Day 1 of the Sassy Shoeless Project

So here is a copy of the email from the trimmer:
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did not see anything crazy or weird with her feet
she does not have a central suclrus infection

she has pretty decent structure and shape considering the toe walking
the farrier rolled those toes pretty tight trying to get the breakover back, so she does not have any toe wall at all right now, nothing we can do about that, will just take time to grow

she did not seem a lot more comfortable in the boots and pads but i am hoping at the end of 72 hours you will see at least some change

this is what i would do
leave her in the boots for 3 days straight, you can take them off and make sure no rocks etc
and if they are building up moisture you can put baby powder in them
watch for rubbing on the heels, that is the first place we will start to have problem

if you need to get her out them for an hour or so i would put her in the arena where it is soft

after 3 days you will probably have to go with 12 on 12 off to avoid rubbing
so do 12 hours in the arena bare and then booted the rest of the time

you may have to change the pads after 5-6 days, you have to take them out to really tell how squashed they are
but save the old pads, they may be fine for riding later on

she is almost a size 3 right now, but no toe wall so she may fill out the 4 boot better in a month or so, i think she should be fine to use these for now
she acted like she might chew on them, i told your husband to put some cheap bell boots on over them if you have some, or maybe paint some of that no chew stuff on them
anything to keep her from tearing them up

if you want to do anything with her the only thing i would do right now is straight line walking

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And here is a video of her moving this morning.  This was just out in the pasture (obviously) so nothing much to see.  Naturally she is still limping- but I expected that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzA5O_v9WY&feature=youtube_gdata


She has not been messing with them at all anymore, so I guess it was just that initial, "Hey what are these things" that had her checking them out.  

Since I don't have a way to close off my arena yet, I will have to go in and work her pen up nice and soft (maybe throw in a load of sand) or maybe work the round pen up and use that for her to live in temporarily when she is without the boots and pads.  

So concludes the "day 1" entry.

I won't be doing daily entries, but will keep track of how many days each entry is. 

Now I'm off to ride a paint horse.