Yesterday 6 weeks, today 7 weeks...

Today's rehab update focusses on Mr Knightley - he likes a decent kip as much as the next horse but luckily this hasn't stopped him improving his hooves. 

Mr Knightley has been here for 7 weeks, so he is a week ahead of Ted, whom I blogged about yesterday.  

Mr Knightley had been unshod for a long time before he arrived but, as you guys already know, although that can often be a step forward it doesn't guarantee healthy hooves.  Mr K came from a dry, hot environment but as his owner had spotted, he had quite a bad central sulcus infection in 3 out of 4 feet as well as poor hoof balance which had led to hind limb problems as well as front limb problems. 

Knightley's frogs still aren't perfect but his hooves are in much better proportion than they were when he arrived and have healthier soles as well. 

Knightley's hooves from the side give a clue as to how much his feet are changing.  The top photo shows him on the day he arrived and the lower photo is the same hoof today - a clear angle change and rapid growth over the last few weeks. 

Of course, not all of the hoof growth has happened over the last 7 weeks but its great to see his hooves rapidly strengthening. 

These photos give the clearest indications of why barefoot isn't the whole story.  Out of shoes on day 1 - above - Knightley still had high heels and a weak frog which wasn't strong enough to allow for a heel first landing.  You can also see the central sulcus split, or sheared heel.   

After 7 weeks, the hoof wall is lower, the frog and caudal hoof is much stronger and he is definitely getting there, even though he has a way to go.   

More updates to follow!

Nearly 6 weeks

Ted has now been here nearly 6 weeks and is the first update of 2012 - I have masses to put up so bear with me and I will try to get updates on all the rehab horses posted in the next few days.   Unfortunately the weather has made photos difficult - its dark even in  the barn, even during so-called daylight hours, so I apologise for the lighting issues(!).  

Flash isn't an option, as it distorts hoof angles, which is the last thing Ted needs - he has enough going on already!  Here are his feet at day one, which you may recall from the last update...

Here he is a few days afterwards - you can see how the foot initially looks collapsed without the wedges.  The angles are actually pretty much the same but without being jacked up behind the whole foot appears longer.

Its interesting that the wedge makes the hoof pastern axis appear better, but without actually building up the internal structures of the foot at all.

Below is the same foot taken yesterday - and if you look at the line of new growth, you can see that Ted is already determined to grow a hoof at a healthier angle - and one which will improve the whole hoof, from the inside out.  

 He has the most dramatic angle change I've seen since Zan started growing a new hoof capsule - it makes his toe look even longer but  - as you can see from the sole shots - there is nothing to be done from a trimming point of view without being excessively invasive.

Once the new angle is complete, his toe will be shorter and his heel in the right place - without the need for wedges or fillers.  More importantly, a stronger caudal hoof will allow him to land better: heel first instead of toe first.

Here is his LF - the worst foot - in his remedial shoe and today.  As is usually the case, the shoe was providing stability but not allowing the hoof to strengthen - that only happens when it can actually start to work.   Look at how long his hoof wall was in shoes - even though his foot still looks long at the toe, its much shorter and stronger than it was in bar shoes.  

And for completeness, his sole shot from a few days out of shoes...

and today...

...a much better frog and a hoof which is starting to get back to correct medio-lateral balance.

Over a thousand miles...

Its only the first week of January, but on Exmoor we're more than halfway through our hunting season and - incredibly (especially as I have been busier than ever and not able to get out as often as I would like) - our own 4 horses have already covered more than 1,000 hunting miles barefoot this season.

As usual, Felix and Charlie lead the way - both have more than 300 miles under their hooves and together they have clocked up more than 700 miles so far.  They should, with luck, and if their other seasons are any guide, have many more miles to go.

Bailey and Dexter don't get out as frequently but have nevertheless done well, especially as Dex is only in his first season and Exmoor is a tough test for any horse.

For me, their mileage is even more impressive because for the last couple of months the whole of Exmoor has been saturated.  We get a lot of rain at the best of times but this winter is something else - even farmers who have been here for decades are saying they haven't seen it as wet.

For the horses, who are already dealing with steep hills and sharp descents, this means that every mile is even harder work, through deep, slippery ground which is a drag on muscles and tendons.  Here's to some drier ground in the next few weeks...!

Progress and the healthy hoof

Its that odd time of year - the hiatus before the New Year really gets under way.  My inclination is to look forward and be optimistic but its still midwinter, the days are short and the weather is unkind and its a time when you can't avoid being realistic.

Over the last year, more horses than ever have come here for rehab and more and more owners have educated themselves about hoof health and lameness.

But will this be the year that vets start educating themselves about hooves?

Of course I've been fortunate enough to meet some brilliant vets - sceptical but open-minded, which is the best combination.  But I've also met complete indifference and sadly this is the more common reaction.

As I said last year, I'd understand completely if the view was "we're interested but we need more research".  I would be ecstatic if someone was intrigued enough to use the research results I've got and analyse them further, or develop more research - which is something I don't have the skills to do.

I find indifference frustrating, though, particularly when for many of these horses everything else has been tried and has failed.

This is a post I seem to write in one form or another most years; maybe next year I will be writing a different post.

I think for that to happen, though, vets would need to become familiar with something which I think most of them have never seen: a healthy, hard-working unshod hoof.

I know many of you will have read the following quote before, but its so good that I make no apologies for posting it again.  It still sends a chill down my spine whenever I read it.  It was written by David Wootton in his excellent book, "Bad Medicine"; if you don't know it, do read it if you've got a minute, because its an incredible piece of writing:

"Think for a moment what surgery was like before the invention of anaesthesia in 1842...  Imagine taking pride above all in the speed with which you wield the knife - speed was essential, for the shock of an operation could itself be a major factor in bringing about the patient's death.  


Now think about this: in 1795 a doctor discovered that inhaling nitrous oxide killed pain..yet no surgeon experimented with this.  The use of anaesthetics was pioneered not by surgeons but by humble dentists.  


One of the first practitioners of painless dentistry, Horace Wells, was driven to suicide by the hostility of the medical profession.


When anaesthesia was first employed in London in 1846 it was called a "Yankee dodge".  In other words, practising anaesthesia felt like cheating.   Most of the characteristics that the surgeon had developed - the indifference, the strength, the pride, the sheer speed - were suddenly irrelevant. 


 Why did it take 50 years to invent anaesthesia?  Any answer has to recognise the emotional investment that surgeons had made in becoming a certain sort of person with a certain sort of skills, and the difficulty of abandoning that self-image.


If we turn to other discoveries we find that they too have the puzzling feature of unnecessary delay...if we start looking at progress we find we actually need to tell a story of delay as well as a story of discovery, and in order to make sense of these delays we need to turn away from the inflexible logic of discovery and look at other factors: the role of emotions, the limits of imagination, the conservatism of institutions.


If you want to think about what progress really means, then you need to imagine what it was like to have become so accustomed to the screams of patients that they seemed perfectly natural and normal...you must first understand what stands in the way of progress"

2011

So how did you find this past year?

Looking back and looking forward

I've had a few updates in on former rehab horses, so by way of a "Happy New Year" to them and all the other rehabs, here is their news...

Lea sent me this lovely photos of Taz; we nicknamed him the Police Horse when she rode out here with double reins and full high viz and here they are looking the part - since the Houston mounted police are barefoot, perhaps Taz is blazing a new UK trail!

I've also heard from Tiffany that Oscar's feet are doing well, but unfortunately no action shots of him because he has developed gastric ulcers but fingers crossed that he will be out and about again early next year. 

Lenny and owner Aileen have also emailed - this time its Aileen who has been under the weather but she has nevertheless valiantly managed to keep Lenny in work!

"Just a quick e mail to let you know that Lenny is still doing well. He has had a bit of an easy time of it over the last couple of weeks as I have had flu followed by a chest infection, but I have managed to keep him ticking over. Despite the lack of work his feet are looking fairly good. Hopefully now that I am feeling better I can 

 get his work levels up again.
 
 His back is changing shape so fast that I can't keep up with him! He had another saddle fitting a few of weeks 
 ago and the saddler said she was very pleased with how much it had  changed since he got his new saddle, since then his back has changed  again and I need to book another fitting!. He is standing much better  now, his front legs are straighter rather than under him and his back  has risen up and his shoulders widened out. All in all he looks a much better shape. "

Great news, and Happy New Year to you all :-)

The hoof as a magnifying glass

Wiola posted a great comment on my Christmas message post and I wanted to highlight it here.

"I totally agree with "leave alone if horse gets worse with trimming" as duly taught by Kingsley. 

Just a random thought - seeing hooves are always changing in response to work the horse does...and seeing the shape and sensitivity is dynamic and changes in response to biomechanics and diet etc....

Seeing all that, I wonder if leaving hooves without shoes AND corrective trimming would make us all pay more attention to how we school/train/compete our horses.

If, let's say, schooling/dressage a horse with weak back muscle at a level it is not ready for, in hollow outline and by a rider with underdeveloped seat would cause the horse degree of back pain that would quickly lead to more limb strain that would then lead to sensitivity in bare feet/lameness then perhaps the whole training would become wiser. 

As it is, so many issues in the horses' bodies that are the results of uneducated riding can go on and on for a year or longer. These issues are "treated" and "cured" for a moment only to resurface with greater force and show up as lameness. 

Perhaps having horses barefoot and largely self-trimming, a horse that shows any issues in weeks or days rather than years, we would grow more sensitive to training the whole horse and be more tune in to their needs and body issues."

This is sentiment I completely agree with and for me its one of the biggest benefits - and biggest trials - of having a barefoot horse: it is much, much more difficult to overlook a problem when a horse is barefoot.

This is true whether the issue is lack of training or a biomechanical issue, as Wiola's post demonstrates, or whether its a more general health concern like a nutritional imbalance or metabolic problem.  

In a lecture I went to last year, Prof. Jean Marie Denoix (talking about shod horses) made the point that a "sudden" injury or lameness is rarely that"; in fact, the precursor of most injuries is months or even years of fatigue and progressive stress on tendons.  As he said: "a tendon injury is rarely a primary cause" - and if you don't identify and solve the source of the injury, it will inevitably recur. 

But imagine if you had an incredibly sensitive early warning system which could detect and alert you to these early signs of stress, fatigue or malfunction.  In a barefoot horse, this is exactly what you get.  

Hooves are an unbelievably accurate barometer of the overall health and fitness of the horse and will usually provide early warning of potential problems which can often then be nipped in the bud - dietary changes can be made, overworked soft tissue can be rested, weaknesses strengthened. 

However, in many shod horses, this barometer simply can't be read because the hooves are no longer capable of providing subtle feedback  - wear patterns cannot be seen, proprioception is reduced and, even if limb-loading changes, deviations in the hoof capsule are removed by trimming and shoeing. 

The level of detailed information a bare hoof provides can be uncomfortably immediate and uncompromising, but on the other hand, if you have a very sound, robust hoof then you can be pretty confident that you have a sound, robust horse.