Time for some good news. Ramsey broke a record this year - for the first time in his life he made it all the way through November and December without getting an abscess. It might seem like a small thing, but it is a bit of a triumph. His foot is doing well.
He still needs very careful trimming to keep everything in balance, but that is not new, nor will it ever change.
Since his fetlock turns inward and the hoof turns outward, I always leave the medial (on the right) wall unbeveled to give him added support and keep the hoof from turning under. The lateral wall (on the left) gets trimmed very short to keep stress off of it, as that is where the coffin bone is missing and the wall has poor connection. I keep the toe short to make break over as easy as possible. The result might look like I've only trimmed half the foot, but this keeps him sound and keeps the hoof from becoming distorted.
You can see how, all along the left side of the foot, the hoof wall just doesn't connect well. It never will since he is missing a third of his coffin bone. The back of the foot looks a bit ugly right now as he is shedding the frog, but that is normal for this time of year and it will grow back.
It may not be the prettiest foot ever, but we made it through the Fall mud season without an abscess for the first time ever. I hope I am jinxing us, but this was a record I was very pleased to break. I hope we can continue the pattern for a very long time.
I finally got the copies of the radiographs of Ramsey's foot that were taken at the hoof clinic. I haven't had time to finish my next post yet so I am posting these for anyone who is interested.
As you can see in this first film, Ramsey has more than 1/2 an inch of sole under that coffin bone, which is very good. The front of the hoof wall lines up very nicely with the front of the bone, indicating nice, tight lamina connection. The hoof looks good. He does have some sesamoiditis (that is the big knobbly thing at the back of his ankle in the upper portion of the film). That should be round and smooth, rather than bumpy looking.
In this next film you can see that the bones are aligned pretty well, one atop the other and that the coffin bone is parallel to the ground, indicating good medial/lateral balance. Looking at the lower left side of the bone, it does appear shorter than the lower right. That is missing bone from the surgery and gives it a slight appearance of unevenness, but looking at the top of the bone where it joins p2, you can see that it is straight.
And the last film...it still looks like something came along and took a bite out of the bone.
We finally got to Ramsey about mid afternoon. At first, Pete looked a bit disappointed about Ramsey as he was itching to get to that poor jenny in yesterday's post. He wasn't so sure that there would be much to talk about with Ramsey, but I told him that he might just have a surprise for him. That seemed to cheer Pete up.
(For anyone who is new to the blog, here is one of Ramsey's previous radiographs showing what his coffin bone looked like after having surgery at four months old for septic pedal osteitis (an infection of the coffin bone, also known as p3).)
After describing Ramsey's history, diet and environment, Pete immediately wanted to see a new set of radiographs. Luckily, there was a vet able to do digital films right there for just that purpose. While we were waiting for them to set up, he took a look at Ramsey's feet and his first impression was that the sole was too thin and he was unhappy that someone had "rasped' his toe off at an angle.
I am not sure that Pete actually believed me, but NO, I do not trim his foot this way and I did not rasp the toe off. Ramsey manages it all on his own by digging craters in the pasture. It is one of his favorite summertime pursuits. If anyone has any idea about how to stop him doing this, I would certainly like to hear about it. He never does it when I am around, but I see him doing it from the house.
Ramsey digs holes, almost exclusively, with his bad foot. I often wonder if it is a sign of pain or odd feelings in the foot as a result of his surgery. There are a lot of nerves in the foot and many of them had to have been disrupted when Cornell removed a third of his coffin bone. Ramsey often acts like there is an itch in the top of his foot and will bite at his hoof occasionally. Then again, maybe he is just right handed and he likes being an excavator. Only Ramsey knows.
Finally, we got the new films (which I don't have unfortunately. I am trying to get copies and will post them if I do) and these told a rather different story.
One of the things I struggle with the most in trimming this foot is that the external guides that would normally show how much sole there is just don't exist here. It ALWAYS appears that Ramsey's sole is paper thin, and I ALWAYS have to take a deep breath and commend my soul to God before taking a knife to it. It was one of the things I was hoping to get out of this clinic - some secret that my near obsessive study of hooves has not yet revealed to me.
The x-ray showed that, despite what it may look like on the outside, Ramsey has a full 1/2 inch of sole depth and his medial/lateral balance was near perfect. In the end, Pete did not trim Ramsey's feet at all. What he finally had to say about Ramsey was this:
"It is really amazing just how normal the foot looks, I wouldn't have thought it would be possible."
and:
"This donkey needs a lot, but there is not a single thing that I can do for him that you aren't already doing."
So there you have it, I guess all that obsessing really did pay off.
In the end, the one thing that I got out of this clinic more than anything, is a sense of validation. I am not ever going to even try to figure out how many hours I have spent studying feet and trying to talk to farriers.
For a very long time I really felt like I was out in the hinterlands trying to reinvent the wheel. My attempts at getting local help were generally an exercise in frustration. The farrier at Cornell told me I could bring Ramsey in for trimming every 3 weeks (not possible), but he couldn't help me and he didn't think that Ramsey would ever have anything like a normal foot.
A year ago, I had a saddle for sale and a professional farrier, who graduated from the top farrier school in the country and who also had 7 years of experience, called me up about it. I told him I'd trade him the saddle in exchange for trimming lessons. He came down, we talked about Ramsey and all the other feet I was working on at the time and he got real quiet for a long time, just staring at Ramsey's foot. Finally, he shook his head and told me:
"I guess I didn't really hear what you were telling me on the phone. I thought I was going to come down here and say 'this is a nipper and this is a hoof knife and this is how to hold a rasp.' Instead, I am totally out of my depth here and I don't have a clue what to do for your donkey or the other horses you're working on."
I still gave the guy a good deal on the saddle because he'd lost all his equipment in a barn fire and I felt bad for him, but I quit trying to find help after that. In fact, that was about the time that I made a conscious effort to stop studying books and videos or look for external guidance of any kind. I put all the books away and I took all that stuff swirling around in my mind and stuffed it into an imaginary box inside my mind and closed the lid.
It's all still there of course. That box is now a building block that is an integral part of my hood care foundation, but on it's own, it can never be more than a house of cards. It is each and every individual hoof that have been the real teachers. I couldn't have done it without that solid foundation, without Pete Ramey's DVD's, but in the end, it was Ramsey himself who taught me how to trim his foot.
People kept coming up to me after the clinic and saying things like, "wow, you must be really happy" and, being the socially inept nerd that I am, I wasn't sure how to answer this. Yes, I am very happy. It's a bit like acing the hardest exam I've ever taken. But, it took a while to sink in and there was this little part of me that that kept wanting to say, ' but wait, we haven't found the secret yet!'.
There is no secret of course, except the secret that every hoof is waiting to tell.
I am very glad that I took Ramsey to the clinic, although I am sorry that it stressed him out. If I hadn't taken him though, I would have always wondered and regretted not doing it. I feel good about where we are and about the feedback I got from Pete. At the end of the day though, this is the thing that makes me feel the most triumphant....
The vet was out this afternoon to see Ramsey. The good news is that we couldn't find any sign of life-threatening problems. The coffin bone shows no signs of reinfection or fracture. The coffin bone that he does have is in great shape. The dark blotches that are visible on the right, near the hoof wall are the areas of poor wall connection that I have pared out trying to drain this abscess. The 'bite' taken out of the coffin bone is what was removed at Cornell when he had surgery.
The vet was very happy with how I am trimming his foot. Her words were "an absolutely amazing job", which was nice to hear. Up until this week, I had been feeling very good about how his feet look these days.
The one thing we did not find is a clear area of infection or an easy fix. There is no track that we can follow to drain the abscess. I am generally adamantly opposed to draining abscesses from the bottom of the hoof, but with the missing coffin bone and poor wall connection in that area, Ramsey is always at a much higher risk of a repeated bone infection, which would likely be the end of him. If we could have isolated the infection, we could have tried draining it. I know that it is in his heel and I think that is why it just won't rupture. It is hiding out, deep in the soft tissue at the back of the foot and because the tissue is so soft in that area it just "makes room" for the abscess rather that forcing it to find a way out and finally heal. I think that the shadow I've outlined below may be the infection, hiding in amongst the most vital and sensitive of tissues. That is definitely the area where all the pain is.
The only thing to do is to keep trying to draw it out. I've changed my approach to that today. I have been soaking, wrapping and using Magic Cushion. Tonight, I packed the foot with a sugar-dine poultice instead. That is just a mixture of sugar and betadine mixed together to form a paste. It is a strong antiseptic that will also draw moisture out of the foot, hopefully bringing the abscess with it.
On another positive note....Since she was here with the x-ray machine, I had her take a new film of the fetlock. I wrote here in some detail about what Ramsey's foot looked like at this time last year and the arthritis he had developed at that time. We didn't see any sign of arthritic changes today however and the sesamoid bone (that knob on the right) is much smoother looking. Goes to show that, if caught early and treated right, arthritis can heal.
Now, if we can just this this darned abscess to pop without causing any other damage, he'll be in good shape.
On Monday, Ramsey came up lame on his bad foot. He presented with all the classic signs of a hoof abscess and that is what I am still hoping it ends up being. However, this is Ramsey and this is Ramsey's bad foot - there is no such thing as a "simple" abscess given his history, missing coffin bone and anatomical issues resulting from it.
Most abscesses resolve themselves in 3-5 days. Tomorrow will be day 6 and, unless there is dramatic improvement overnight, the vet will be here in the afternoon to take x-rays.
I have been checking Ramsey's temperature multiple times per day. Normal for him is 98.7 - 99.9. When his temp edged up to 100.5 (which is still within 'normal' range) I put him on antibiotics. He was back to 99.7 as of ten minutes ago. Possibly paranoid, but I'm not willing to take the chance and I know what normal is for Ramsey. If it is the beginnings of a fever, the earlier I start the antibiotics, the more likely they are to work. "Within Normal Range" is just that, a range, which is why it is so important to go out and take your critter's temperature when it is healthy and happy.
Ramsey is bright eyed, not terribly depressed and has a good appetite so I am still hoping that I will go out in the morning and find some sign that this abscess is going to rupture on its own. I will let you all know what happens.
It's been quite a while since I had a Ramsey update. No news is good news. The camera angle was off for this recent photo making it look like the outer wall is much longer than the inner, which is not accurate. However, it does show that the walls are now straight instead of curving to the side.
The outer wall on the left where the missing coffin bone is, still shows poor connection and a widening of the white line, but it always will. I think this is as close to "normal" as this foot will ever be.
From this angle, you can see that it is a pretty nice looking foot now. More importantly, it is a generally sound foot. That's what matters. For quite some time, I trimmed it just a very small amount each week. As the distortions have grown out, I have slowly been able to extend that time frame. I am now trimming it a small amount every 3 weeks. It seems to be working well for him.
Ramsey does, occasionally, have some soreness, but it is in the arthritic fetlock joint not the hoof. I am certainly frustrated by that, but we are managing it well. I have been giving Ramsey (and Tanner) turmeric each day. It has been shown to be an effective anti-inflammatory with no negative side effects if given at the proper dose. I was skeptical at first, but both Tanner and Ramsey have been on it since last Fall with excellent results.
Tanner has had joint issues all of his life and has suffered with periodic episodes of extreme lameness. He does not tolerate pain medicines well or visits to the vet. He has not had a single bad episode since starting the turmeric last year (even with the extremely cold winter, which would normally cause him trouble) and no negative effects whatsoever. I'm convinced. And I'm happy with this pretty little donkey foot as well.
Seems like it's been a long time since I had any foot updates. Honestly, this winter has been kicking my butt in more ways than one and I know I've been slacking a bit, especially with the blog. One of the issues that came up with all my recent doctor visits and tests was an extremely low vitamin D level despite the fact that I was taking high levels of supplemental D. I am now taking stratospheric levels and it has helped, kind of like coming out of a dense fog. Some of the bone and muscle pain has improved as well although there are other problems there as well. Autoimmune disorders suck.
One of the problems I am dealing with is improper absorption of nutrients as a result of damage to my GI tract caused by celiac disease. It is ironic to me as I have been delving so deeply into equine nutrition. Turns out Ramsey and I have had some of the same problems. In Ramsey's case, the nutrients were missing from his diet. In my case, I am unable to absorb them. Different problems, similar results.
I haven't forgotten my promise to write about nutrition either, it just got lost in the fog for a bit. I have also been struggling with it to a degree because I have found that many (most?) people are very resistant to talking about it at all. I have encountered a tremendous reluctance to even discuss the possibility of nutritional issues and this has left me seriously puzzled. After pondering this for several months, I have come to think that the problem of nutrition is two-fold: first, it is a complex, often bewildering subject that can't always be easily fixed. Second, many horse owners take any suggestion that there could be a nutritional problem as a criticism of their horse keeping skills.
It is far easier and more satisfying to buy a tub of vitamins and feel that we have done right by our animals than it is to go looking for trouble. Unfortunately, I have come to believe that most of our horses do well in spite of those lovely white supplement tubs rather than because of them. For those who are interested (and I know there are a few:), I will get around to it one of these days.
For now, a rather overdue foot update:
If you recall, last Fall, Ramsey's foot had gone all sideways on me and was collapsing inwards...
10/26/13
I can't tell you how many hours I have spent looking at this foot as well as all the bones above it and watching how Ramsey moves. In late Fall, I made a conscious effort to set aside all of the trimming advice I had gotten to date and stopped studying other hoof trimming methods. I am not saying that any of that information was bad, any skill has to start somewhere after all. Rather, there comes a point when you have to step away from books and experts and let the foot in front of you tell you what it needs. I think this is true for any hands-on skill, at least it is for me. I study everything I can until I come to a point where I have to stop studying in order to learn.
It is also true that, just as every finger print is unique, every hoof is unique. Ramsey's foot is a bit more unique yet. There is no book that covers this foot. It was obvious that what I had been doing was not working any more.
I made changes in Ramsey's feed to address nutritional deficits and imbalances and I set about trying to do what this very special and unique foot wanted. I made some mistakes along the way and they showed up in the foot, as they always do, but I am much happier with where we are now. This is where we were 2/16/14...
and where we are 3/7/14...(note how much shinier the foot is, that is from the balanced nutrition)
In these next photos, you can see how that abscess he had last Fall slowly grew out. You can also see how the hoof wall has gradually thickened. I attribute that to nutrition as well.
12/4/13 2/12/14
Starting to look like a decent foot, (note, I don't usually trim the frog much at all, but Ramsey's is so tough that it does not wear down at all in the snow. It was growing well past the bottom of the foot.) 3/7/14
The above photo is interesting to me because you can so clearly see where the missing coffin bone is. Picture the "bite" taken out of the bone and you can see it clearly in the upper left side of the foot. The right side shows lovely wall connection and a very tight white line. That line turns into a 1/2 inch thick, wobbly area on the left of the foot where the bone is gone. Those dark spots are weak, poorly connected areas.
The bone loss shows up on the outside of the hoof as well, in the line that runs down the side of the foot...
12/4/13
We have managed to maintain good wall connection at the toe and the heels are slowly strengthening. I would like to see the entire foot about a 1/2 inch shorter than it is here...
I think the last time I talked about Ramsey's foot, I mentioned the concerns I have about the way the foot is distorting laterally as you can see so clearly in this photo from 10/21/13...
I have been doing very tiny trims each week trying, not to "fix" the foot, but hoping to guide it and stabilize it until we can get more growth. One of the really big problems that my feed analysis revealed was a bad phosphorus deficiency coupled with high calcium and manganese, both of which further inhibit absorption of phosphorus. This is the main cause of angular limb deformities, early arthritis and hoof deformities in growing babies. I really am going to get around to talking about this more, I am just finding it difficult to figure out just how much anyone wants to hear. People's eyes tend to glaze over when I start talking nutrition. What, if anything, would you folks like to know about equine nutrition?
Anyway, there has been some improvement, 12/4/13....
There is a spot on his sole, below where the coffin bone was removed, that is going to slough off. It is hard to know, but the recent abscess he had may have originated there or it migrated to the weak point. Fortunately, I caught it quickly and it seems to be growing out.
I think it is interesting to note the color variations on the entire lateral (on left above and right below) wall. All the white, irregular areas along the upper left side of the foot, mirror the irregular bone beneath. There is certainly a lot going on in this one tiny foot.
I am pleased with the new growth that you can see here that has occurred since correcting the nutrition issues. The white line, which is that very thin white line that runs around the outer edge of the foot, is much cleaner and tighter looking. The curve in the frog has straightened some as well, which, I hope, means that we have managed to stop the twisting distortion of the hoof capsule. It is hard to see here, but the new growth where the coffin bone is missing is coming in better as well. Hopefully we can continue that way.
10/21/13 12/4/13
What I hope, is that I can help support the foot and the leg as they both continue to find where they need to be and gain strength now that the major mineral imbalances have been accounted for. It is both a blessing and a curse that donkey feet seem to react to environmental pressures faster than horse feet do. When things go wrong, they go very wrong very fast. But, they also come right faster when given a chance.
***
As I am always posting pictures of bad feet I thought I'd add some of a GOOD foot. Below is what a nice donkey foot should look like. It does have a steeper angle than a horse foot and is a bit more upright, but it is still compact, tightly connected with a nice low heel. The front of the foot is perfectly straight, with no deviations, indicating a well connected hoof wall. If I ever had an x-ray taken of this foot, the front of the coffin bone would be parallel with the front of the hoof wall and there would be plenty of sole thickness.
The entire back third of the foot is thick, well developed frog, extending well past the back of the heel buttresses, as it should. This is one of the biggest differences between donkey feet and horse feet. That massive frog combined with the greater elasticity of the hoof are what make donkeys so amazingly sure footed on rough, rocky terrain. The small, narrowness of the foot is also why they do not do so well in mud, snow and ice.
Living on soft ground like mine do, a donkey foot will never wear enough to keep up with growth and will not self trim. The soles of donkeys on soft ground need to be trimmed back or the foot will just get taller and taller until it falls over. This is why it is so much more common to see extreme hoof pathology on neglected donkeys then it is to see it in neglected horses. X-rays of Ramsey's other foot showed that, even after trimming the sole back as much as I had thought was safe, he still had 15 mm of sole depth.
The foot is well balanced and I have no doubt that an x-ray would show the bottom of the coffin bone to be ground-parallel.
This foot toes out almost as much as his other foot, but remains balanced to his conformation and is a highly functional and sound foot. If I were to try to "correct" his stance, I would cripple him. Pretty-is-as-pretty-does and this is a very pretty foot.
It seems like there has been lots going on lately, things that I would write about except I am always so behind that I can't find the energy to do it. I decided to try to update some of the more interesting things all at once. At least I think it's all interesting:)...
***
I am finally feeling a bit healthier after some heavy-duty antibiotics, although still wheezy and short of breath. That is nothing new, unfortunately. My traitorous lungs have been a constant source of trouble for most of my life. They are what kept me from going to vet school way back in the day. Along with chronic bronchitis, I had pneumonia six times in my first two years of college. I have always regretted that I did not go to vet school as planned, but I also know that my lungs wouldn't have made it through. So, it is what it is and most of the time my lungs and I manage OK. I just have to work harder at avoiding the plague the next time it comes around. I think an armed checkpoint at the end of my driveway might be in order.
***
Several people have asked about Ramsey's foot, I know I am terribly behind and I apologize for it. It has been ages since I did a donkey-foot update. The short answer is that he is doing well. He is a sound, spoiled, adolescent donkey boy. I have been taking them for walks with me 3-4 times a week. They love it and the exercise is good for all of us. I am happy with the way they both look, the have both gained muscle tone and Emma has lost a bit of flab. They are both sleek, soft and shiny and their weight is good (or at least not terrible in Emma's case).
The longer answer is that I am not entirely happy with the foot. If you look very closely at the photo above, you can see that the whole foot tips to the inside. Looking at the photo below, the foot looks good front to back. Except...there is that little dark line that runs right down the center of it. It ends right where the hoof wall does not connect well. I am not sure what to make of that, and neither was the vet who was here last week for Emma.
In the photo below, you can see what I mean about the foot tipping inwards. It is actually much better then it was, but I still don't like it. It really does not show up well on the photos, but the whole hoof capsule is sort of twisted. You can see it in the way the streak of light hitting it bends, that line should be straight.
I have been trying to correct this with trimming, but I think that I need to try to realign the whole hoof in order to straighten the bones in his foot. If I trim this foot the way the hoof wants, the leg bends. If I trim the way the leg wants, the hoof curves under. I think I need to trim the hoof true to the hoof and then perhaps use an equicast or an epoxy to align the foot to the boney column. I might need x-rays.
His foot was so abnormal for so long and all of it during his peak growth, that I believe it has effected the way the leg has grown. I discussed my ideas at length with the vet last week and she agrees with me. However, she also says she is not a farrier.
I am either going to give myself a very stern lecture about the follies of cowardice and just fix this or...I am going to wimp out and take him back to Cornell. Either way, I need to do something soon while Ramsey's bones are still young enough to adjust.
I would very dearly love to talk with someone who is willing to work with me and who really, really knows about donkey feet and in particular, a pediatric donkey with a quarter of his coffin bone missing. Does such a person exist?
***
I am slowly working my way through the nutrition/soil angles. Some of my tests went astray before they reached me so I am having to repeat some of them. In doing all of this research, I have found a ton of data that was not available back when I last studied all of this. I finally decided to enroll in Elanor Kellon's equine nutrition course, which is supposed to be the gold standard when it comes to nutrition and balancing an equine diet. So far, it hasn't covered any new territory for me yet, but it is early and I am hoping it will.
There does not seem to be any good data on how the nutrient requirements for donkeys vary from that of a horse. Their dietary needs are assumed to be similar to a horse. However, donkeys eat a much wider variety of food and need a lot less of it. I would like to put together some more information on donkey nutrition. Any donkey dieticians out there?
One of the things I do know for certain is that my soil is extremely acidic and this is a major contributor to the hoof problems I am seeing. It causes problems both from a nutritional aspect and from the constant exposure of acid to the hooves, especially in a wet year like this one. My feed analysis shows that I have very high levels of iron and extremely high levels of manganese in my feed. The acid soil leads to aluminum/manganese toxicity in plants and in turn, the animals who eat it. The only thing I can do to alleviate this is try to increase soil pH. The only way to do that is to spread lime.
I did have lime spread on these fields a few years ago, but as bad as my soil is, it will take many years to correct. It has been so wet here this year that I did not think I would be able to spread any more lime yet. However, we had two whole weeks with no rain and I called McDowell and Walker last week to see if they could fit it in. I was surprised when they called Friday morning and said my name was at the top of the list. I couldn't afford to do as much as I would have liked, but every bit helps.
This job isn't actually as dusty as it looks, it just billows out like this when they first start. The timing worked out perfectly for once, as the weather was still and calm while they were spreading and then we had a steady downpour the next morning to drive the lime into the ground.
***
This is turning out much longer then I anticipated so I am going to end here and try to finish tomorrow. I am suddenly too tired to remember all the other interesting stuff going on. Night all.
I am still recovering from a very bad case of bronchitis and a sinus infection, which has been especially annoying as this is my favorite time of year and the weather has been unusually wonderful. I have to admit, I have been feeling just a bit sorry for myself. Still, I am getting a bit better and it is Spring, so things are looking up.
It has also been unusually dry (worrisomely dry in fact), which is providing a very rare window of opportunity to get some things done that normally aren't possible this time of year. I have had several loads of firewood delivered (which is just a bit bittersweet as it is great to have so early, but I am soooo sick of firewood at the moment), there are two truckloads of stone headed my way tomorrow to help deal with the major mud problems I had around the barn this winter and....well, the list is long, long, long.
With all of this going on, I have decided to take some time off from work and from the computer. Blog posting the rest of the week could be a bit erratic. With that said, I wanted to show you these pictures of Ramsey's foot that I took this afternoon, I find this fascinating and encouraging....
If you look close at this foot, you will see that the bottom third is smaller than the top with the heel pinched in. I drew more lines on this photo to show what I mean...
The lower part of the foot is what was grown months ago and used to be above the surgical site. It is still somewhat deformed and contracted. However, I am very encouraged by the new foot that is growing in above it. Donkey feet grow faster then horse feet do and Ramsey is already well on the way to growing in a good foot. I don't know what exactly caused the lower portion of the foot to be so much smaller then what the new foot clearly indicates it should be, but I strongly suspect that it was from nearly four months of constant bandaging, lack of weight bearing and lack of exercise. I also find it very interesting that the hair just above the foot is still growing in wavy instead of smooth as it is on his other foot. That is also the result of the bandaging.
Looking at the foot from the bottom, it is finally starting to take on a semblance of normality. There is a little bit of concavity and the heels are much less contracted. The frog is still badly prolapsed downwards, but the cleft at the back of the foot is beginning to open a bit, which is the first sign of healthy growth I have seen.
For all of it's trials, this foot is beginning to look like a healthy foot. Most importantly, it is functional.
I still find trimming this to be very tricky. I have actually been trimming it almost weekly in tiny amounts rather then trying to make larger corrections less frequently. I know I have made some mistakes and doing very small trims helps prevent me messing up too badly. Mistakes do tend to show up fairly quickly so I can correct them before they cause too much trouble.
The one thing that still has me concerned is that the wall at to toe is still not growing in well. It may be that it is because of the missing coffin bone and it will never grow in correctly, but I think I am battling some ongoing fungal or bacterial trouble as well and I have been treating it. I think all this dry weather will help.
If you look close at the lower left part of the sole, you can see some
pink areas. That is inflammation that occurred weeks or months ago and
is just now growing out. When I first started trimming him after his
last trip to Cornell, nearly the whole bottom of his foot was pink and bloody looking like
that. Then it was both sides and it is just now getting to the point where it only shows a bit
in the left side. There was a whole lot of inflammation in this tiny foot.
I
have to say, this is one of the things that really takes a lot of
courage to trim through. That bruising shows up and you would swear
that I was cutting into live tissue. I know I let myself get scared off
by this several times and I probably didn't trim as much as I should have
at first. I had to give myself some pretty stern lectures and get my
courage up to keep at it, but I think we are getting it figured out
finally. I can understand why it takes a certain kind of bravery to be a surgeon and I can doubly understand why surgeons should never have to operate on anyone they love. This would be so,SO much easier to do on an animal I did not have a connection with.
We are getting there though. Compare this...
to where we were a few months ago...
We're not that far off form looking like his good foot. Speaking of...there was quite a while that I could not trim his good foot well because it was too hard for Ramsey to stand on his bad foot. This foot shows almost the exact opposite of his other foot, the lower third is larger than the top of the foot because it was bearing so much more of his weight for so long. That extra weight and lack of trimming showed up as a somewhat larger hoof capsule and a slightly underrun heel.
When both feet look like the top potion of this foot, we will be in good shape.
