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Well, Friday night was like a made for TV Christmas special for me. I am not religious at all (not even Christian), but this is a pretty amazing story.
We have a rather old Paso Fino mare, Tess, she is almost 30 years old and has been having a harder time of things for the past year or so.
We have fought to keep hoof under her, but she has always grown her hooves very slowly. Sadly this is what usually marks the end for a horse, without good feet, a horse tends to fade.
Friday night, I am in a rush to get everything wrapped up so I can head to the company Christmas party. I get home to feed the horses and Tess is down. After much coaxing I get her up and she is limping bad and grunting in pain with each step.
The farriers show for the normal trim on our other horses and we let them know Tess is going without this time and explain that there is not much point and we are arranging for a backhoe and the vet.
They know this mare and insist on seeing her to check her out. They were the ones that have kept her together through all her prior problems and are very good at what they do.
Well, it turns out her problem was a bit different then we thought.
After trying many feeds and supplements over the years, the last change was the one that worked. She had grown a significant amount of new hoof since they last saw her. Enough that for the first time in eight years, there was enough hoof to trim her to the correct angles. In fact, the reason she was so sore is that she had grown enough that the angles of her feet were so far out from growth it was hurting her in the front.
They worked away on the front. I told them that it was one of the back feet that was the problem though. They said lets get three good feet under her, then worry about the bad one.
The good rear foot was trimmed properly as well. Then we got to the fourth foot. She had an abscess that had blown out at the top of the foot (icky, but not rare), the odd thing was, she was still abscessing up there.
They began to trim and uncovered an abscess track in the sole of her foot 4" long, which is HUGE! They explained that the good new growth was rubbing against the old dense sole and it was like you or I wearing a pair of shoes 3 sizes too small, without socks. The irritation was horrible for her and causes this massive abscess.
She had enough new growth that they were actually able to cut all the old sole out and get her on fresh hoof all around.
The two front hooves need shoes, but were too short for now so they did her up in plastic pads until she grows back enough for shoes. They warned us that she was going to be VERY sore due to the extreme trim, but for the first time she had enough hoof for them to get the correct trim and get the correct angles on every hoof.
When asked what we owe, we got a simple response... Merry Christmas
We pressed them and they told us that this is why the do this job, they make money trimming our horses every 6 weeks, but fixing this horse and others like her are why they chose that job and no amount of insisting would get them to accept payment.
They also informed us they would be back in a week or two to check so they can shoe her when she is ready and they can get the final corrections on her front feet. Once she is fixed, we can start paying them again for her care and they packed up and left. My wife was balling her eyes out in gratitude. I wasn't, but hid behind the horse so nobody could see me.
The next morning this old sore mare RAN ACROSS the pasture to come see me and get her morning feeding.
We have not seen that in nearly a year from her.
They quite literally saved her life.
They will have my gratitude forever.
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