the Sage By Nature blog

Everything was going fine for about three weeks; great, in fact. And then I started showing up and got no whinny, no trotting up to the fence to greet me, and I knew something was definitely wrong again.

Sage’s way of telling me she is in pain is to ignore me, which is kind of ironic because I myself like to just be left alone when I am in pain. Maybe she knows I will understand her, or perhaps she just knows that I cannot stand to have her turn her head away from me when she sees me, so I turn my attention to finding and fixing the problem.

Nowadays, I go straight to the feet of the matter. I had my camera phone so I took some pictures. Then when I got home I immediately sent off all my info to John Silveira over at farrieritis. He addressed and agreed with my concerns with how her hooves now looked, and he offered more advice on how to get her feet looking and moving the way they should. So I am going to go over all this horse-shoer info with my barefoot trimmer when she comes out.

Yes, you read that right, I am getting advice from a horse shoer, and I am going to ask my barefoot trimmer to review it. Crazy? I think not. Not after all the damage that the last barefoot trimmer did to my horse. What is integrated care if it doesn’t include the hooves as well as the rest of the body? I have a veterinarian float her teeth, I feed her herbs, I deworm her regularly, I keep her barefoot, and I now get advice from a horse shoer.

I have been steered wrong by the horse shoers too, and Sage has gone sore way too often with them as well; the only option left to me is to try to find knowledgeable people, get second opinions on important things (which is almost everything), and see what Sage’s response is to it all. At least this horse shoer is only addressing Sage with an email and not with his nails .

I am thinking and hoping that Sage just needs frequent trims right now to get her back on track, so I moved up her next trim as soon as Lori, the new trimmer, can get out to see us. That is next Monday, April 20th, so check back after that for another update.

Be sure to read the first part of this hoof saga as well as part II.