Mr. Patrick Reilly (reillyshoe)
Earlier, you referenced this link for my reading pleasure: http://www.bitlessbridle.com/dbID/342.html
I went back and read it thoroughly, twice. I then found the website of ESA http://www.equinesciencesacademy.com/esa_000029.htm and on the home page, located approximately half way down on the right was this: “We do not believe that
any one person or organization is “the” source or has all the answers. We believe that knowledge is a dynamic collective work – one we should all contribute to, draw from and share.”
However, in your link to my thread, I read of someone (respectfully, Dr. Robert Cook) who seemed quite rigid in his thoughts regarding the application of shoes – quite the contrary to the quoted statement above unless I have, quite possibly, misunderstood the meaning of the quote. I only pursued the search further because since your link had a “The Horse” questionnaire, I thought perhaps it was a bit of a poke at the bare-footers but now see it was quite serious.
I’m very glad that barefoot is not a requirement as a condition for my keeping my pony as stated in Dr. Cook’s response to the first question from ‘The Horse’. He is a bit of a houdini and, to spare you all the boring details, found his way into a bag of old treated rye-grass seed. Three days of being left-lateral recumbent in his stall, moaning and groaning with his eyes open, having ziplock bags of ice slush duck-taped to his feet between ice water soaks during his short moments of being ambulatory and having the ‘kitchen sink’ thrown at him from a medical perspective, I decided to give barefoot a try. It didn’t work. After going back to shoes, he is much more confident, sound and gaits much better with shoes. His feet stopped chipping, peeling and ‘curling’ (forgive my layman’s term), doesn’t gimp over gravel and goes confidently and quite forward. He is a bit of a ‘daisy clipper’ and boots just got in the way and were too cumbersome.
Since y’all do this everyday, or at least frequently, I wonder if it is easy to forget how much trauma the horse (and owner) go through during the critical recovery period when you leave us after your initial visit – I spent 3 nights by his stall, waiting for the appropriate time to give prescribed medications and IV fluids because he was so dehydrated, hoping he’d eat even a bite. It’s exhausting both physically and emotionally, *if the client does what they’re instructed to do*, and something they never forget.
Not all horses can go barefoot, and I think your responses were more open-minded and I’m so thankful for my farrier, without him my pony would be miserable during our trail rides .
Was this discussion a sort of ’round table gathering and is the article verbatim?
Tina
