Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
The little snowball fight is somewhat indicative of the contents of this blog - Enter at your own Risk (-:        You too Pat .

    When i started this blog i decided not to specifically point a finger at anyone or their website or blog or video and call attention to them in a negative way for having a different opinion than mine. I think it's low class , non professional and kinda ugly. When it comes to the horse industry and shoeing specifically i think that kind of behavior just continues to cause the division amongst us who all do our best to improve and advance in our knowledge of how to care for these animals , our horses.

     i'll do my best to continue to maintain that integrity.

     The other day i was doing a google search on the keyword "Farrieritis" and as i looked at each link got to the second page of google and came upon a site that was just doing exactly what i have described above - i was being criticised as though i was the devil from hell. The bitterness and hatred in the blog was loud and clear and the whole blog post was pointed at me.

     As i read the article i realized it was from a person named Pat Rainier who came to my blog ( i didn't go to theirs - she came to mine ) and left some rather negative comments in the comment section on my blog. There were some things she said that i just cannot agree with and when someone comes to my blog to leave a comment they should expect the possibility of getting a comment back - after all that's why comments are invited in the first place.

     Well apparently Pat was quite upset at my responses to her. I tried to be nice but it came to a point where i realized there was nothing i could say to Pat that she would agree with. It was Pats closed mindedness that made me realize nothing i said would make any difference.

     Pat accused me of making a horse sore - telling me about the work i had done " Oh the poor horse ".  Even after i told Pat this was the first time i worked on this horse so i didn't cause the problem in the first place - that it had coffin bone rotation from work that had been done previous to me she still was and still does apparently accuse me of making this horse sore - and as an example of her closed mind she continues to say these things even after i told her this horse was shod by me  and didn't take one lame step afterward , not one...  There was No blood everywhere as Pat mentioned in her blog as though i was the one that caused the horse problems - the horse had bruising only and the bruising was from the previous work being done on the horse.

     It quickly became obvious to me that Pat is in the Barefoot crowd. This is a perfect time for me to clear something up. I am not against barefoot horses and i'm not against the people who promote barefoot horses. I've mentioned this before , what i am against is when these barefoot people say "all shoeing is bad for horses" - and  that i just cannot go along with. Now even when i explained to Pat that i'm almost at 20 years of shoeing and i've not had ONE horse blow a tendon - get navicular - blow check ligaments , rotate coffin bones or any other such lameness during those almost 20 years Pats negative response to me was " 20 years is a long time to be doing it WRONG "...

     Pats welcome to her opinion but one would think that after almost 20 years and thousands and thousands and thousands of feet that i've shod if i've done something wrong at least ONE horse would have come up with some kind of lameness problem - But not one , not one ...  But Pat is sure that i'm out here ruining horses. I digress - Not only have i not had one horse come up lame from any shoeing i've done but i've gotten more comments than i can count from clients who have told me their horse has never been moving better. i've gotten reports from clients that told me their old trainer for their horse came back into town and now that i had become their shoer the trainer was riding their horse and asked " what did you do to your horse - she's all balanced in her movement ", to which the owner of the horse replied " i've changed shoers "....  But you see there's nothing i can say to Pat that will make any difference.   

     You know i'm not going to go into a whole big discussion on and on but there is one thing i want to elaborate on here and that's the issue of sole and sole pressure and what to do with the sole of the horse in general. Pat criticised me for removing sole and i know that's the opinion of many of the barefoot people. There's a couple things worth understanding :  If a horse is left to stand on it's sole ( when no sole is removed for example ) it sorta freezes the natural action within the foot. In other words the horses body weight coming from above - the horses bone column becomes somewhat static inside the foot. Leaving all that sole in a horse's foot is somewhat like suddenly becoming flat footed ( there is no longer any flex in the foot ).  I'm going to enclose here a youtube video showing a natural process of a horse's foot - if no sole is removed and the horse is standing on it's sole the movement you see in this video will be stopped , the natural process of the foot halted to a great degree.  I'll let you decide . Warning the video is not pretty it's got blood but is a good example of natural hoof movement.

     This is the YouTube Video:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7YuzTTOhp8 

     The barefoot crowd that leaves all the sole in horse's feet and suggest that horse's need to stand on their soles are basically stopping this pumping action.  Not all horse's shed their soles , sometimes quite often actually the sole just doesn't come popping out - if it's not removed it's left to build up and it's somewhat like pouring concrete into the bottom of your horse's foot . I've personally seen feet with the sole not being removed where the foot becomes stuck and rigid  , it starts to take on the appearance of a club rather than something that's alive and breathing and flexible , adapting and working - that's not good .   You decide.

     to drive home a point :  Not all horse's can go barefoot. Some are just way too sensitive to pain. If Pat is trying to tell me that no barefoot horse has ever experienced pain , well , i may as well just pray to be reborn into a new paradigm because i'm obviously not living in the same world as Pat , If no barefoot horse has pain then i want to live in that Fairytale land too.

     I have heard from Vets more than once that the horse's they get with the most problems are from barefoot horses. And just in closing here , during my talks with Pat she also originally told me horse's don't shed their soles - again , maybe i live in a different world than Pat , but take a look at this following photo and you tell me- is this horse not only shedding it's sole but also shedding it's frog at the same time or not ?     Well it's quite obvious to me horse's shed their soles and frogs and there's a reason - it's healthy for the foot !    

                                                                                                   

      When you look at the photo you see there's still a ton of sole left underneath all that sole that is popping off . When Pat originally told me "No horse's don't shed their soles" i think she spoke from stubborness just to maintain her ideology and i feel that's the kind of closed mindedness this industry doesn't need. 
     i have a couple sayings :
           " It's not shoeing that ruins horses - it's Incorrect shoeing that ruins them "  and 
           " it only takes once to have a permanently lame horse "  and this latter applies to barefoot horses too
                             Keep in mind , incorrect triming (barefoot horses) can ruin a horse just as easily.   

     You know some of the healthiest looking feet i've ever seen were on horses that lived in pads year after year after year. If sole pressure was so all important how could a horse survive living in pads all it's life yet have some of the healthiest feet i've seen. And i observed this on not just one horse but many many many horses living in pads , so not just one isolated case.

     And Pat , i don't need to convince anyone of what i'm doing in order for me to believe in myself ( as you've rather rediculously elluded to in your blog post ) i've convinced myself long ago based on my own studies and the merits of the method i use which rather speaks for itself - 20 years of never having one problem result from my shoeing stands on it's own.         

     With that i hope you can take from this post something positive . 

     Hoping Santa Claus keeps your horse's healthy and happy and may everyone have a wonderful New year. 

As usual , Happy and Safe riding and always remember to www.Care4Horses.com   

John "TheFootDoctor" Silveira

Feel free to drop me a line with any of your lameness concerns , I'm still giving consultations at no charge. Send a photo of your horse's feet if you like ---->   John@Care4Horses.com       

                                                   Take Care -  watch out for those snowballs   (-: