Day 23

 First thing I noticed this morning was Little Love's swollen front left leg.  It wasn't excessively swollen, but just a bit on the inside and below the fetlock join.  Great.  All I need is an injury on the day of the first trim.  I took her out and she had a slight limp in the beginning, but sort of worked it out after moving around a bit.  The leg was a bit warm, but it was very local, so I just ran a bit of cold water over it before the trimmer showed up.  Will have to keep an eye on that one...

The trimmer was both good and not so good.  The good thing about him was that he did what I expected him to do, and talked about all the things I have learned about in the past year.  Little Love has sole contraction, heel contraction and frog contraction (to mention a few...) - but over all he was positive about how her feet looked after being in shoes for over ten years.  In other words, he's seen worse.  And I agree.  It could be worse.  The heel was also underslung and high, but it seems to me that that is to be expected in a shod hoof.  I felt that he truly trimmed with the contractions in mind, as he wants to help the hoof expand and grow properly.  Also, the way it has been shaped so far, has put quite excessive pressure on the inside of both front hooves and this really has made the sole compromised. 

The not so good part was the fact that I felt he trimmed her hooves a tad aggressively and now she is quite sore.  I'm not sure if we could have avoided the soreness with everything that was going on, but in any case, I believe you should always try to leave the horse as sound as possible, because this encourages movement.  And movement is what a barefoot horse needs, especially one with all these contractions.  Not to mention that everything heels faster in the absence of pain.  I did talk to the trimmer at length beforehand, telling him that I would prefer him to trim every two weeks a little rather than once every six weeks a lot, but he didn't feel like that was a good plan.  So, I let him do his thing.  Of course, what do I really know about trimming?  Lots of theory, but no so much the practice.  So in hindsight, would I have asked this trimmer to come, had I known he was this aggressive?  I don't know.  There are not lots of options for me at the moment. So, I'm trying not to think of what I should or could have done.  The trim is done and now we have to deal with the aftermath and look into the future.

So, after the trim, poor Little Love was not walking very well at all on the hard concrete that unfortunately surrounds the barn.  However, when I opened her stall door, she was very motivated to go outside into the pasture, actually coming out before Col.  Slowly (and painfully) she made her way to the edge of the pasture, over the frozen (and semi-hard) mud.  My heart sunk, literally, until I saw her finally walk onto the grass, where she actually moved normally.  Thank goodness for our fantastic grass pasture!  Even when it's below freezing, it's soft enough for my sore horse.  This gave me hope that perhaps everything isn't as bad as it looked on the cement.  I know there is a lot going on in her legs at the moment with the blood flow coming back 100% and restoring nerve funtion (i.e. feeling) so I just have to brace myself for the next days (and hope she can do the same).  I will try to help her in every (natural) way possible.  I went to the store to buy some stuff for setting up a "soaking station" for her, tomorrow I'll try that with the clicker, hopefully I could at least get her fronts to soak for a while.

Day 22

Yesterday, when Becky went for a ride with Col, Little Love became fairly agitated in her stall.  She called after Col, something she hasn't done for a long time.  I was busy working around the barn and outside, but wandered in after hearing her third distress call.  She was spinning around in her stall, eyes on sticks. 
"Hey girl, no worries," I said and opened her stall door.  Then I sat down on a stool in front of her.  She took one look at me and stopped running in circles.  Then she stared out of the barn window, as if trying to see all the way down to the forest in case her boyfriend was down that way. 

I had planned to take her outside for a bit of grooming and feet checking, but wondered how that would work out, her being suddenly so worried about Col's absence.  I put the halter on and walked her outside.  But there was nothing to worry about, as she was suddenly calm and quiet, like a switch had gone off in her head.  She no longer cared if Col was there or not and I realized it was because I was there with her instead.  I don't think I'll ever be the same to her as another horse, and I don't even want to be. 

She is still so in love with her gelding friend that I'm thinking she is exhausted from just the amount of peeing she feels inclined to do in his company (as I said, she is in heat...) Tonight, when I took them in, I releaved Col from his blanket so the two horses could perform their nightly ritual of nibbling at each other.  Instead of allogrooming, they spent a good ten minutes touching each other gently over the wall.  It was like watching the horse version of tender kissing.  I already know not to go in and interrupt this, so I do some barn chores instead to give Col and Little Love the time they need.  Once they are done, it is obvious; they separate and start eating hay.  That's when I know I can go in and put on Col's barn blanket etc.  

Tomorrow morning the trimmer is coming and taking off the remaining shoe.  He's also going to possibly trim her hooves, or at least clean them up a bit.  With curiousity I look forward to the barefoot journey.  So far Little Love has not taken one lame step with her three bare feet, but I'm hoping it isn't because this one shod hoof is somehow holding most of her weight (is that even possible?)  With interested (and slight apprehension) I look forward to the next few days that will determine how sore she will actually be, once all her shoes are off.  I'm prepared for the worst, but am hoping for the best! :-) 

Day 21 Grateful

It's hard to describe the feeling I have when I am with Little Love now, it is so different than it ever was before.  When she was at the other barn (and not mine), something that now seems lightyears ago, we had this strange connection.  We would hang out together and I felt like she was so sad, so tired, but being with me brought a glimmer of light to her restricted, contained life.  And now... she is nowhere near to being a free horse in the sense I understand freedom, but something colossal has shifted within her.  What a difference little things can make, what massive consequences something like not having her blanket on all day can have. 

There is so much more I want to offer her; the opportunity to live outside 24/7, the friendship of a whole herd, a foal?  But for now, I give her what I can.  I have lost that old connection, but I'm not sad or angry or frustrated, but rather honored, because it has been replaced by something else, something I don't even quite understand and that is still a seed, carefully planted in the tender soil of a new horse-human relationship.
 
I go to the barn every day and I muck out her stall.  I fill up her water, I feed her, I put her out or take her in.  Some people have been horrified to hear this, asking why I don't board her at some other barn where I don't have to work so hard.  But I want to do all this work.  It gives me peace like nothing else I know.  Some days, when I am done working and have some extra time, I take a stool and just sit on the barn aisle while Little Love munches on hay (which she now has plenty of).  And I am filled with gratitude towards life. 

Day 19 Oops! She did it again.

Today, when I got to the barn, Becky and I took the horses in.  In other words, we walked out into the pasture, said hello to the two horses standing tightly side by side.  Then, I invited Little Love to follow me, which she did and so with me in the lead, all four of us (plus three dogs) walked to the barn. 

For some reason I was thinking about horse shoes the minute I started grooming Little Love.  I should have known.  When I have random thoughts like that while around her, it's usually her trying to tell me something.  It wasn't until I picked up her left front that I realized the message; she had lost her shoe.  And not just lost it, it had pulled off part of her hoof. This is a horse that loses a shoe ONCE during the 8½ years her previous owner had her and now she has done it twice in the past 2½ weeks... Okay, I get it Little Love, you want to have your shoes off.

I looked at the hoof and realized that my initial plan of having Little Love shod in the front for another 3 weeks was going out of the window.  No sense in trying to put a shoe back on the ragged looking hoof, it would probably just come off again and take even more hoof wall with it.  And since I was going to take those suckers off anyways, why risk losing more good hoof.  So, I called the trimmer. 

Finding a good trimmer is not the easiest thing in the world.  I have some hopes for this guy as I have selected him carefully.  There are a few trimmers in this area that I could have called, but I have not been impressed with most of their work, as it seems that if the horse has any problems at all, the trimmers are not able to address them accordingly.  They seem to sort of just stick to whatever the horse's hooves look like in the first place and not make too many changes. 

But, the thing is that I want to make changes to Little Love's hooves.  I want her legs to be straighter and her hooves to be balanced (something they are not now).  I want her joints to be lined up.  I want her to have a chance at being healthy and sound for a long, long time.  This trimmer I have selected has studied with the German vet called Strasser.  For those of you not familiar to the barefoot circles, the name Strasser seems to be like a swear word to some people, as the woman is mostly known for her very aggressive approach to horse hooves (she has, however, cured horses that were "doomed", but they went through hell to get healthy).  However, her hoof school does have it's bonuses, as she does teach her students not just the basics, but way beyond.  I have come to know the work of a few people who have gone through her trimming school and it seems like many quickly adapt their own style of trimming which may losely be based on the Strasser method, but is not as evasive. 
So, I have decided to go with this guy, and we'll see what comes of it.  I can always change if it doesn't work out, right?   In any case, I will have a loooong talk with him before he touches Little Love's feet :-)

And just for the record, Little Love is in full blown heat.  Her and Col are inseparable, and won't stop nibbling at each other even when they are in the barn.  Here are two pictures of the two of them "going at it" after coming inside.  She is in such euforia about this new friendship that she barely gives me the time of day.  Which I'm starting to get used to, as I have been back in that square one so many times in the past weeks I've lost count :-) 

Day 17

Little Love is in love.  Today when I arrived at the barn, Col and her were in the pasture.  They were standing really close to each other and sort of investigating each other's bodies gently with their muzzles.  I have never seen anything like that before between two horses and the moment seemed so private that I sort of felt like I was spying on them.  I silently stood back and watched how every now and then Little Love would reposition herself so that her bottom was right in front of Col's nose.  He had no objections to that.  He may be a gelding, but there seems to be a distant memory of something that guides his actions.  He would sniff and nuzzle at her behind, and then rest his head against her backside.  He also groomed Little Love on the neck and withers, and she seemed to be in heaven.  Unfortunately Col himself is wrapped in a massive blanket so Little Love could not return the favor.   Hopefully some day it will be possible. 

Getting the horses in from the field was pretty straight forward.  When before we had to put on halters and walk them together across the yard (because that's where the two smaller paddocks are), now we just open the gate and they walk into the barn on their own.  When Lilo came in, she was literally covered in Col's saliva, as he also likes to lick pretty much everything.  There was a new kind of peace in her, it's hard to explain, but she seemed so grounded.  She even tolerated brushing in a completely different manner.  There have been so many changes to her life in the past few weeks, but I think giving her a horse-friend must be the best one so far, at least in her opinion!

Day 16

Today for the first time in at least 9 years (and maybe longer), Little Love went out in the pasture with another horse.  At her previous home, she would go out with other horses, but each horse was in its own individual paddock with an electric fence in between.  Sometimes the barn worker would forget to put the electricity on right away, and the horses would immediately use the opportunity to socialize.  But those moments were rare. 

Becky was eager to put the two horses out together already earlier, but I felt that Little Love had not quite adjusted to her new environment and it would have been too much to throw yet another "unfamiliar" thing at her - so we waited.  But yesterday when I put the horses out separately in the two paddocks side by side, I could tell from their behavior that they were ready to be together.

And they were.  We put them out in the morning, and as you can see from the first picture, it was quite cold even though there is still no snow on the ground. The horses sort of sniffed and then Little Love did her "mare squeel" which made Col move away politely but swiftly.  And that was that.  It got a lot warmer with the sun out and I realized that blanketing Lilo had been a little excessive (I don't believe in blankets, but she has had one all winter until now, so I worry that I shouldn't just take it off cold turkey...).  She rolled the second I took it off and then her and Col had a little canter, until they settled down to graze. 

It felt good to see Lilo with another horse at last.  It also felt good to know that she remembers/knows how to do that as sometimes horses that have not had the opportunity to learn this at a young age, can struggle with it later in life.  In any case, horses are meant to be together and although Little Love and Col are just a herd of two, it is still a herd.   With him she can relearn social skills (if needed) and perhaps some day she can be part of a bigger group of horses.   

Day 15

Well, my journey into barefoot horses has officially begun; I had the shoer (who came for Col) take off Little Love's back shoes this morning.  My plan is to take off the hind shoes first, see how it goes and then take off the fronts a bit later.  I don't have a definite schedule, but hoping to have all this happen in the near future, depending a bit on the weather.  Of course luck has it that at the moment the weather is not on my side, it was really really cold this morning and the ground is frozen (read: rock hard).  It's also really dry, which is not helpful.  I have to figure out a soaking method for the feet which won't be an easy task as Lilo hates water on her back legs to begin with.  It will take some training to have her stay in water/have on soaking boots (or any boots for that matter).  But, I have faith in the clicker... 

I went back in the late afternoon to take the horses in.  Luckily the sun had warmed up half of the outdoor arena and it was soft enough to walk in.  I hand walked Little Love for almost 30 minutes, just to give her hooves some extra blood circulation.  Tomorrow I'll be walking her more as well as trying to do some soaking.  I also have to bring the camera and take pictures of the hooves so I can send them to my friend Claudia in the US (she's the specialist :-).  Then the next step is to find a decent trimmer, which is not going to be easy.  I'll keep you posted!