Boot Success, More or Less! Plus a Big Red Filly.

Scrappy trotted out beautifully yesterday morning--yay, he's getting better at his Death March vet trot out!--so I loaded him and my bucket o Rennys again and headed to the lake to meet N. I knew she'd be well armed with Renegades and ideas too, and wanted her advice and eye on how Scrappy moves in the hind boots. She also brought him a super snazzy wine colored noseband cover that matches his tack overlay so very nicely! Aww spoiled snazzy Scrappy:

One possible solution to his sudden ouchiness after first hind booting the other day was that he was hitting his legs with the boots and just needed to go in splint/ankle boots for a while. With that in mind we trotted Scrappy around barefoot and booted on all four for each other. More good trot out practice for Scrap! We quickly realized there was no way he was interfering in the boots as both barefoot and booted he lands very wide in the hind, I'm talking at last half a foot between where his hind feet land.

The next potential issue was the fact that, discovering at the trailhead the other day that I had only one size 0 boot, and a worn out one at that, Scrappy had worn one way too-large size 1 on a hind and the worn size 0 on the other. The size 0 and below Renegades have a smaller captivator, so my boot sources suggested the smaller captivator may also be not right for him. The captivators actually didn't seem to be an issue, but Scrappy *is* between sizes on both front and hind hooves, not helpful. He is too large for a 0 on the fronts, but a 1 boot shell is a smidge too big. The 00 on the hinds is too small, but the size 0 again are a smidge too big. I decided to put size 0s borrowed from N on his hinds and see what happened. The size 0s were an okay fit but this hind boot kept gapping at the top:

Cuddles..in search of food!

 Here is a close up of Scrappy's wonderfully/terribly botched Rushcreek brand. That's supposed to be a 3 leafed clover above his number..

 Overall, we had a very fun and successful ride. The details are, about 6 miles out there is a short, steep downhill. Scrappy seemed hesitant and took a few funky/ouchy steps with his left hind going down it, then was totally fine and moved out beautifully for the rest of the ride, with only about a handful more ouchy steps on downhills. I swapped hind boots around to make sure it wasn't one boot making him do it, there were no pinches or rubs, and N and I finally decided (with fingers crossed!) he had probably become muscle sore using the hind boots the first day and the few ouchy steps on this ride were residual soreness.

 We did 13 miles in about 3:30 and N and I pretty well scrambled our brains on boot and hoof "what ifs." It was very nice to finish with a happy Scrappy who was moving out well and we got lots of great vet check trot out practice on top of it.

Done, sound, thirsty

 My theory now is to give Scrap 2-3 days rest and then boot him all the way around and do the 6 mile ride from my house that has the steep 1 mile hill. I may not even go all the way up it but regardless it will be a good test to see if any of those ouchy downhill steps come back or if he is getting used to moving in hind boots and comes down the hill nicely. As for sizing, I'm hopeful that the new Renegade Vipers will be a good fit for him because they are measured in millimeter increments and have more between sizes than the old 0,1,2 sizing system. They are also supposed to fit hooves that aren't so perfectly round, which definitely applies since Scrappy's hinds are much "pointier" than the old style round boot shells. The only old style boot application left untested was a brand new size 0, as all the 0s we were working with were used and no doubt stretched out somewhat. Still I will probably measure his feet in mm and go the Viper route.

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This morning it was Sheza's turn for a thorough grooming and hoof trim. I swear to you all, she is Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in red filly form. True to character she jammed her head excitedly in the halter (she currently prefers wearing Blaze's faded old green one), then pranced and pirouetted and snorted her way over to the cross ties, half remembering sometimes that there was a person attached to the lead line. On the way I made her pay attention, sort of, we backed and circled and moved around and rolled the whites of our eyes at each other until she was relatively polite to lead, and I do mean relatively. Once in the cross ties she promptly began pawing the ground obnoxiously, and as I began working on her feet, she gave her customary One Big Spazz. If I recall we didn't have any Spazzes the last few trims but the weather this morning is deliciously cool and well: Sheza- brat. The Big Spazz consists of surging forward dramatically, half rearing, throwing herself backwards while pulling back and thrashing like a fish, and then stopping to stand quietly, licking and chewing. After Big Spazz she is usually completely quiet and polite to have her feet done, as she was today. Mr. Hyde gets haltered and Dr. Jekyll sweetly nibbles my neck while I roll her toes...

 Scrappy cantered gloriously up to greet her when I put her away, probably because he saw there was a mush bucket involved, and I got a couple shots of him looking quite Arabian!

Not much sweeping to be done after trimming at this barn, here are just 2 of my 6 Clean-Up Crew!