"Pony Flicks in Fetlock Joint When Walking"

Once in a while, out of curiosity, I take a look at my blog's statistics - how many page views, how much traffic is coming from China and Russia (seriously?), what sites are referring people to mine, what pages are most looked at, and so on. I would say that close to 100% of the time the No. 1 page viewed is the one about Buck Brannaman and the dangerous colt, a subject I've written about a couple of times in this blog.

Another interesting piece of information is what search keywords lead people to find me. Today, as usual, the first search keyword listed involved Buck Brannaman, and, and in the No. 5 spot were the words which are the title of this entry.

These words immediately caught my eye, as this issue was exactly what lead me to start trimming my own horses. Our elderly mare had started to "flick in her RH fetlock joint when walking."

When I started trimming Misty, I discovered that she had very high heels and layer upon layer of folded over bar and false sole in the seat of corn. It took me a while to get brave enough to dig it all out, and looking back, I may not have succeeded.  Misty's walking did improve; but she was well into her 30's by the time I started trimming her, and I think there was permanent damage to her fetlock joint or her navicular bone. She never did walk completely normally, and in the last few months of her life, the problem got worse again.

I think that the "flicking" was due to Misty landing on her toe, whereupon her fetlock would flick, or click, back to allow her heel to drop, before she could pick up her foot again. I imagine - and this is only speculation - that she had considerable heel pain, from all that junk packed into her seat of corn, which would have caused her to avoid landing heel-first. And I know that a toe-first landing, followed by the heel dropping and being picked up again, can cause navicular disease.

The flicking foot didn't look especially long, as her hoofs grew very upright. Her former owner told us that Misty was said to have one or more club feet, which would be one way to describe the vertical habit of her hoof. She also held her pastern very upright - another sign of heel pain, as the horse tries to bring weight forward and up off the heel.

Here is a photo of Misty's hind feet, taken not long before she died in 2009 - she looks overdue for a trim here. You can see a "healing angle" growing in on the LH. You can also see the upright pastern and bruising under the wall. The toe is much too long, and the heel is underrun. Sheesh. I think it likely that at the time this photo was taken, I was not able to see how underrun that LH was. You can see that the RH (the one which flicked) is rather upright - the heel looks very high, but in the next photo, which shows the sole, it's hard to see how you could take the heel down much more. The second photo shows how crazy-too-far-forward breakover is, yet who would guess that from looking at the foot from the outside?

If confronted with these feet nowadays, I would probably (I hope!) handle it a bit better, although I'm still clambering up the learning curve and don't expect to reach the top. But the main reason I wrote this post was to say to Mr. or Ms. "Pony Flicks in Fetlock Joint When Walking" if they're still out there and happen to find this post: Find yourself a good trimmer - your pony probably has really sore heels!

Hoof Notes

My first navicular (confirmed by x-rays) horse - when the owner called, I said I'd come look, and if the hoof was already pretty well balanced, there was probably not much more I could offer. The hoofs turned out to be NOT well balanced. The ratio of the back of the hoof (from the widest part of the hoof to the heel landing) to the front of the hoof (widest part to breakover) ideally should be 60/40. In this horse it was probably 20/80, or worse. So I said if we keep the hoofs balanced for a few months, there may well be some improvement. The RF (the worst foot) also noticeably landed toe-first, with a weird flick in the fetlock joint as the weight transferred backwards, which - I believe - is associated with the cause of navicular - namely friction of the DDFT over the navicular bone.

After trimming, I got the ratios to almost 50/50. The horse appeared to be standing better, with his forelegs more directly underneath him instead of parked out in front.  The owner walked him around the yard. On soft ground he walked fine, but on harder ground he noticeably put his RF toe down first. We decided (hoped!) this was due to his frog not being used to contacting the ground, and hopefully it'll callous up and get stronger.

My first club foot - a textbook club foot! Narrow LF heel with straight bars, smaller and more upright hoof than the opposite foot. The horse goes sound. I trimmed according to the sole landmarks, and although both left and right heels were trimmed down to the frog buttress, the left heel still looked taller when both feet were on the ground. First rule of club foot trimming: Don't Try to Make the Club Foot Match the Other Foot. The club foot heel had grown higher than the opposite foot - it'll be interesting to see if this happens again. It may be that this happened just because of the more upright habit of the club foot, while in the normal foot the new growth pressures the growing heel into under-running more.

A "splat" foot - this horse had straight growth of a couple of inches from the hairline, and then - splat. I didn't dare take the toe back to where breakover ideally should be, as the foot was so shallow and I was afraid to compromise the coffin bone. However, the horse had a prominent sole callous growing all the way up each side of the frog and in an arch around the frog apex. Presumably this callous has grown up to protect the coffin bone - marvellous how the foot responds to challenges. This callous was hard, live sole - definitely leave it in place, as it is much needed at the moment. I think this horse may have gotten in a pickle, as I think it's one of those horses whose feet are just naturally really small, and perhaps no one ever dared shorten his toes enough. In the three years since his current owner has had him, he has always had a problem with going splat in the feet. The owner couldn't remember, however, whether his feet were always flat underneath. I asked her to never clean the mud out of his feet, as it will provide extra cushioning and protection. It will be interesting to see how his feet progress.

Another flat foot, although not quite reaching the splat designation. This one had what at first I thought was a lot of false sole - but which turned out to be rock-hard, live sole - surrounding the frog, completely filling in the bottom of the hoof. Again, in such a flat foot, this sole was probably serving the very important function of protecting the inner structures of the hoof. The horse had a prominent toe callous, which I left completely alone, even though this meant leaving breakover forward of where it might ideally be.

And speaking of toe callouses - this horse was one of three whose owner feeds them a biotin supplement - Biotime - and they had the most impressive toe callouses I've ever seen. I mean, Ovnicek's always talking about toe callouses, but his horses are all running around on dry, hard Colorado ground, whereas around here, it's much softer and wetter, and frankly you're hard pressed to find any toe callous at all on the feet in this neighbourhood. These horses' feet were also all in really good shape considering that they hadn't been trimmed since at at least January.

I recently watched a video from the Mission Farrier School about trimming soft-ground hoofs. He advocates leaving a little heel in these conditions, and the mud will pack in and allow the frog to remain in ground contact. Another horse I trimmed this week was a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police horse, now owned by a sweet little girl and her grandfather. This horse again had not had her feet trimmed for a while. But her heels were not terribly overgrown - sure enough her feet were packed with dirt, and the frog, which on dry ground would have been out of ground contact by about maybe 1/4 - 1/2 inch, was healthy and well developed.

Here's what I need to buy - a short-handled rasp which is easy to use with one hand. And a mini horse Hoofjack.