Day 41

The pastern guards arrived today in the mail!  They are Boa brand and have a funny little hoof shaped "lip" that goes under the hoof when the horse wears them.  This helps them stay in place so much better than the flimsy Cavallo wraps that came with the boots.  Of course, those were about three sizes too small anyways, Little Love has pretty thick bones (the Boa wraps are size XL :-)  Thank you Kristiina in Finland!

It was bit tricky to get the boots on and keep the pastern wraps straight, but I figured it out.  The wraps definitely helped the left boot sit on the foot better, it's a much snugger fit now.  After soaking for exactly 17 minutes (after which Little Love was DONE) we put the boots (and wraps) on and went into the arena for a 20 minute walk.  Little Love was not highly motivated, but I kept persisting, nevertheless.  She needs to move.  To make her point clear, she stopped every single time we passed the entrance to the arena.  I'm not kidding.  Every time - without fail.  And each time she had this look on her face that said: "Are we done yet?"  Reminded me of my son on our car trip across Europe last summer asking the million dollar question about 50 times: "Are we there yet?" 

Luckily Little Love would continue moving without me even putting any pressure on the line, I just had to ask politely.  She knows why we are doing this and is trying.  So we walked slowly, but we walked.  I think we are both dreaming about going for a walk on the trails, but I'm hesitant to even try since it would involve walking down the long, cement driveway that has a fairly steep downhill slope.  Not the ideal place to go with a horse with sore feet, even if she has boots...  But we'll get there, some day. 

I decided to leave the boots on for now, since it looks like with the wraps they won't rub or spin on her feet.  Becky said she would check tomorrow morning to see if they were intact.  She will also see how Little Love is walking in the pasture with boots and make the decision to either leave them on or take them off.  It could be that she doesn't really need them in the pasture, although the ground sort of dried up again and is fairly hard in places.  It's supposed to pour on Sunday, which will solve that problem.  I'll be up there tomorrow afternoon again to check on the situation and soak and walk.