Tuesday 7 April 2015

Changing bases - Merlin's 5 week update

Apologies for the long blog break - there was so much to do in the run-up to Easter that blogging had to take a back seat. Now we have better weather (at last!) and things are calming down so normal service will be resumed...

Merlin has been here for 5 weeks now and is making great progress. Amanda came to see him before Easter and we took the opportunity to film him and assess him on a circle but what I didn't manage at the time were photos.

Only a week later (sorry about that!) here are his 5 week photos instead...
Interesting for lots of reasons. Firstly the nail holes are nearly grown out. Secondly his toe is vastly shorter and his heel is more supportive and less under-run. 

Compare these photos and imagine how his foot loaded in its shoe. Try standing up yourself and then moving both feet half an inch further forward. You'll find you lose your balance and are constantly trying to bring your feet back under you into a more supportive position. 
Out of a shoe Merlin can re-establish his own foot balance, which means weighting the back of the foot and allowing it to become stronger. He has been able to do this relatively quickly because he already had fairly good feet with frogs and heels which were capable of rapid improvement. 

He was landing flat/toe first when he arrived but had developed a heel first landing by week 4. 
His frog is now receiving more stimulus and has become more robust as a result. You can also I hope see the change in his digital cushion, also developing as he now has a better landing. 


This is his lamer foot and its good to see similar positive changes here. He is also much sounder now on the right rein and should continue to improve over the next few weeks. 

It will be interesting to see whether the twist which was apparent in this limb when he arrived straightens out as his feet change. I suspect it will - but we shall see!
From this angle you can see that the lateral wall was longer than the medial. I think this is beginning to even out but only time will tell.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Fantastic work! :)