Dazzle
10 yr old
Paint mare
06-04-08
Dazzle is a
lovely black and white overo mare with some NOT so lovely front feet,
although her hind feet, while showing some flaring through the
quarters, are not in bad shape. She has pronounced dorsal flare
on both front feet, and in fact looks like she suffered a degree of
laminitis (especially on the left front) about 2 months back.
Her walls are brittle and striated with shallow vertical cracks.
We'll have to dig a little to figure out the nature of the poor wall
quality and the possible laminitic attack. Dazzle's diet is not
far from healthy (she gets bermuda hay, Strategy and a biotin
supplement, but she was getting some alfalfa), so my initial gut
reaction is to look elsewhere. Simply pulling her shoes will
help, but if there is not a dramatic improvement after a few months of
good trimming and treating for insidious fungal/bacterial growth, we
will start to explore...mineral imbalances, an overabundance of
nitrates??? Places to start, anyway!
Dazzle has a
quarter crack on her medial left front (which I brilliantly neglected
to photograph) that is nearly grown out. I do not expect the
quarter crack to present problems for us; I relieved the quarters and
beveled the edges of the crack to prevent it from catching on
anything. I am much more concerned with growing sole coverage
under P3, and some of the other issues she shows. She had a
pronounced mediolateral imbalance on the left front foot (medial
heel/quarter was MUCH longer than the lateral). She had bruising in
her left front lateral heel; perhaps due to the discomfort caused by
the imbalance. The quarter crack should not be causing
discomfort at this stage (nor recently enough to account for the
bruising). Dazzle kept her right hind foot cocked when I was not
working on her, and two days post trim was very stocked up in both
hind legs, noticeably lame on the right hind. Is there a pain
issue somewhere else? Dazzle's owner, Chris, is planning to have
a body worker/chiropracter look at Dazzle, which will hopefully give
us some clues!
For Dazzle's
setup trim, I conservatively lowered her heels, took the wall from 10
to 2 almost to the sole plane, rolled her toes aggressively to
alleviate the separation force on the dorsal wall, and addressed the
imbalance on the left front. Those high heels will come down
gradually...
07-05-08
VERY nice
improvement at 4 weeks. Regular chlorine dioxide soaks are
quickly making a difference in frog health, wall and sole quality.
Bruising not nearly as pronounced. Overall hoof proportion shows
improvement already as well.
07-30-08
More nice
progress. Flaring is growing out, wall quality it vastly
improved. Dazzle's hooves were riddled with sand cracks
initially, and those are disappearing rapidly, thanks to owner Chris'
diligent soaking! And remember that quarter crack? What
quarter crack???
08-27-08
Okay, kids,
take a good look at the central sulcus of both of those frogs.
See what happens when you really go after the thrush monster??
Dazzle still needs her boots to move comfortably, so Chris is booting
her 22/7 for a while to encourage more movement, and thus more healthy
growth. We're keeping a close eye on Dazzle's diet, too, and hope to
see NO MORE deep, red rings around the hoof wall. All things
considered, Dazzle has made excellent progress so far!!
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