Necessary Evil - 3 Parts

Necessary Evil

The issue that I have with steel shoes is that every single horse that I've ever pulled shoes off of was better off afterward, if given the time they needed to heal from the damage caused by the shoes. They were able to grow new feet with stronger structures and a sustainable shape. Some farriers swear that they have horses in their practice that they've been shoeing for years that are sound. When I hear this I wonder why they need shoes then? The farrier will say, "Bare foot is fine for my clients with lawn ornaments but the ones who perform need shoes." Also, I hear farriers say all the time, "I've been shoeing for years and I have some horses that need shoes and some that don't." The ones that do need shoes wouldn't be sound with out them. There's the truth. They aren't sound. They are shoeing them to perform above the level that they should be performing ( read chapter 6, Creating the Spectrum of Usability, in The Chosen Road by KC La Pierre ).

This gets some horse owners, farriers, and vets hot under the collar. This is because they are using the horses, not caring for them. Many actually believe that they are making the humane decision by keeping the shoes on in order to keep the horse pain free. This is where the term "necessary evil" is often applied. Here's my problem with this belief system and approach: I've pulled the shoes off many of these so called "horses that can't be out of shoes" and then spent months ( or years ) helping them grow out all the crushed and damaged tissue that never gets seen when steel shoes are continually applied back to back ( and when the walls are rasped to hide deformities). It takes a couple of years to put properly shaped feet on them and educate the owners on how to really take care of them. I encourage them to change the footing, movement, diet, trim frequency, and even the way they ride and interact with their horse. This works for a certain percentage of horse owners and they make the necessary life style changes for themselves and their horses to accommodate strong, healthy bare feet.

It's not easy and over the years there may be some troubleshooting, but the answer is always more lifestyle changes. This is a hard message to deliver and farriers don't get paid for life coaching. A farrier who is business minded and trying to keep a schedule doesn't have the time or patience for fixing people and most people don't want to change. They just want to ride their horse and take their mind off of their problems. That's why they hire the farrier. The farrier knows this and gets good at keeping horseshoes on. If the horse can be ridden everybody's happy...except the horse. I read something once that was written by a well known farrier. They said that 70% of the horses in their care were bare foot and the other 30% were in shoes. They acknowledged that shoeing was a "necessary evil" and thought they were achieving a good percentage. From my own experience I realized that these numbers were similar to a percentage that I had become aware of: 70% of horse owners will listen and import sand and 30% get pissed at you if you point out the part that is their responsibility. Personally, I'm not willing to spend time with someone who wants to surround themselves with people that will enable them to continue making bad choices for their horses. Over the years I've come up with a business plan to weed these horse owners out as soon as possible. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt ( sometimes too much) ,and I can't always afford to be letting customers go, so I prioritize my schedule to accommodate the horse owners who are doing their part to help me put the best feet possible on their horses. These are the horses who end up with the best feet and are continually improving. As a result, I have a small clientele of horse owners that help me continually improve my success rate. To keep it honest, I have a handful of horses at rescues that don't have the kind of feet that make me eager to show up. Their caretakers are broken hearted from seeing used up horses and they're underfunded and overwhelmed. They are emotionally bankrupt and sadly, they end up on my "B" list because they can't afford the necessary changes that I require for continual improvement. They end up "status quo" and don't get to the beautiful healthy feet they are meant to have. I used to volunteer my trimming at local rescues since I didn't have the money to donate. I learned to fix some pretty horrid feet from that and I learned how to do it without any of the changes that I typically require. Keeping up that level of service for free in those conditions ended up taking a toll on my back, my bank account, and the level of service that my paying customers were receiving. The sad thing was that having better feet didn't seem to make these horses lives any different. I was just keeping them around longer to stand in muck and be separated into small cells without anything special to look forward to. Just the occasional visitor who always gets the story about how this horse was saved from the atrocities of neglect or abuse. Can you imagine listening to that shit every day of your life. Never getting past the past. That's how I picture hell. I see this handful of rescue horses that I've retained over the years every 6 weeks and I've not been able to make as big of an impact on their comfort level as I know I'm capable of. I feel like I'm just keeping my membership in the heartbreak club and I often wonder why some good horses just seem to be destined for ruin.

I know there are people that believe in their heart that shoes are a good thing ( possibly because they've only witnessed bad barefoot trimming and lots of lame horses ) but I'm asking you to consider...is this evil really necessary?

Original post: www.facebook.com/100007004891239/posts/1957919754451502/?d=n

Moving on From Necessary Evil

I learned a lot from writing and sharing the previous post. The comments were a bit overwhelming in number and sometimes in content. I expected the usual insults from some. I didn't expect all of the wonderful success stories. This was what really made it worth it to me. My goal is to help build a network of qualified bare foot farriers around the world. I am very anti steel and I realize that there is a spectrum where that is concerned. Most honest farriers will agree that steel does harm and bare foot is better. They say they just don't have enough of the right clientele to go totally bare. I made the switch years ago before I had too many shod horses on my schedule. I am also very lucky that my wife has been supportive when I decided that I needed to let a client go, or two, or 50. She always said "if they are not on board with helping the horse they're just going to drop you anyway...and leave the horse with partially re-habbed feet. Then they will complain that it didn't work." This was true.

This was the only way I could get to the point that I could call some of the shots and teach people how to do something better for their horses. I have let a lot of good paying customers go because they wouldn't make changes. It has never been comfortable for me because I get attached easily to horses and sometimes to owners. Whether I liked the person or not, when I quit the people I quit the horse...and I always liked the horse. Some horse owners have the belief system that "the customer is the king." My belief system is that we are both here to help the horse. I get paid for my skills and the knowledge I have accumulated about developing horse's feet. The owner gets to enjoy having a horse instead of stressing out and going broke, and the horse gets to enjoy their entire life and not end up in early retirement wearing egg bar shoes and eating mash with bute sprinkles. I don't hate farriers or people in general. I'm a farrier and I am human, with flaws, just ask anyone who knows me. I just refuse to be any part of using horses. I won't do it. I have done it in the past, before I knew better, and I won't go back. I used to be a grumpy farrier with a crooked back who wasn't always nice to horses or people. I had a lot of struggles. For years, every morning the last thing my wife would say to me on my way out the door was, "be sweet to the horses." And every day when I get home the first thing she says is "how were the horses?" I must be doing something right because she hasn't reminded me to be nice in quite a while.

Original post: https://www.facebook.com/100007004891239/posts/1958670251043119/?d=n

Jumping Fences

Necessary Evil (a post that I wrote in 2017) is making it's rounds again. I learned a lot from sharing that...mostly, to expect people to want what is right. I'm pretty optimistic by nature but I can get a little negative when I see horses that are being used instead of cared for. Bare foot trimmers get stuck with the failures of shoers and shoers get stuck with the failures of bare foot trimmers. This creates a lot of hate. Bare foot is not better than shoeing with steel unless it is done correctly, however, rubber is better than steel. It's just common sense. The truth is that steel is cheaper. No one would use it for "protecting" horse's feet if it cost the same as rubber. Here is a follow up story about a farrier that has taught me a lot about another "necessary evil"...ego.

”When a farrier succeeds with rehabilitation it is because of competent trimming and care…not because of the shoe. In fact, it is the shoe itself that often stands in the way of what would have otherwise been a successful rehabilitation. It is a fact though, that the immediate relief of pain that a shoe can provide is soothing to horse owners and I worry that a ‘dual’ professional will be too quick to shoe a horse to put an owner's mind at ease and miss out on the healing opportunity.” - Pete Ramey

Nowadays, with the wide range of booting possibilities available, it has become much easier to rehabilitate horses and prevent lameness in the first place. Martin Deacon FWCF, in his book “No Foot No Horse” says the following:

“…and still the horse is putting up with the same old type of shoe that he has been putting up with for hundreds of years. Perhaps we should start thinking about 'Nike Airs' for horses.”

Personally, I like EasyCare Clouds for most rehab situations. Once the horse has developed enough live sole to create a dome and the heels and bulbs are strong enough to support the majority of the horse's weight I use EasyCare Back Country Gloves for most performance and prevention situations. For longer durations of extreme performance on hard or uneven terrain I use EasyShoe Performance. They have a thick rubber tread which can offer good protection...even for a horse with a 5/8" dome of sole and fully developed bulbs. This is not just to protect the foot, but for the joints, et cetera. This is about as close as you can get to high performance feet in ‘Nike Airs'.

I had a great weekend in Las Vegas teaching a group of horse owners, and a couple of trimmers, how to develop truly functional feet. They were putting a little pressure on me to just keep coming back to trim their horses ( I am going back on Nov 4th ). On the second day one of the participants noticed a farrier at the barn next door listening in. She went over and told him to just jump the fence and come over. He finished the horse he was working on and ended up literally jumping the fence and introducing himself. This was right after I had finished assessing a 14 yr old shod horse that the owner said was starting to refuse jumps. The owner wanted to pull her shoes and was asking for a timeline for when her horse could be back to work. While introducing himself, the farrier stated that he always liked an opportunity to learn something new, and after he had a chance to catch up on our conversation he had no problem agreeing that bare feet were better for horses than shoes. We also agreed that just pulling a horse out of shoes without knowing how to, or being willing to, rehab their feet was cruel. The owner was anxious for me to pull the shoes and get the bare foot ball rolling, but they were not fully grasping the responsibilities of the rehab process. They were ready for change but had no experience to ensure success. I explained to them that it would be irresponsible for me to just pull the shoes and fly back home...especially if they were not at all prepared with a rehab protocol. After being held together by steel, the mares feet would expand too quickly and she'd likely be sore. The right way to do it would be to board the mare on sand until it was time to pull shoes ( in order to get the frog used to supporting it's share of the horses weight ) and then pull the shoes. Then I explained that I'd have to be on call for frequent ( careful ) adjustments while the horse was transitioning. I recommended getting some EasyCare Clouds for rough patches...Gloves for after the feet stabilized, and EasyShoes when she was ready for increased performance.

I explained the importance of frequent proper trimming for continual development, then I turned to the farrier and asked him if he agreed with me. He said, and I quote, "yep."

I looked around at the participants and auditors and said, "here's your man."

After watching me trim a few more horses and giving out his number to everyone, he asked if he could call me later and we all agreed to set up a trimming support program where he kept the horses on a tight schedule and I come back periodically for trouble shooting. He probably gained 10 new horses on 3 week trims with responsible committed owners just because he was still willing to jump a fence and listen to some new information.

*I've been working with this farrier for about 6 months now. He's been helping me rehab over 20 horses in Las Vegas. He keeps them on a 3 week trim schedule and I come every 6 weeks to check in with the horses, their owners, and the farrier. I assess the feet and make adjustments when necessary. This farrier has over 30 years of shoeing experience and quite honestly, he doesn't need any new clients, yet he shows up every time and is willing to let spectators witness his learning curve. I am a big proponent of never losing the ability to be the teacher and the student, but I'm not sure I would be as humble as this farrier has been...still learning.

Original post: https://www.facebook.com/100007004891239/posts/2042491415994335/?d=n