"It's Complicated"

A month or so into Meadow's back injury saga, I decided to switch farriers. I was not pleased with the attitude of the farrier I had been using & his impatience coupled with Meadow's soreness resulted in escalated situations where my baby horse hated to stand for the farrier. I made the switch to a new, young guy who really seems to take pride in fixing up the "problem" horses.

So, before he even came out the first time, he had me send photos of her feet so that he could be prepared for any adjustments he may make. Based on what he saw & from what I had been noticing, her heels were quite under-run, most likely due to a combination of her conformation (long pasterns) and previously rushed trims. The plan was to put shoes all-around on my currently bare-foot, never-before-been-shod horse.



Long toes, flared feet prior to new farrier

Front feet with underrun heels, prior to new farrier

Our appointment day arrives and Meadow just cannot handle it. She had come to despise farriers so much that she escalated herself to the point of being unsafe. I tried to twitch her after she had gotten herself in this tizzy & jammed my wrist so badly that I got faint from the pain. We had to call it quits after getting just one shoe on and decided that going forward, she'd have to be tranquilized. We set up a time with the vet a couple days later.

Now, Miss Meadow also hates vets. I credit this to her younger days (pre-Leah) when they would ace her in order to work with her. She has a crazy needle phobia and requires a twitch in order to receive any shots. I know, I know, you are probably thinking--spoiled, un-disciplined horse. Yes, I've gotten that lecture before. However, she is perfect with her feet with me and everything else 90% of the time, only escalating like this in certain associations (vet & now, farrier)... so it's just something we've learned to deal with. Luckily, the vet & farrier team I have now understand this and are willing to work with me on it rather than ridicule me & her about it.

When the vet comes, we tranquilize her and are able to get front shoes on, trimmed hinds. We have been doing that system now for about 5 shoeing cycles. Every 6 weeks I coordinate vet and farrier schedules and have them meet me to get Meadow's shoes on. It is a pain. in. the. butt.

Yesterday was one of those days. The farrier came out at noon and the vet was scheduled for 1pm. We worked on Elly & Brazynska first and finished early. It was a little before 1pm so I called the vet office for a status check. She was running about 30 min late. We decided to give Meadow a try without any drugs... Well, she was not having it. I decided to give something else a try. I took a chain and put it under her lip. The vet who did her SI injections did this in order to give her drugs and she responded well to it, so I figured, what the heck. And guess what--she stood like a statue the entire time! Yippee! Hopefully we have figured Meadow out! She may not be perfect and still needs some "management" to get those shoes on, but I think we're making progress. I am very pleased that now -*knocks on wood*- we won't need to call the vet out going forward! And, if all goes well next round, we'll finally be adding hind shoes to give her some extra support come Spring! Little victories!

Feet now are better shaped, rounder & more compact

Toes are now shorter with more heel support