Pulling in Style, and Meeting a Farrier

One nice thing about being married to a trucker is that he likes trucks.  Not pick ups, although he likes those too, but big trucks.

He likes the way they pull stuff.  When we moved to AZ we used his old 1 ton pick up to pull our trailer.  He loved the engine brake on his new Dodge, but he didn't love the truck and we couldn't pull the trailer level without crunching the bed.

So TC, being TC started shopping and found a deal and traded his pick up straight across for something new. (new to us)

I teased him about the decals all over it when he brought it home.  It is pretty darn flashy, but after a bit it kind of grew on me.  Nothin like rolling in big and loud!  I wish I could say he bought it for me, but he goes back and forth between AZ and WY a lot with his other trailers, and this will pull those as well as my horse trailer.

Hooked to the trailer it is like a freaking train and I am having to learn how to drive it.  Today was my first lesson, and I drove it around town without the trailer.  Tomorrow I will pull the trailer around for practice, but then Sat I have some place I want to go with Trax, and I want to be sure I can handle it before I put my horse in there.

Ya know what sucks though....I rarely haul more than one horse at a time though so really it is a lot of truck and trailer to haul around one little old paint....but I'm not gonna complain. There is a couch in that sleeper that folds down to a bed, plus a fridge and a microwave.  No potty, but I can get around that.


In other news, I needed to find someone to come and redo Killians shoes. I noticed that his last set seem to be contracting his heels in and I'm not liking it at all.   I decided to call the guy that is putting on the trim clinic that I will be going to in April.

It was kind of funny when we talked on the phone because we almost got into an argument about Sassy.  I'm not even sure except that the subject came up and he made the mistake of saying he could fix her with shoes.....Um...WRONG ANSWER DUDE!   However, since I knew that I wasn't asking him to work on her I didn't have too much to worry about.

He was in the area and so stopped by to assess Big K, and pretty much confirmed what I thought I was seeing. He felt like Killian was wearing a full size smaller than he should have been in.  However, he doesn't have much hoof yet and neither of us had time to do the work today so next week he will come and work on him.  One thing he did that I have only seen one other farrier do (in Colorado) was look at the whole horse.  He looked at his hips, his shoulders, checked for back pain and touchy spots.

He asked if he could look at Sassy.  I said sure but made sure he understood that I was not changing my treatment plan at this time.  I expected an argument but instead got, "I wouldn't ask you too."  He took a peek, pointed out a few things that could use a little change, pointed out some things that looked good, and told me that all in all I was doing a great job with her.   Most of what he pointed out was what I suspected but lacked the confidence to do.  Some of it I didn't even realize, but he showed me what he was saying, why it was what it was, and showed me how to see it.  I wanted to take credit for all the work, but I couldn't because someone else had done a lot of it. But I have been filing on her pretty regular too, and really working on those frogs. The frog changes are all me. If I had left it up to anyone else, they would have just left it.  Very soon I will post some pictures of the cracks. You will not believe how much they have changed.

He also looked at Trax and gave me some pointers, all free of charge.  I really loved that he encourages owners to get comfortable with maintaining and even doing the work on their own horses. He said, "I'm about the horse. I'd rather see the owner do their own work and do it right than to see them at the mercy of a bad farrier and not even know it."

The last thing he said to me was that by time the clinic comes I won't need to learn too much. I disagree because although I am beginning to understand what it needs to look like, I don't know how to handle the tools (other than the file) to make it happen.

I walked away from our free consult feeling pretty good about things.