Posted by Anne (Tree) Coley on July 10, 2003 at 12:03:08:
In Reply to: Re: Severe Club Foot posted by Patty Stiller on July 07, 2003 at 22:46:30:
: : Tree
: I guess I failed to make my point clear enough in the example of the filly I described. I said that the heels WERE being addressed as they are regularly trimmed down to the sole plane, and the bars are trimmed as well.There are NO bars imnpacting the foot, no corns, no heel pain.
Patty,
How do you know the bars are not impacted? What sorts of positions are the lateral cartilages in? How much height is there from the colateral groove to the top of the bar along the midpoint of the bar length? Can you feel the horse's heel pain?
: After trimming the heels, the horse cannot get the heels anywhere near the ground , and in fact standing without support under the heels would stress the flexor tendon attachment so much that it could actually tear away from P3.
Patty,
How do you know that leaving the heels floating is truly stressing the flexors enough to tear them away from the P3?
I forgot to mention a navicular horse I treated several years ago whose heels floated for about 4 months before they could physically touch the ground surfaces. He had no tendon stresses which caused any tearing away of their attachments to the P3's in either front foot. If he did, he never told me so. If they did, they healed. His heels just floated during this time. No attempt to attach wedges were made. I wanted his feet to be FREE to drop as his shoulder angles and muscles allowed. Since he wasn't in "ideal" conditions (pasture was not level by any means and footing varied), I think this is part of the reason it took a full 5 months for him to become noteably sound. He is currently a pleasure horse (trails) and still going sound and barefoot. He's also in his late 20's.
So, how would you address THIS case?
Patty,
The above is just one example of how I dealt with such a case. I did say he was navicular but what I didn't mention was how he relates to a club footed horse.
Since he was diagnosed with navicular, egg-bar shoes and heel wedges (to raise his heels) were used for 3 seasons until he couldn't even walk soundly. When he stood still he would "point" his worst front foot. It was his smallest foot and the hair line was horizontal to the ground. The way he was 'set up', he was clubbed. His shoulder angle was straight and so too was his pastern. His other front foot was also 'set up' but because it was less painful for him to use he still had fairly decent pastern and shoulder angles. Because his feet had been wedged up for so long, his musculature had adapted to this positioning so when I pulled those shoes, removed the pads and lowered his natural heels it was a considerable change...one his body needed time to adapt to.
You felt support was needed to prevent the DDFT from tearing away from the P3 attachment. I let things procede as they would without wedge supports. This horse was lame for 5 months and so he was quite careful with how he used his feet. He did nothing to tear his DDFT attachements. He was left outside on pasture 24/7 and given no bute or other pain inhibiting meds. He felt his pain and moved accordingly. He was also kept with another rehabbing horse that wouldn't force him to move any faster than he wanted to. Maybe I'm a rare person who can stand to watch a horse "suffer" like that but the end results were well worth it to me and this horse. He's sound now. His hoof angles are proper and his shoulder and pastern angles are too. Is he rare? Well, probably when you consider the treatment used on him was non-conventional in nature. I had no idea how long it would take for him to become sound. We didn't have clinical conditions with all the controls given to footing, climate and so on. He was allowed to be a horse and use his brain and the signals his body parts gave it with no inhibitors (drugs).
I would do this again only I'm quite sure my trimming skills have improved considerably in the time since I first started treating this horse! It might take less time for another horse to recover from similar circumstances.
: As well, knuckled over knees are not the same as knuckled over feet. I have also done plenty of ponies just like you describe, P3's almost gone, and they were still not knuckled over as bad as the case I describe.
: Tall heels and severe hoof distortion is not the same as a truly knuckled over foot where the flexor muscle is involuntarily contracted, there are probably adhesions in the joint ligaments in the foot, and the navicular bone has begun to actually fuse to the distal end of P2. Patty
Oh you're quite right. Of the knuckled over feet I've been a party to treating, I was not calling the shots. The other trimmer did lower the heels and bars during the earlier trims and the horse did show considerable improvements but then they felt they were being too invasive and backed off. The horse's condition worsened at the same time. When lowering heels and bars helped I just couldn't understand why we wouldn't want to continue with that route. By not doing this we began seeing more negative affects and the horse was euthanized in the end. I'd rather see an end to that sort of suffering vs prolonging it with poor/useless treatments.
Tree