gobarefoot

Bob Bowker Blows away Australian Barefooters

This is a very quick post as I'm in the midst of the 'Bowker' tour downunder.  Dr Bowker has just completed a two day seminar at Cobargo, NSW, at the property of Chrisann and Mike Ware. There were approx 35 registrations with a couple of barefoot trimmers flying in from Western Australia and one from Darwin. There were two vets and a couple of farriers. It was wall to wall information. I've not yet digested it. Some of us felt vindicated in some of the techniques we've been using. We felt that the research Dr Bowker documented supported our approach. But he also had some research which had us all doing head spins. I'll do a proper report on it after I emerge from this week's two day seminar at Melbourne Uni Vet Fac, and from the first five days of the Diploma of Equine Podio-Therapy, at which Dr Bowker is delivering the anatomy lectures.

Here's a photo of Dr Bowker in Australia at the seminar yesterday
during the dissection segment. How lucky are we?

Ruby likes her new boots.....

Thanks to Nicole Church who sent me this photo of her horse Ruby, trying on her new Epics this week.

Earlier this year Ruby was reluctant to move and had been for some time. So Nicole finally pulled the shoes and called me to do a barefoot trim. We ran the horse out pre trim bare, post trim bare, and then post trim booted in front. The mare moved much better in the BARES which I lent to Nicole, so she ordered a set of boots for the horse herself. She chose EPICS because they are a bit easier to get on and off than the bares.

This photo was taken the day the EPICS arrived, and shows Ruby exhibiting the flehmen response...which I guess is the equine version of a swoon. Quite appropriate given the improvement in her way of going with the boots on.

Hopefully over time Ruby won't need the boots so much. She'll be able to strengthen up the hind part of her hoof while having the foot protected. But for now, she loves them. And Nicole loves riding her in them. This is what she wrote the first day she tried my loan pair of BARES.

"I am absolutely astounded at how much difference the boots made - unbelievable!  I waited til Glenn
got home after you left and we took Rube down to the arena and I hopped on.  Could feel a difference the instant I started walking, much bigger striding and nice feeling!  Then trotting- fantastic!  This horse who has recently been shuffling round, constantly having to be reminded to keep going, was just zooming round the arena and felt really happy to be going and I didn't have to remind her to go once!"

Deconstruction of traditional Farriery/Veterinary approach to Hoof Distortion

Here is an article from Fran Jurga's excellent HOOF BLOG. Its about the current AMERICAN FARRIERS' CONVENTION being held in KENTUCKY, USA.

I've taken the opportunity to deconstruct the traditional approach. Thanks to Fran for her report of the opening session. Perhaps next time the AFA might consider presenting an alternative barefoot approach in parallel with its traditional offerings....

Anyway, here is my commentary on Fran's report.  I've sent them to Fran also.

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Dr Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, KY was the AFA convention's first speaker.

Predictors of a low turnout at this year's AFA Convention could not have been more wrong, if attendance at the convention's first lecture this morning is an indicator of how many people are here.

Kentucky is coated in snow/ice and I know some people were not able to get here, but many hundreds braved the elements!

I attended the kickoff lecture this morning, wedged into a crowded lecture hall. I was privileged to sit next to Blaine Chapman of Lubbock, Texas, son of the late-great heart bar expert farrier, Burney Chapman. Blaine's running commentary at a low whisper was approving as Dr Morrison sprinted through a 90-minute narrated slide show of interesting cases from the Podiatry Clinic at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital here in Lexington,Kentucky.

Cases that drew the most comments and questions were the ones where he showed correction of negative palmar angles with roller motion shoes (what can the shoes provide that a simple trim cannot?) and his preference for the use of hoof casts on hoof wall avulsion and heel bulb injuries.

Much of the wall/bulb injury lecture really was based on the encouragement of new growth, what Dr Morrison calls the foot's ability to "epithelialize" (if you understand that maximizing the ability to expand and contract, and using frog pressure and release you will increase circulation to the foot, then you ‘get’ the concept of maximizing growth. More circulation equates with more growth. A shoe impairs expansion and contraction of the hoof capsule and therefore impairs growth vis a vis that of an unshod hoof.) (generate new epithelial tissue, as in skin; epithelial simply means cells that form the outer lining of an organ or body structure. Endothelium is the inner lining.).

He recommended using tissue-friendly antiseptics, rather than iodine "...and not kerosene" he added with a chuckle.

Inventing another verb, Morrison said he "domes" the foot surface of his foot casts. Under the casting padding on the wall is povidene creme or a similar antiseptic, covered with gauze, with carpet felt under the sole. He also "domed" a wet leather pad before shoeing, inserted hoof packing from a gun, so the pad bubbled outward, forming a domed ground surface.
Barefoot trimmers are using domed pads [www.easycareinc.com] in boots but DON’T cast the hoof.

While some criticize the use of casts, Morrison saw no problem with leaving them on, and was confident in the healthy growth that he would find what it was removed. He said that if the coronary band is not under pressure from weightbearing, the growth will be more rapid. (This is correct according to Dr Robert Bowker’s research. Which is one of the reasons why he argues that horses should NOT be peripherally loaded. Any shoe peripherally loads the hoof as it is nailed to the wall)

A big hit was his slide of a racehorse with an interference injury: the front shoe was imbedded in the coronet of the hind foot. Also food for thought: he showed a severely neglected miniature horse with grossly overgrown hooves.After a cleanup trim, the horse required extension shoes to stand because the collateral ligaments of the coffin joint (and probably the fetlock joint as well), had been so stretched by the deformity. (Barefoot trimmers call in a chiropractor or body worker to do adjustments so that a horse which has been so muscularly and skeletally stressed can be assisted to regain a normal posture. This is particularly the case when the horse -  having had high heels trimmed, continues to walk on its toes. Instead of wedging and thus keeping the DDF contracted, they get the body adjusted so the horse can ‘let down’. And of course this is in boots and pads to minimize discomfort.) 

At the end of the lecture, a line formed to ask questions.

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It would be very interesting at a future conference to have a well-regarded barefoot trimmer give a presentation in parallel with a conventional farriery/veterinary approach.  It would have been GREAT to see how somebody such as Cindy Sullivan, or Pete Ramey or Jaime Jackson would have approached the same or similar cases.
- Rebecca Scott (www.gobarefoot.typepad.com  & www.gobarefoot.com.au)