.




The sixth picture is a whole new can of worms. Another false sole - so the farrier addresses the problem by carving back the heels and to the extent that the horse goes lame. And never in all the years I've been around horses (over 35) have I ever seen a regular farrier 'dress out' the wall edge of a barefoot horse. We all know that if you don't 'dress' the wall edge (mustang roll in american) then the hoof wall may chip and/or split.

I could go on but I think if you look at these pictures and then compare them with a properly completed barefoot trim I think you will see the difference. If not - post me and we can discuss.