Hunting For Arrows

  **In pulling together pictures for this blog I know see the importance of photographing hooves on a regular basis. My mentor continually reminds me to take more heel off the right front and I now see that I had it lower in March of 2019 than it is today. I now have a dedicated folder for hoof pictures and have them all dated. *** My barefoot hoof journey started 3 years ago when I had Joe's shoes pulled and learned how to maintain his hooves myself. It was the answer to one of the deepest layers in the onion of his unsoundness. For the past 3 years I’ve been balancing his hooves on my own on a weekly basis. I have my own set of hoof knives and a few favorite rasps. Every few months I spend a Sunday at a clinic with the mentor that taught me how to balance hooves. He checks my work and usually tells me I’m still leaving too much heel. He makes a comment on how Joe’s front hooves almost look like they belong to a horse now, instead of a pony . I spend time on those Sundays watc...

  I hauled my targets and archery equipment out to the barn on Sunday to get some practice time in on Joe. Since I had the targets set and had my bow and arrows handy, I decided to introduce Holly to them. Holly continues to improve each day I work with her. She had two bad days in a row where everything seemed to set her off. I could barely get her blanket off while she was in the cross ties while she snorted and pawed.   Even on those two days, she worked well and was focused on the lunge line. It seemed that something back in the barn had set her off, she kept looking at the entrance to the barn where her stall is and would react anytime someone would walk through that space. There have been reports of a cougar sighting in the area, but I have a hard time believing she would be the only horse reacting if it had cruised through the barn. None of the other horses were acting like her. On the second day of Holly’s panic attacks someone let me know they had been giving her gr...