Calm and confident is how we like it

This is Charlie, he is a 7 year old TWH who is at the Nexus Center for training. His owners, Jim and Donna Dehaas, are relatively new to horses and just happened to find me after an online search for trainers in the area. They stopped by our hoof clinic and really liked what they saw. Not only from a hoof care prospective but also from a training perspective.

They'd been told that Charlie had to be shod. It was a real relief to discover that that wasn't exactly true. So when he arrived at the farm to start his training with me the first order of the day was to remove the shoes he had on his feet.

We'd known that Charlie had already presented some challenges for the Dehaas' when handling his feet. So we knew that we were going to take things very slowly. If we got all the shoes off that day it would be a bonus. We'd take the time it took to ensure a good experience for all. When Jim mentioned that the farrier had to sedate Charlie for shoeing, because he'd already kicked the living daylights out of the guy, we did raise our eyebrows a bit. Ok that meant we'd go even slower. Slow as Charlie needed us to go.

I spent a good hour with Charlie just getting to know him, get him relaxed, and feeling OK about being handled. I introduced clicker training to him so that we'd have a sure fire way to let Charlie know he was OK and doing the right thing. I paid extra attention to being able to handle his feet safely.

The time came when I looked at Lauren and said, OK well let's give this a try. So she brought over the shoe pulling tools and set about getting the front shoes off. I was standing ready to click & treat the whole process. Step by step the shoes were removed and the front feet trimmed.

Knowing how much of a problem the back feet had been we fully expected to quit if we needed to and resume the shoe pulling process another day if need be. But we didn't need to. Charlie stood like a champ for the whole procedure. Now where was the camera when you needed it? What a pretty picture it would have been to see Charlie standing with his back foot resting softly in the hoof stand cradle while Lauren removed the nails.

When it was all over Jim laughed and said, I couldn't even imagine this taking place without a circus! But there Charlie was as relaxed and happy as a horse could be.

That is the way we like it!! Charlie agrees.

Barefoot Spotlight: Dylan

This is the first in a continuing series. Often times the response to barefoot is, "well, I ride my horses so they need to be shod." We'd like to put a spotlight on horses who are being worked soundly and barefoot on roads, gravel and trails. If these horses can do it, then surely folks who ride and compete mainly in arenas with easy footing, such as dressage or hunter/jumpers, can do it! The truth is these people are out there 'doing it', too. And discovering their horses move better and are more confident. If you would like your barefoot performance horse spotlighted here, please send me photos and a brief bio.

This is Dylan - a Dales pony/Clydesdale cross - at The National Drive in October at the Kentucky Horse Park. Over 400 pleasure drivers from around the country and Canada come for a week of visiting and driving at leisure to enjoy a most wonderful setting with old and new friends. Dylan was such an interest to so many people - he is only 15.1 hands, but looks just like the Budweiser Clydesdales - that he was dubbed "Bud Light". His beautiful bare feet prompted lots of wonderful comments as well. I love how this picture shows them off. Of course, they wanted to know if we slipped on the roads or if he shied away from gravel, etc. And the answer was always "NO". He is extremely surefooted and always sound!

Hoof clinic -- HUGE success!

Over the weekend of March 7 & 8, 2009, a group of enthusiastic learners gathered at the Nexus Center for two jam packed days of lecture, demo and hands on trimming practice.

Saturday dawned warm and sunny. We began with Lauren leading a lecture about the hoof, how it operates and how to identify signs of ill health. The Horse Science freeze-dried hoof model really helped everyone to visualize what goes on inside the hoof.

"I just want to say what a fantastic job [Sharon] and Lauren did with the hoof care clinic. The material was professionally done and the presentation was awesome!" -- Kathy from TN.

Lauren also talked about how she trims. She uses a method commonly referred to as Trimming From The Top. After talking about the key points of the trim she demonstrated how to do it on one of our horses. Lauren made a point of discussing not just what to do but how to do it efficiently.

After lunch everyone got a chance to do some trimming for themselves under the watchful eyes of both Lauren and Sharon.

"...just wanted to thank you again for the wonderful week end of learning and sharing and fellowship." Tata from TN.

Sunday was similar in format to the previous day. In the Sunday morning lecture Lauren delved further into other important aspects of hoof care such as nutrition and how to encourage movement which is is so crucial to healing. She also talked about special trimming cases such as founder and navicular. After lunch was more trimming with all the participants getting to trim a whole horse by themselves (with a lot of help, of course.) We have a wide variety of types of feet at the Center so we were able to match participants with horses who have similar issues as the ones they have at home.

One particularly ambitious participant wanted to squeeze in some riding lessons with Sharon as well. So, while other folks were getting some trimming done she had a lesson on the lovely Tulsa on both Saturday and Sunday.

"I have to say those two lessons taught me more than I've learned in all the years that I rode when I was young. Thank you!!!!" -- Carol from NC.

What was most exciting to us was the fact that everyone went away feeling full of great information and confident that when they got home they could actually do the trim! That's "teaching a man to fish!" and what we're all about here.