Saturday, November 5, 2011

Jackson Makes Me Work

This morning when I was picking Jackson's feet, I noticed that one of his front shoes had slid forward and sideways on his hoof.  I put him back in his stall and sent a text to our farrier.  He is usually able to come up the same day and take care of these incidents.  Not this time.  He sent a text back.

Oh, that's not good.... well I'm in Vegas working at the horse show so I won't be back for a couple of days.

So, I asked if I should put Jackson on stall rest; wait for the shoe to come off; and then put on an EZ boot.

No it needs to come totally off.. can you pull it off?

I talked to Brett.  He didn't know how.  He and our farrier talk about a lesson on pulling shoes but never seem to get around to it.  I think they get too busy with boy talk.  ...bad jokes, trucks...you know, the important stuff.
So, I texted that we were clueless.

Start at the heels and pull down..if it's half off it shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, right.  We watched a couple "how to" videos on uTube.  Seriously, where would we be without that??  Then we headed to the barn.  Brett found a rasp and grabbed his hammer.  He was able to loosen it up 3/4 of the way around but it just wouldn't budge on the one side.  I think maybe the nail twisted or something and Jackson was not pleased.  Brett gave him handful after handful of treats while I tried to coax the shoe off.  Well, it was harder than coaxing... I was sweating and prying and pulling and trying to keep Jackson cooperative.  He was definitely more cooperative with me than with Brett (I appreciated the trust but honestly, it was hard work).  I finally got it off, without taking too much hoof wall, and put the EZ boot on. 

Mission accomplished!

5 comments:

  1. What a pain in everyone's butt! Glad you finally got it off.

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  2. Its not easy taking uncooperative shoes off!Lol.

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  3. It sure makes you appreciate your shoer. I trim and shoe my horse's.

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  4. I watched an amusing video awhile back about removing a shoe. Definitely a good skill to have in one's bag of tricks.

    Kudos to you and Brett!

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  5. Oof, horses and their impeccable timing. It's stuff like this that makes me reluctant to shoe Miles, even though my farrier is pushing for it. Congrats to you both for getting the job done!

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Thanks so much for commenting!