A video from my mentors

One of my mentors from the Oregon School of Natural Hoof Care, Nancy Ash, recently put together this little video (sorry, I can't get it to embed). The man doing the trimming, Dave Fitton, spent many hours with me going over exactly how to trim the bars. His knowledge and guidance were invaluable, so I'm very excited that I can share this with you:

"I've posted a new video. It will be one in a series of four taken with my Android telephone camera at the Klamath Falls Packing Clinic, where Oregon School of Natural Hoof Care had a booth. We go every year: Cheryl gives demonstrations and we invite people to bring their horses for a free consultation. This year April, one of our students who now trims professionally, trimmed a previously foundered pony, part of the pony ride string. We also helped the owner understand how trimming would help her little guys and comped her a book so that she can keep her 25 ponies in good shape.

"Dave Fitton helped a Klamath Falls roper whose beautiful paint gelding has been off and on lame for several years. He was advised to nerve the animal to relieve some of the pain created by his diagnosed "navicular syndrome." The roper trims his horses himself and was following the advice of his vet to keep the heels higher than we advise. The next step was nerving, which the owner was reluctant to do. He'd read up on barefoot trimming and decided to give it a try after talking to Dave.

"This video, the first of the series of four, gives a clear view of how to hold your knife when trimming bar and bar off sole. The entire series shows what we mean by the "whole horse trim" we teach at the school. Dave doesn't limit his advice to the hooves as he explains how the impacted bars are affecting the entire horse and how to proceed with getting the horse back to soundness and into mild competition after the trim.

"The video doesn't have the best lighting, as we were in direct sunlight with an audience and were more concerned with letting the owner see than in taking the video. But you get a good idea of what we teach and how we treat our horse and human clients at the school."

Happy viewing: http://youtu.be/Z4het037wl0.

The second video is here: http://youtu.be/flBq0XXjOeY.