|
This is just personal opinion here. There is tons of info
out there on whether or not shoes are harmful to horses that is based on a lot
more credibility than my personal opinion. I do not really want to go into
that, I just want to share my personal opinion on the topic, no more.
In general, I do not try to talk people out of shoes – I
just provide a service, for those folks like me, who have come to the
determination on their own, that their horses are better off barefoot. I am not
out there to sway the world – just really pleased to have met some wonderful
like minded folks out there who have arrived at similar conclusions as meJ.
I had my riding horses shod to some extent for over 20
years. I generally had the shoes pulled when I was not competing. I thought it
was to some extent normal if my horse lost some soundness barefoot, however, I
did not expect them to be lame barefoot or totally reliant on shoes.
I thought somehow that shoeing my horse was better care.
If I go ride this horse and do all these things with him, shoes were somehow the
better thing to do for him (kind of silly of me, I was mostly riding in sand
arenas!). I also expected the farrier and his shoes to somewhat enhance my
horses’ performance – “make my horse move better”.
Well, over time, I found all my expectations about shoes
and soundness to just be wrong. Sometimes my horse would be seemingly sound
barefoot – get a pasture trim - and be crippled for a week or so. Sometimes my
horse would not be moving out as well as possible, get a set of shoes, and still
not move out as well as possible. Sometimes the farrier would put on shoes and
the horse would move fabulous one set of shoes and not the next….
I could not figure out for the life of me what kind of
rhyme or reason was going on here… I was already very familiar with founder and
laminitis first hand and the importance of dietary control in acutely affected
horses. Then one summer, an older mare of mine began to be afflicted by very
mild laminitis. Now I had quite a bit of prior experience with founder… and I
was not keen on watching another horse slowly go down the drain….
What bothered me most about that incident was a vet and 2
farriers never said anything about her condition or lameness. I was asking and
paying them to come out to look at her cause I was concerned – I just kept
calling and calling new people to come out and give me their take. They seemed
to think that degree of soreness was just normal for barefoot and not anything
to be concerned over. Well, it was not normal for her at all. And in the
meanwhile I left my laminitic mare on lush pasture. But the 3rd farrier called
it – she had very mild laminitis – his diagnosis was very hesitant – he knew I
was at my wit’s end… and just wanted an answerJ….
But he hit the nail on the hammer – finally…
At that point I realized, I did not have my horses’ care
under the control I had thought. I had always personally owned several horses
and worked with horses in at least a part time professional capacity most my
life and I suddenly realized how little I knew about soundness in regards to
feet and how I could not rely on professionals to have all the answers.
I then took up trimming myself and learning anything and
everything I could. I really did not have any expectations to fix anything – I
just wanted to kind of figure out where so many things were going wrong with my
own horses – I wanted my farrier to come back weeks later and me to just have
had a good working experience to talk to him about…. I immediately pulled the
shoes so I could better monitor what was going on with my horses’ feet – and
those horses have never seen a shoe or a farrier again.
I had pulled those shoes so I could better monitor what was
going on, I had no intention of going barefoot for life or becoming a barefoot
“tree hugger”… But that IS the beauty of barefoot – the hoof can respond and you
can better monitor what is going on… I felt like it was a good idea at first “to
figure things out” – but it did not take me long to realize, that is exactly WHY
barefoot is better…
And so, if you ask me, that is one of the biggest problems
with shoes. They “mask” what is really going on and only confuse the road to
soundness.
To me, an unsound horse, with shoes thrown on top, who is
now seemingly sounder, is STILL an unsound horse. All that has happened is
things have gotten more confusing, not necessarily better. It may seem like a
great fix at the time – but when you go on this roller coaster year after year,
horse after horse, you learn it is not a fix at all. And worst of all, often
when you continue on this roller coaster, the REAL problem with the horse’s feet
is not being addressed – and often the horse is only getting more damage to his
feet which will take away from his future level of soundness.
I would like to add in client stories on these pages – so
if you have anything to add – please email me a story – I would be happy to post
it on my website.
|
