Posts tagged “hoof angle”
An Interview with…Me!
Well, I guess turnabout’s fair play, so when Dr. Bruce Nock said he’d like to turn the tables and interview me, I could hardly refuse! The only thing Bruce has mentioned so far is that he wants to question me about what hooves can reveal about not only the feet themselves, but about the rest […]
“The Lesson”
I had to laugh. One of my clients was recently recounting the resistance she faced from other boarders after making the decision to pursue natural hoof care with me. “And I hope you’re not paying extra for that ‘mustang roll,’” one woman said. “Any farrier can do that!” Her story ended up coinciding rather nicely […]
The Hoof Landings Tower of Babel
This isn’t even remotely what I expected to be writing about right now. In authoring my recent series on heel-first landings, I assumed that everyone likely to read them was familiar with the definitions of the various types of landings – probably because what the different landing types are called are, in themselves, accurate descriptions […]
The Myth of the Heel-First Landing – Part 3
Hopefully, Part 1 and Part 2 of this series have laid sufficient groundwork (no pun intended!) for you to now be ready to hear why the feral horse lands flat-footed at the walk. Let’s briefly summarize what we’ve covered so far: As a quadruped, the horse’s anatomy and way of going differs from the bipedal […]
The Myth of the Heel-First Landing – Part 2
In the first article in this series, I started us down the path to understanding why the proper landing for a horse at the walk has to be flat-footed by describing the anatomical differences between humans and horses, and pointing out the limitations of our ability to perceive fairly significant differences in how the horse […]
The Myth of the Heel-First Landing – Part 1
Yes, I know it’s been far too long since I’ve posted an article, but life seems to have a way of interfering with my writing! The good news is that I now have several articles well under way, and so will try hard to keep the gaps shorter. I had to laugh when I saw […]
How Do You Know?
Hello Steve, Hope you can help me out. I own a thoroughbred racehorse, and want to know that he is being properly shod. I read parts 1,2 and 3 of Hoof Angles, but I’m still not sure how I should proceed to make sure my horse is properly shod. Do I need to measure before […]
Anna’s Journey
A year ago last summer, I received this email entitled “Help!” from a woman named Christine – I have a beautiful draft cross mare named Anna that just turned five. She got her first pair of shoes, but the farrier put on too-small shoes, set her too upright (she has a very draft foot), and […]
Half a Trim?
A client of mine recently pointed me to the website of another “natural” hoof care practitioner. Always hoping to learn something new about the equine foot, I visited the site and did some reading about her trim philosophy. Wow! What a disappointment. Although what she describes definitely has some elements of proper trimming, her philosophy […]
Hoof Angles – Part 6
In the last installment, I introduced you to one of my clients with very mismatched front hooves, with a promise that I’d explain the “why” of her radically-different hoof angles in the next article. Well, it’s time to do exactly that! One of my best early lessons on cause and effect with respect to hoof […]