Taz, the answer to every foot problem, Flynn E and a request for good vibes

I had an email from Lea, who has been keeping me up to date with Taz's progress.  Taz had an annoyingly persistent abscess/infection in his RH and Lea took him to the veterinary hospital where they dosed him with a serious course of antibiotics.  Fair enough, but what they didn't tell her (or her vet, or her farrier) was that they thought putting these on would be a good idea...

This was, according to the hospital, done "to take the loading off that wall"(!).  Both Lea, Russ (the farrier), her vet and I were gobsmacked and would love them to explain to us why they think that sticking shoes on takes the load off the wall in a horse who is already barefoot.  

To my eye, far from taking strain off the wall its actually tipped the load laterally and completely isolated it to the hoof wall - which is why they put in the filler, to get sole and frog stimulus - but wait - he already had that barefoot. In addition, the last thing you want in a limb which has had infection is to reduce circulation but - guess what - the shoe is doing that as well. 

Its so bonkers its actually laughable but  - as the saying goes - if all you have is a hammer...Sad, though, that a leading veterinary hospital simply put shoes and fillers on without bothering to think about what they were doing and what physiological effect it would have. 

Luckily, the shoes were only on for a matter of days and Russ has now whipped them off. Taz is barefoot again and, to quote her farrier: "Russ is pleased with his feet and has said the shoes and gel have done no harm in that short time" [and yes, Lea is very fortunate in her superb farrier :-)].

Lea also sent pics yesterday as Taz has a new mate...is it a dog? Is it a sheep?

No - its stumpy Jake!

Clearly Taz isn't going to have things all his own way.

There is also news of Flynn E, and that's where the plea for good vibes comes in.  He went home at the end of January and had been doing really well but over the last 4 weeks he and Stacy have had terrible luck.  First he started suddenly losing weight and was eventually diagnosed with an inability to process glucose.  Bizarrely his next door neighbour was also diagnosed with the same thing and Stacy suspects some sort of toxin affected them both.  

Poor Flynn lost over 100kg in weight but is now starting to recover, but as if that wasn't enough 2 weeks ago he came in with swelling on his face and its transpired that he has a fractured skull, probably a really unfortunate kick injury but its the last thing that he or Stacy needed. 

So, LOTS of blog good vibes for them please - you guys pulled it out of the bag for Paddy so now we need the same for Flynn :-)