Monday, February 9, 2009

Healing Henry!


Meet Hank! Newest addition to the Rainier Hoof Recovery Center!


Learn about his condition and his progress on his own blog, Healing Henry!

6 comments:

LatigoLiz said...

Hey Pat, have you seen this from last year?

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=11718

Pat said...

Yep, I did see that and there were also a couple articles about it in the AQHA newsmagazine.

A shoe is a shoe is a shoe. It really doesn’t make any difference what it’s made of, wood, plastic, iron. Shoes are nailed onto the foot and take the hoof out of function. The worst type of shoeing is corrective shoeing. We get instant soundness that often causes permanent lameness is the long run. And ifhe hoof, if it heals, heals in spite of these things, not because of them, but if there is improvement, we always give credit to the shoe and not the miraculous healing power of the hoof itself.

Horseshoes initially were meant only as temporary protection for a sound hoof. Then we went a little nuts with them, leaving a horse shod all year round and using horseshoes to correct the damage that horseshoes caused. How nuts is that! If the hoof isn’t sound barefoot, it isn’t sound.

LatigoLiz said...

I was utterly amazed that they used screws to put those wooden shoes on!

Pat said...

Sorry for the confusion of typos on that response.

I meant to say:

And if he hoof heals, it heals in spite of corrective shoes, not because of them.

I really should proofread better.

Pat said...

I know, pretty weird huh. Can you imagine what would happen to the hoof if the shoe were to get caught on something. The shoe wouldn't be torn off without taking a good portion of he hoof. At least with nails the hoof has some chance of surviving the shoe being torn off. Unless clips are used. In that case, the horse can kiss their hoof goodbye, just like my mare did so many years ago.

She lost half her hoof partially because of the clips. Not pretty!

Andrea said...

Hi Pat!
Just found your blog through a whole bunch of other blogs.. it's great!! I'll definitely be following it for sure! :D