scruggs1 wrote:
I will assume that I am the someone, because I said the foot was short shod.

This is my post from the other thread.
cuttinshoer wrote:
I never said anything about adding length, I said support. The circled area in the pic appears to me to be the problem, would you think that an eggbar with your choice of frog support would not better serve this horse rather than an open heeled shoe with no frog support.

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John do you use any lateral support shoes in your practice.

scruggs1 wrote:
If this is the case and I tend to agree then, how effectively can we support what is predestined by conformation? Do you envision a protocol to effect any long term changes or is our goal to maintain with minimal damage?

scruggs would you explain where and how the tighter/lax tendon is determined? Is it tighter/lax compared to itself at different hoof length, angles and support? Or is it relative to different horses? I need to understand this so I know if I agree or not with some conclusions.

I am certainly not a guru on this subject by any means. I am just pointing out some of the experiences I have had and how I have thought about some of the problems based on what I have read and learned.

cuttinshoer wrote:
A good question that I don’t have a blanket answer for...other than I don’t know.

cuttinshoer wrote:
I don’t know anything about the horse in the other thread other than what is obvious in the picture. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what they asked Travis to do with it, or how to go about doing it. I think the horse was better off when it left than when it walked up. IMO, any application that takes pressure off the wall at the heel would be beneficial to the heels from a structural integrity standpoint.

cuttinshoer wrote:
Yes. Below is one I did this past Sunday. Never seen the horse before. They indicated possible arthritis in the RH and WLD in the LH...they also said the horse crossfires. First time the horse had shoes since they have owned it. There is a varus deviation on the RH somewhere in or around the PIP. No x-rays. Dragging the toe off the RH.

All I did was brush a few rasp strokes off the medial to get the foot flat and add a little lateral support...nothing fancy, nothing spectacular, (definitely NOT trying to "fix" that deviation) just getting a shoe on so the horse can grow a little foot and have more to work with next time...which is what I imagine Travis had in mind. I am certain there are probably many more things I could have done differently or additionally to help the foot, the leg, etc., but my #1 goal was protecting the nub that was there to get some foot back on it...again, which is what I think Travis was doing. My #2 goal was to fit the shoe around Duckett's Dot in as much as feasible to 'support' the deviated limb.

Jay Mickle wrote:
The short answer is that I don’t think we can “fix” nearly as much as the public gives us credit for. The conformation is what it is. As you say, mostly what we can do is just support what is there and set the foot up to help itself. Again, I go back to the high/low foot. I have never in my 13 years of doing this, “fixed” one (one that is congenital). Some of the ones that develop from a lameness (ie. - fracture in one leg causing a majority of the weight bearing to be borne on the opposite leg which renders that foot the “low” foot while the lame leg becomes the “high” foot due to lack of weight bearing) I think we can help and when the lameness goes away, the feet usually come back around and the feet gradually appear to become more “normal”. One thing that comes to mind here is a horse that I have been shoeing for about 11-12 years...this one horse has taught me ALOT just by observation. It has flat feet and will crush heel very easily. I tried for about a year just giving it length and nothing happened but corns. Then I just gave up and kept the heels trimmed just below where the tubules would start to crush. The HPA was broken back, but I thought she would just have to “deal with it”. This worked for a few years and during that time I used 1/4” shoes up to 3/8” shoes. One thing I noticed over time was that whenever I came back, regardless of what I trimmed and how thick the shoe stock was, the frog would be almost perfectly level with the bottom of the shoe. Once I realized it, how to “fix” the HPA and keep the heel from crushing became pretty clear. I started with a frog support pad and pour in for a shoeing. I got some depth in the back half of the foot. Next shoeing, I went to a heel pad with impression material under it. I got more depth and didn’t crush any heel. Finally, after two shoeings with impression material, the frog was level with the uncrushed heels. The horse has been in a plain straight bar shoe since and has maintained HPA without crushing its heels. All they needed was a little “help” via transferring some of the load to the frog. If I went back to a 3/8” open heeled shoe I am certain that I would come back next time, remove the shoe, and the heels would have crushed down 3/8” below the frog...so I didn’t really “fix” the structure of the foot, I am just helping it to help itself.

cuttinshoer wrote:
Don't long lows pasterns tend to be attached to long low feet with thin almost non-existant digital cushions? ok, not always maybe but often?

I think the foot tends to responsd to the load placed on it.

I don't think a long shoe is going fix crushed heels. I do think that a long shoe (put a bar on it and/or use a pour-in or whatever if you want) helps keeps the horse from falling off the back especially when working on soft ground.

I shoe enough messed up feet that I've been shoeing long enough to have to admit to not knowing how to fix them. But, I don't recall every seeing a little extra shoe length make things worse. Once in a while, it even seems to help.

I tend to leave some shoe legnth when there's no obvious reason not to. I came up around long footed horses and we put some pretty long packages on them. I could be wrong...it would be the first time but I could be:D

Cfarrier wrote:
Ken,
Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes you can get the info from the owner...ie., been this way from birth, went lame and now the feet are looking different, etc. I usually just watch what happens over the shoeing interval and see what I have when I come back.

I have heard of some people saying they can palpate the DFT and just "feel it" or "twang it"...both of which I would say are BS...but that is another of my opinions, subject to change with any given new piece of information...

Cfarrier wrote:
Me too!

scruggs1 wrote:
I have one that really amazed me...pics of it in my album.

Feet got way out front. Horse had bruised toes and was landing HARD on her heels. I knocked to toe clip off the package (she's a saddlebred) took her feet down a but, cut as much of the bent heel off as I could, added a double nail pad and slid the whole package back asome.

That may sound like a NB commercial except they keep talking about hhel soreness and this horse had a sore toe....just too much to step over, I guess.

Long story short, her feet actually starting growing straighter and I haven't actually seen that very many times.

IMO, if you have the shoe centered around COA there is no added leverage. I used to think there was until I started shoeing more gaited horses. IF you go out with toe length, you have to come back(and sometimes up)with heel support. Anterior/posterior leverage is of little concern, compared to medial/lateral. I have asked the question on here several times without anyone answering it, but does the foot have to be short to be balanced, and why do I see so little lameness, in say an arab, than I do other specific breeeds?

Mike Ferrara wrote:
I agree with everything you said Mike.

Justin,
This is the bottom of that shoe from the previous post (although a little skewed angle). It is dragging lateral toe so I was hoping the extension would help it go more center or toward medial toe...and maybe that will help the crossfire issue also...maybe not. I am also hoping that the toe crease will help keep the foot on the ground longer to prevent the dragging. I guess I will find out in 5-6 weeks unless I get fired before then.

scruggs1 wrote:
Neither am I, just asking questions to see if I may be on the right track.
I'm not real good with words so sometimes I come across as an arse.



scruggs1 wrote:
Most that I see that need a Lat support shoe have some crushing or curved horn tubules very similar to underrun heels just in a different direction. Just wondering your thoughts on m/l leverage compared to A/p leverage. If you are centering around Duckett's Dot I think I know the answer.

hotrodiesel wrote:
I've pointed the same thing out here many times but all I have are obserevations and guesses. I suspect that some hoof mass (getting them off the ground with enough base to actually stand on) helps prevent some pathologies. Then there are the many other differences in what they do, how they do, where they do it and how they're bred.

scruggs1 wrote:
OK then I will say while I agree with most if not all of the observations I do not fully agree with the conclusion regarding tighter/lax flexors as a causative factor. I believe they are more a result of the conformational relationship between hoof and leg. As long as that support is forward of the leg during stance I think extension will to a larger degree be leverage. If extending to or behind the leg it will be more supportive.