Rasping - May 2008

Sunday 4 May
Barefoot Rasping - Hopi and Jack

Saturday we started with Hopi since he stands relatively still and his feet are currently at six weeks and quite long and chipped.

pft rasped off all the long, sticky-out hoof (which is what takes the main strength - I poop out long before I make any noticeable progress), and then between the two of us, we rasped a bit here and a bit there to balance it all up.

We managed to get Hopi's front feet reasonable looking, but were wiped out by the time we got to the backs, so I just rasped off the worst of the chips and he'll get finished off later this week.

Then Sunday I decided to get Jackit out for some refresher ground training and decided to work a bit on his feet as well. It's like trying to trim a squirming 400 lb toddler. I resorted to clicker training and that helped a great deal - focused his attention better and persuaded him to give me his foot, rather than insisting that he couldn't possibly stand on three legs. 

It feels like it's taking longer, because you have to stop every 30 seconds-1 minute, to click and treat, but it's much easier to deal with when you're underneath him since he stands still and doesn't wriggle so much.

The fact that he's only 2' tall means you have to bend way over because his foot just doesn't come up that high, and the foot is so small and there's so little room to work in his armpit, it's actually hard to do.

So I was quite proud of my results. Again, I didn't get to the backs, but the fronts look pretty good if I do say so myself. As with Hopi, his heels still need to come down a bit, but at least what's there is balanced. 

Tuesday 6 May
More Rasping - Finishing off Hopi and Jack's Fronts

I finished off Hopi's feet this evening. First we had to spend time doing clicker training. Despite the fact that Hopi's been here over six months, he's still convinced I'm going to beat him with any implement I happen to have in my hand (this evening - the shedding blade). So we did the "touch the target [shedding blade] and get a click-treat" game. He did finally figure it out, but remains suspicious. My guess is that I need to spend five minutes with him every day, clickering and convincing him that we're just doing "stuff", not intent on "beating Hopi".

I was mostly supposed to be working on his back feet that we were too wimpy to finish on Saturday. pft came and helped me by nipping off extra toe (too much to rasp). The backs seem way harder to work on, mostly because you can't use a stand (Hopi tends to leap about and step on it and scrape up his legs), so the backs are hard to rasp from the top, and they wobble around when you try and rasp them from the underside.

His fronts still looked a little long in the heel, so I took a bit more off his right front heel and then decided I'd taken too much. <sigh> 

I also got out my hoof knife and carved out all the old flakey sole on all four feet, which we hadn't done at the weekend. 

On the whole his feet look pretty good from the top, but are a bit butchered looking at the underside. :-(

Hopi's Feet:

Fronts	Backs	Fronts
The heel on the left front  looks too long to me from  the side?	Hopi's quarters had chipped out, so it was hard to rasp tidily down to sole. I had to rasp some flare off this left rear (which would explain why it chipped out?). The left rear is shorter and rounder than the right rear.	More chipping in the quarters. This means that you end up with a high heel, a high toe and a dish in between the two which is a bit disconcerting.

Bad photo, left front This is the foot where I got too industrious on the right heel and it's too low now :-(	Right front Should I file the heel and bar down level with the white area of sole which is markedly lower than the heel and bar? (there was flakey stuff in the white area that I could scoop out with the hoof pick). I started to do this, but then the frog would be
Left rear There is a groove between sole and hoof. Should I file the hoof down to eliminate that groove? If so, won't I be rasping into the sole callous?	Right rear Should I cut out this black-veined sole? it's not flakey...

Jack's Feet:

	Jack's front feet. Hard to see, since he's in loose stuff, but I don't like the way he's so upright, esp. on that white left front and I don't like the broken pastern axis. I'd like to rasp off a lot more heel, but I'm too chicken. On the whole, I really like his soles - they are nice and hard and shiny, particularly around the sole callous.
Left front Should cut off the shedding frog.	Right front

Saturday 10 May
Rasping Jack's Back Feet and Touching up the Fronts

I was too wimpy to get to Jack's back feet last Sunday, so today I finished him off... sorta. Trying to rasp a moving target is less than fun. He is such a fidget and you have to get down really low, so you don't torque his leg (him being so short).

And I must stop doing this is shorts as I've got scrapes up and down my thighs from him ripping his foot away at regular intervals.

Left Rear:

After I'd nipped off all the excess hoof, but before rasping.	Lots and lots of extra hoof, which I was able to nip off successfully (and was very proud of myself). This is after I've nipped. He has very heart-shaped feet.	After the nipping came the rasping. I got rid of the flare on the right (outside) and tried to back the heels down to the seat of the corn. And tried to get his toe less pointy.
It looks like I didn't quite get his heels balanced - the left (inside) heel needs to come back a bit. I think I went back and did that? Have to check.	Otherwise, not too bad.	Foot all done.

Right Rear: This foot proved to be a real struggle. I'd done the fronts first, then the left rear and by the time we got to this one, he was thoroughly sick of the whole proceedings and decided I wasn't allowed to have this foot at all and would snatch it away and move off every time I tried to pick it up. Tempers flared and I had to walk away several times. Finally managed to bribe him into letting me finish it off, kinda. Not perfect, but a heck of a lot better than it was.
	Before
This is before we started. Again, we nipped away the excess hoof (Patrick came and helped me, while I tried to keep Jack's foot still, to no avail). Got the heels back and got rid of the outside flares.	After

Right Front:

Before I started - I worked on these six days ago.. Must remember to do the foot that needs the most work *first*... not work on the easiest one first <g>.	Trying to get ride of the flare on the right (outside) quarter	And getting rid of the dish in the foot.
Trying to get the heels back at the seat of the corn	Keep rasping - not there yet...	This was close. The left (inside) side needs more...
This is what it looked like last week.		I seem to have a problem with those left-side heels and they end up long. I still don't like the balance on this foot, but will keep trying... The whole foot looks smooshed over to the left.

Left Front:

This is the foot he's kind of clubby on. I don't like it being so upright, but also see a bunch of flare on it.

	Before we got started. Again, this foot was worked on six days ago...
Hmmm... heels are higher on the left foot.
Even though he's upright, I had to get rid of flare, so now he looks even more upright <sigh>
Thought I was done until I took this photo - urk... still flare...	Rasp...rasp...rasp... that's a bit better.
He has such little feet, it's hard to rasp without getting everything else - I need to watch his sole callous when I do this - looks like I took some off the right-front area of the toe where I shouldn't have...	Same thing! The left heel's too high!
I guess this heel could come shorter, but I'll do it little-by-little...		Not too bad, if I can sort out that left heel...

Sunday 11 May
Starting on Uno

Uno was a good boy throughout the whole thing and was very cooperative (compared to dealing with Hopi and Jack, he was a complete angel). The fact that he's tall so you don't have to bend over so much is also a huge asset. And the fact that he stands still, and obligingly puts his foot up on the stand without having a hissy, etc, is also good. I started by cleaning his feet and scraping out all the crumbly sole - of which there was a lot. He had high bars and really crumbly heels, so all that got scraped out and trimmed. I was able to nip off al the extra hoof on the underside of his feet instead of having to rasp that. Got his heels rasped back down level with the good sole. Have to see what happens with those bars - will they reappear, or were they like that just because everything was so long? All of Uno's toes were long and splayed out, so I had to rasp-rasp-rasp to try and get them back to sensible length. I did the right front and right rear and had sweat dripping off the end of my nose. Luckily at that point I was able to talk pft into helping me and he was able to nip off extra toe instead of having to rasp it all off. He went back and redid the toes on my "finished" right side feet. All in all he looked pretty good at the end of it all - for a first go around, I was pleased and feel like he's under control again (it had got to the stage where I couldn't really ride him because his toes were so long and I was worried about it). He has some interesting growth rings on his front feet - sort of ridgey and weebley. Wonder what it's from? Left Front: We could have done a better job rounding him off underneath, but got the heels quite balanced, although I'd like to recheck the left-outside heel.
Right Front: Some flare on the sides. His heels could probably go shorter on both front feet, but we'll work up to that - see what happens with what we already did.
Left Rear:
Right Rear: Some flare to the outside.