My Farrier Is My Hero
I decided to have my farrier out to look at Dino's ouchy foot because the abscess just didn't seem to be making any progress. I was wondering if there was something I was overlooking, not finding, or treating in the wrong way, so I called in the pro.
My farrier is awesome because he always, ALWAYS answers his phone or texts back right away. Unfortunately, this is a rare trait among farriers. As soon as I told him Dino had a tricky abscess that didn't seem to be improving, he immediately said he'd be out to the farm the very next day. True to his word, he arrived at the barn the next morning to check out Dino's foot. He took off the shoe and did a little digging to open up the site, and this is what he discovered:
There is a small drainage hole where a tiny bit of infectious material was coming out, but the biggest problem seemed not to be a huge pocket of pus, but the overall softness of the sole. It looked as if Dino's issues had begun with a severe bruise, which then abscessed, and the infection spread in a thin layer across the entire top half of his sole. In reaction, the top layer of his sole just sloughed right off, leaving a very soft, sensitive, bruised area of "raw" sole exposed. He put Dino's shoe back on to keep the bruised sole off the ground, because the shoe seemed to be the one thing that was keeping him mostly comfortable throughout this whole ordeal. There was also no infection in or around the nail holes or white line, so the shoe didn't need to stay off to drain those areas. My farrier's recommended treatment was to soak the foot in an epsom salt solution for another 2 or 3 days to make sure that any nasty stuff that needed to come out made its way out, pack and wrap the foot with a cooling poultice when it was not being soaked, and once the soaking was done with, start applying hoof hardener like crazy to toughen up the sole again. Sounds good to me!
And the best part is that he charged me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to drive out and do this. Nada. Not a penny. Not even gas money. Talk about a guy who cares about his clients and their horses! He is getting a BIG plate of cookies for Christmas!
My farrier is awesome because he always, ALWAYS answers his phone or texts back right away. Unfortunately, this is a rare trait among farriers. As soon as I told him Dino had a tricky abscess that didn't seem to be improving, he immediately said he'd be out to the farm the very next day. True to his word, he arrived at the barn the next morning to check out Dino's foot. He took off the shoe and did a little digging to open up the site, and this is what he discovered:
There is a small drainage hole where a tiny bit of infectious material was coming out, but the biggest problem seemed not to be a huge pocket of pus, but the overall softness of the sole. It looked as if Dino's issues had begun with a severe bruise, which then abscessed, and the infection spread in a thin layer across the entire top half of his sole. In reaction, the top layer of his sole just sloughed right off, leaving a very soft, sensitive, bruised area of "raw" sole exposed. He put Dino's shoe back on to keep the bruised sole off the ground, because the shoe seemed to be the one thing that was keeping him mostly comfortable throughout this whole ordeal. There was also no infection in or around the nail holes or white line, so the shoe didn't need to stay off to drain those areas. My farrier's recommended treatment was to soak the foot in an epsom salt solution for another 2 or 3 days to make sure that any nasty stuff that needed to come out made its way out, pack and wrap the foot with a cooling poultice when it was not being soaked, and once the soaking was done with, start applying hoof hardener like crazy to toughen up the sole again. Sounds good to me!
And the best part is that he charged me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to drive out and do this. Nada. Not a penny. Not even gas money. Talk about a guy who cares about his clients and their horses! He is getting a BIG plate of cookies for Christmas!
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