4-19-12 Feets Update

4-16, Monday evening, Harley, Romeo and I met with Mr. Eddie Drabek.  Check out that website - looks all fancy n stuff.  He and I exchanged some emails prior to his visit, and all sounded good.  He found Romeo's hooves to be pretty short, but in decent shape.  Mild bruising evidence on two, near the walls. 

When I went for Harley, he was pretty unhappy, and walked off at my first effort to catch him.  I am not entirely sure of the cause.  Sunday, he and I had a pretty ugly argument, right about the time I asked him to canter bareback in the arena.  :(  I went splat, he took off, yeah, not pretty.  He longed out nice, but was pretty unhappy when I got on.  I apologized to Eddie, and said, "I don't know if he's afraid you're going to trim more & hurt him, or if he's just mad at me from our argument yesterday.  He's normally easy to catch." 

Retrieved, Eddie took a careful look at Harley's hooves as well.  All four, sole bruising near the walls, no softness or other soreness, but too too short for routine work.  As we talked a while and Harley grazed, Eddie said, "I'm kind of surprised he's sound just standing there grazing.  It's probably because the ground is nice & soft.  I bet if you took him out on that gravel road right there, he'd be lame pretty quick." 

Eddie is scheduled to come back May 24, and will trim then.  From my discussions with him, this is the right way to go.  I'll be around for at least the first trim in-person, to see how he interacts with the boys, and how they feel about him. 


4-17 Tuesday evening, I walked Romeo across the gravel road in front of the house.  He was crunching rocks, smoshing through the gravel.  I took it as a good sign, so I dressed him and we headed to the arena.

Longe warmup was fun, and fresh.  He let out some wild galloping circles, but came back pretty easily.  I hopped on, and we had about 20 minutes total ride.  No lead change work, all the gaits on a loose rein.  I wasn't expecting much.   Total work 35 minutes.

4-18, I caught Harley, donned my tough leather gloves, and, in his knotted halter, we headed for a hand walk down the road.  I was delighted when Harley started walking across the gravel near the house, smoshing rocks, and pushing dirt quietly with his hooves.  We made it probably a quarter mile down the road away from the mailboxes.  He stopped to peer at CRNG sawing on something with some power tools, and snagged a few stalks of tall grass.  On the way back towards the house, he meandered to the ditch edge all on his own.  I got the hint, and checked my watch.  10 minutes.  As we approached the house, I remembered the land next to my house towards the mailboxes are for sale.  I walked Harley over to it, and he briefly considered it dangerous until his nose touched and nothing happened.  Another neighbor was on his zero-turn power-mower, so we stood a bit and watched him zoom around.  Still nothing wild.  I decided it was time, and walked Harley home.  After a few steps on the rocks, he realized his feets were starting to be sore again, and he aimed for grassy yard.  Back at the wash rack, his feet weren't hot, and I didn't see the same bruising marks we saw on Monday.  Perhaps some of that hoof has worn off already wandering the pasture.  Or maybe it was all hidden by dirt.  I might hose them off tonight for a better look.

Both boys started some hoof supplement last night as well.  Not permanent for Romeo, but probably for Harley.  I'm hoping for a quick turn around, and some strong growth.